18. Describe the four levels of academic writing in English.

Writing is a skill that is required in many contexts throughout life. However, academic writing does many of the things that personal writing does not: it has its own set of rules and practices.

• These rules and practices may be organised around a formal order or structure in which to present ideas, in addition to ensuring that ideas are supported by author citations in the literature.

• In contrast to personal writing contexts, academic writing is different because it deals with the underlying theories and causes governing processes and practices in everyday life, as well as exploring alternative explanations for these events.

• Academic writing follows a particular ‘tone’ and adheres to traditional conventions of punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

 Academic writing is the process of breaking down ideas and using deductive reasoning, formal voice and third person point-of-view. It is about what you think and what evidence has contributed to that thinking.

Level 1: Basic Writing Skills. Structural Elements of Paragraphs

• Thesis Statements

• Argument

• Designing a Paragraph

• Transitions

• Grammar Requirements

Level 2: Short Papers.

• Prewriting Strategies

• Types of Papers

• Article Abstracts

• Essential Formats

• Guidelines on Style

• Punctuation Rules

 

Level 3: Publishing in International Journals.

•                Publishing in Peer Reviewed Journals

•                Academic Journals Rating

•                Peer Reviewed Journals Requirements 

•                Evaluating Sources

•                Avoiding Plagiarism

 

Level 4: Presentation Skills.

•                Presentation Structure

•                Presentation Framing

•                Rhetoric Tools

•                Slides Design

•                Manner of Presenting

•                Dealing with Questions

19. The nature, structure and functions of economic methodology

Economic methodology is the study of methods, especially the scientific method, in relation to economics, including principles underlying economic reasoning.^[1] In contemporary English, 'methodology' may reference theoretical or systematic aspects of a method (or several methods). Philosophy and economics also takes up methodology at the intersection of the two subjects.

Economic methodology is now a large specialist field in its own right. Before the 1980s, it was examined from a philosophical perspective only by a limited number of texts, drawing directly from the philosophy of science, or was discussed in the context of historical discussions of past methodological disputes. When it was discussed, as in the introductions to textbooks, it tended to be associated with a positivist philosophy of science, with an emphasis on testing theory against objective facts, and a distinction of positive from normative statements. Indeed, this was the approach taken by Milton Friedman (1953) in what for a long time was the most famous piece of methodological writing in economics. Friedman argued that the purpose of theory was to predict, regardless of the realism or otherwise of assumptions; theory was thus simply "instrumental." This sparked heated debates with those (ranging from Samuelson to Kaldor) who saw the primary purpose of theory to be explanation, and thus considered the realism of assumptions to be important. Indeed, Friedman had drawn distinctions too sharply: In order to predict, there has to be some understanding of causal mechanisms, along with the capacity this provides to adapt theories to changing economic structures. Thus theory content is still important. Nonetheless, the boldness of Friedman’s challenge forced dissenters to formulate their methodological positions more explicitly.