Economics 109
Winter Session 2024
Econ 109 Course Description
★ 3 (fi 6) (either term, 0-3s-0) The course will introduce students to basic writing in the economics discipline. The focus is on developing the ability to write clearly on economic concepts, as well as illustrating results of data analysis. ECON 109 is a prerequisite for all ECON courses at the 300- and 400-level. ECON 109 will be waived as a prerequisite upon completion of the Assessment of Reading, Comprehension, and Writing in Economics. Students who have successfully completed the Assessment of Reading, Comprehension, and Writing in Economics will not be permitted to enroll/receive credit in ECON 109.
Policy on Generative AI, such as ChatGPT.
"In this course, our primary focus is to cultivate an equitable, inclusive, and accessible learning community that emphasizes individual critical thinking and problem-solving skills. To ensure a fair and consistent learning experience for all students, the use of advanced AI tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2 is strictly prohibited for all academic (written/coding/creative/etc.) work, assignments, and assessments in this course. Each student is expected to complete all tasks without substantive assistance from others, including AI tools.
Furthermore, the core purpose of ECON 109 is to help you improve your own writing skills, and using generative AI such as ChatGPT undermines that purpose. Therefore you can expect a failing grade for completing work using ChatGPT or other generative AI, even if you properly and thoroughly indicate its use. Any use of AI tools in your academic work may result in academic penalties and be considered an act of cheating and a violation as outlined in the relevant sections of University of Alberta (November 2022) Code of Student Behaviour."
Course Structure
This is a synchronous course. You must be available every Monday and Wednesday during scheduled class time Mondays and Wednesdays 6pm-7:15pm. Please check eClass announcements on Sundays for weekly course updates. Our final class is April 10th. We do not have scheduled classes the week of Feb 19th (Reading Week) or Easter Monday April 1st .
Course Attendance
It is important that you attend all classes and take notes (this is good practice in any course). I will be giving live lectures that I expect you to attend. One of your grades will be measured by your participation when required (written and oral). If you do not attend and participate you will not receive participation marks and that will affect your final grade. During class I may ask questions or have you work together in breakout rooms to discuss topics. You must have a working microphone and video so that you can be seen and heard.
Eclass
You can access eClass at http://eclass.srv.ualberta.ca by using your University of Alberta email and password. Here you will find the course outline, important announcements, lectures, class notes, related articles, lecture recordings, websites, and your grades.
Course Texts to Purchase
eTexts are available at VitalSource.com (and also on Amazon I believe). You can also buy a physical copy at the UofA bookstore. Many of our assignments and readings are from these two books so it is important that you have them. There are also a few copies on reserve in the Library.
*Reading at University , How to Improve Your Focus and Be More Critical by Jamie Q Roberts; Caitlin Hamilton
Publisher: Red Globe Press. Copyright year: 2020
eText ISBN: 9781352009170, 135200917X approximately $29 Cdn
*Brilliant Essays by: Ursula Hackett
Publisher Bloomsbury Academic
eText ISBN: 9781350315464, 135031546X first edition approximately $29 CDN
Online (Free) Textbooks
There are two free online textbooks that you can also use. Writing for Success is Canadian and so the examples are useful. The second is also excellent but many of the examples are American and you may be less familiar with them.
Download for free from the B.C Open Collection (https://collection.bccampus.ca) Writing for Success – Ist Canadian H5P Edition (https://opentextbc.ca/writing forsuccessh5p) by Tara Horkoff is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-sa/4.0/). In 2021, interactive H5P activities (https//opentextbc.ca/writingforsuccessh5p/h5p-listing/) by Brenna Clarke Gray were added throughout the text. The book was originally adapted from Writing for Success by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This book was produced with Pressbooks (https://pressbooks.com). Once you download the text you can use the homework and assignment sheets.
The other excellent (and free) online book that you can consult at any time is The Word on College Reading and Writing by Monique Babin, Carol Burnell et al. You can search for it online by its title and then download the pdf from https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub
Print and Keep for Reference
Marking Breakdown
Summaries 10%
Read for Bumps (2 sets) 20%
Narrowing your topic 5%
Thesis & Sources 10%
Introduction 10%
Final Essay 20%
Participation Folder one 10%
Participation Folder two 10%
Attendance 5%
Assignment Due Dates
January 12 Getting to know you (complete/incomplete)
January 26 Narrowing the paper topic
February 2 Read for Bumps (1)
February 2 Participation Folder one
February 9 Thesis and Library search results
February 16 Summaries
March 1 Introduction and Road Map
March 28 Read for Bumps (2)
April 5 Participation Folder two
April 10 Final Paper
University Dates and Deadlines:
Jan 8 First Day of Class
Jan19 Add/Delete Date (Not on your academic record)
Feb 19 -23 Reading Week (no classes)
April 1st Holiday (Easter Monday)
April 5 Withdrawal Date (Grade of Withdraw)
April 10 Last day for our zoom classes
There is no final exam for this course. Your final work will be submitted April 10th and that is also the course end date.
Course Learning Outcomes: Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
Develop Active Reading strategies to use in all courses
Learn to locate appropriate academic sources for assigned tasks from the Library resources
Assess and critique readings from a wide range of economics articles and journals
Develop and apply the conventions of academic writing.
Assessments throughout the course aim to
Teach skills that are transferable
Measure achievement
Identify strengths and weaknesses
Motivate through timely feedback
Attendance and Participation:
Regular attendance is essential for optimal performance in any course and this course is no exception. To learn how to improve your writing for economics and get feedback you must attend class.
Submission of your work
Work will be returned in 7-10 days.
All assigned work must be uploaded to eClass in .doc format. All work must be submitted by no later than 10pm on the day it is due. Do not leave it until the last minute. Do not submit PDFs, RTFs, JPEGs or any other format. I will not mark this work and you will lose the marks for the assignment. It is really important that you learn to follow instructions and this will make you do that.
Do not send late work in by email. You must contact me ahead of the due date if you are having problems submitting on time. If I do allow you a late submission I will reopen eclass and you must upload the work there. If I do not accept your reasons you can send the work to me for feedback (within 2 days) but you will not receive a grade for the work. There are no penalties for late work because late work will not be accepted except under special circumstances and that is why you need to contact me in advance. There are also no opportunites to ‘re-do’ substandard work for a higher grade but you can submit an improved version within 2 days of it being graded (and receive feedback).
Always check that your work has been submitted. Submission on eclass is a two step process. The first step is a DRAFT – you need to do complete the next step and then check that it has actually been submitted.
You may have signed up thinking this is a course that will not need much of your attention. If that is the case then you are in the wrong course. This course may not seem as important to you as the main ones you need BUT you have signed up for it and you must treat it the same as all your other courses. Do not miss a deadline then ask for an extension because you have so much work to do in your ‘important classes’. That is not an acceptable excuse. Some of you need this course but may not put in much effort until near the end – that will guarantee you a poor mark. There is no guarantee that late work will be accepted or that an absence will be excused. Misrepresentation of facts to gain an unfair academic advantage over other students is a serious breach of the Code of Student Behaviour.
Note - should you receive a failing grade in ECON 109, you will be dropped from 300/400-level economics courses (in which you may be enrolled for the following term). It is possible to fail this course by not completing (or not passing) the assignments.
Course Assessment
From the Academic calendar, "Percentage grades will be translated into letter grades, targeting a 100 level class average of between 2.6 – 2.9 (i.e. approximately a B-) although in certain circumstances it is possible for the class average to lie outside of this interval. Both absolute performance and performance relative to the rest of the class will be considered in determining your letter grades." Student grades are unofficial until they have been approved by Arts Faculty Council or delegate. Keep in mind that the average for a 100 level course is B- and that you have to work hard to get a grade above that.
Office Hours Tory 8-06
I can arrange zoom times to talk with you about your work on Mondays and Wednesdays. If you are on campus you can email me to attend office hours. You can reach me by email at any time using [email protected]. You will receive an answer within 24 hours. Always request an acknowledgement that an email has been received. In the email tell me which section you are in (I have three sections).
I hope that you are in this course to learn.
Every part of the course matters. You must be prepared to work every week. Remember that reading always takes much more time than you expect. You will be submitting work regularly throughout the course so it is important that you keep track of when work is due and follow the instructions (the cause of most poor marks is failure to read and follow the instructions as the final task before submitting work).
The purpose of this course is to teach you the reading comprehension skills needed at University and to turn you into a good writer. You should leave this course with a set of tools to help you with every element of writing a paper. During the semster continue to read a variety of sources at all levels of difficulty and your work will improve in all your courses. If you like sports then read sports online every day. If you like politics then sign up for daily updates from Foreign Policy. If you like finance then follow the Finanacial Times or Bloomberg. If you just like reading then read everything from short stories to novels. If you need to improve your listening skills listen to Economics Podcasts (they are all free). Sign up for Libby – a free source from the Edmonton Public Library. You can read novels, newspapers and magazines for free. The more you read the better a writer you will become. There are no exams in this course because success comes with practice, revision and feedback.
Course Layout
Introduction
*Going through syllabus (you will always be notified in advance of any changes)
*Discussing the Learning Objectives
*Handing in a short piece of written work on your life
Unit One: Reading for Understanding (Targeted Reading)
*Active learning and active reading
*Assumptions about reading
*The importance of understanding what you read
*Videos and audio explanations of the text Reading at University
Unit Two: Notemaking (do this by yourself)
It is important that you take notes – most of you do not. The best way to remember any material whether you are listening in class or reading is to take an effective set of notes – notes that you can rely on when when studying for an exam or doing research for your papers
*Taking effective notes
*Understanding the sources
*Videos on why it is important to take notes
Unit Three: Academic Writing
*Learning what is an appropriate academic source
*Using multiple sources in a paper
*Acceptable referencing and avoiding plagiarism
*Elements of building an academic paper
*How to write for a specific audience
*Identifying and fixing common mistakes
*Videos and audio explanations of the text (for Brilliant Essays)
Eclass contains the information needed for the assignments but not necessarily all the content and no feedback and that is why we have lecture classes. Check for announcements every Sunday and watch for beartrack emails.
Assignment instructions may seem confusing to you at times (if this is your experience - ask me before the assignment is due. Don’t ask other students because they may not have it right either). We will be working on reading comprehension and on writing summaries first and also working on the individual parts of your final essay. This means that you will be choosing and narrowing a topic, learning how to research as well as how to write thesis statements. Following that we will work on the structure of academic essays including introductions, paragraphs, transitions and conclusions. I hope to share some skills that will be useful to you in all your courses that have a written component. At the end of the course I will post a short booklet on all the things we have done.
Always ask if you do not understand something. It may be that you are defining a word iliterally and in a different way than I am or it could be telling you to do something in the assignment that you have not seen before. Whatever the case never be shy about asking. I always do my best to make instructions clear but each semester is always a new challenge. I am easy to talk to and open to helping you understand as much as possible. You can ask by email or chat during our zoom class.