Term Paper & Poster Presentation -- Required of all students in ECO 486
Please note: I am in the process of updating some of the information relating to the Business Communication Center. Nevertheless, the information below should give you a good idea of the requirements for this assignment.
As stated in the syllabus, "Term paper project: Working in assigned, small groups, (or alone, if you prefer) students must produce a research paper and a poster on an international trade topic. Your topic must earn my approval. Specific requirements will be listed on my web page."
Each team of students is
required to produce a research paper (at least 2,500 words in length --
quotations and bibliography do not count) and a poster
on an international trade* dispute at the World Trade Organization.
Your treatment of your
selected dispute should extend beyond what we will discuss in class or
read in the text. Your bibliography should include at least six published,
credible sources other than the text, and demonstrate that you have considered
arguments on both sides of any relevant issues.
Each team must work with the Business Communication Center, BCC, to improve
their writing.
Your team will submit a solid draft to the BCC when you request your
appointment. To learn how to
submit drafts to the BCC or schedule an appointment, please visit their website
at
www.franke.nau.edu/StudentResources/commcenter. Students may begin signing in
for group appointments on September 8, with a sign-up deadline of September 24.
The BCC will give you a signed, stamped, and dated hard copy of your draft, together with their suggestions for improvement. You must attach this draft to the final draft you submit to me. I will check to see that you have implement their suggestions throughout your paper.
Professor Bowers commented on the benefits of using the BCC, "Last semester, 1,315
students used the BCC. The feedback from both students and faculty was very
positive. Thirteen percent of the students who used the BCC did so at least
twice and seven percent used the BCC from three to five times during the
semester. Faculty reported the papers they received from students who used the
BCC were well organized with relatively few grammatical errors."
Please double space your
paper (except for block quotes) and leave one-inch margins. This will allow
space for legible comments and corrections. Although
you will be submitting drafts to the BCC, they should be complete, formatted
according to the APA guidelines, proofread to the best of your ability, and
documented as fully as possible. You should download the
APA style
sheet.
If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Mary Bowers, Mary.Bowers@nau.edu or Margo Conley, Margo.Conley@nau.edu
An electronic copy of your
final paper will be due no later than midnight, Wednesday, November 24th. Submit
your final paper to me
using Safe Assign. (Please also email me a copy to ensure that I can see
all of your formatting.) Early submissions are welcome. The poster will be due
at the start of class on Friday, December 3rd.
Topic:
A review and critique of
the WTO's dispute settlement procedure as illustrated by a particular dispute
that has been resolved through the full process.
Some recent disputes concern subsidies (e.g., cotton, airplane manufacturers).
A few of these disputes concern conservation issues (tuna fishing & dolphins
killed; shrimp fishing and sea turtles; imported gasoline and air quality
measures). However, you may not choose a dispute used as a case study in the
WTO's training materials (e.g., in the second dispute, DS2, Venezuela and Brazil
complained to the Dispute Settlement Body that the United States was discriminating against gasoline imports from their refineries).
Many of these disputes are
controversial, and you may hold strong opinions. Indeed, I would be disappointed if you
were indifferent to questions that have moral dimensions. Nevertheless, your
assignment is to produce an objective research paper that considers all sides of
your topic, not an advocacy piece.
Please send me a brief
email concerning your choice of topic sometime before class on Monday,
September 13 -- specify which dispute you wish to address and why you think it is
interesting or important. Each group will present a different dispute, so make your selection
early if you want to have the widest choice. If you would like to discuss possible topics, please send your email
earlier, stop by my office, or see me after class.
Note that disputes related
to trade in good or services are most appropriate. However, others require
more knowledge of international finance and macroeconomics than I could
reasonably expect you to possess. Therefore, avoid international finance
topics -- such as allegedly undervalued currencies (e.g., China's
Yuan), -- even though they are very interesting.
Once you begin the writing
process, it will help to focus on the voice, audience and purpose of your paper:
Voice: Write your paper from the viewpoint of an objective analyst.
Audience: Your fellow students in ECO 486.
Purpose: Understand the WTO's dispute settlement process. Write a case study to
illustrate an important or interesting dispute (in greater depth than what we
have done in class or in the assigned readings).
Each student should visit
www.wto.org,
and read about the dispute settlement process. There is a non-technical summary
of the process, together with a case study, at
http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/whatis_e.htm; see
especially chapter three. Pick a dispute that is both interesting and which has
reached some resolution (or, at least, where there has been some progress). Look
under Trade Topics to find a list of disputes by topic or by country. Then write
your own case study illustrating the process, and conclude with a qualitative
assessment of the relevant benefits and costs.
How
your term paper will be graded.