Guidelines

for seminar participants in the MIEPP at the Chair in Macroeconomics

1) Procedure of supervision

  • There is a general introductory session for all participants. Participation is compulsory
  • There is a first individual meeting where the table of contents of the seminar paper, the general idea of the paper (what is the question, what are the answers provided by the literature and what are own ideas) and the next step (which model or regression to understand) is being discussed and agreed upon
  • The progress of the first step is discussed 2-3 weeks after the first individual meeting
  • The literature offered for a specific question in the introductory session and in the syllabus for the seminar is a starting point. Students are strongly encouraged to search for further literature. Using EconLit (click on “Datenbanken im Fachgebiet Wirtschaftswissenschaften“) for finding new literature is the best choice.
  • Unless otherwise stated papers are handed in two weeks before the presentation at our secretariat (For the sake of the environment, please avoid extravagant hardcover or laminated cover bindings. A simple stapled version of your printed thesis which prevents individual pages from falling out is perfectly okay.) and as pdf-file (to: macroeconomics(at)uni-mainz.de) until noon.
  • A short feedback on the paper (with a focus on the presentation) is provided one week before the presentation

2) Seminar paper

  • There is a title page which should be used as style guideline for your seminar paper.
  • Generally speaking, we value academic methods a lot. University is about analysing questions, about structuring the answers and about digging very deep into a question. We therefore appreciate seminar papers more that present one paper in great depth (i.e. derive and explain each equation, regression specification and estimation result) rather than summarize a long list of papers or a book.

3) Presentation

All presentations should include

  • a cover slide including the title of the presentation, name of the presenter and date
  • introductory slides with motivation (why is this topic important), relation to literature, central question of the talk, the answers and one slide with the structure of the talk
  • slides for the main part
  • at least one slide with conclusions. It would repeat what the question of the talk is and what the findings are. It could give an outlook what should be done in the future

4) Evaluation

In addition to points highlighted above, seminar papers and presentations are evaluated according to the following standards

  • Consistency of layout, table of contents, structure and citation style
  • How clearly is the question formulated?
  • Summary and motivation of the topic
  • How broad and of which scientific quality is the literature used in the paper?
  • How well are methods used explained?
  • How deep does the paper dig into methods?
  • Understanding of the topic
  • Economic reasoning about the topic
  • How critical is the topic discussed and what are own thoughts of the student?
  • Contribution to the general discussion when not presenting