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ECO 101H1 Assignment
Professional economists often work in environments where they are expected to commu-
nicate their ideas not only with other economists, but also to the public, who doesn’t have any
economics background. In this assignment, you will take a stance on the following issue (detailed
in the scenario below). You should not assume that the audience has any knowledge of economics
or has taken ECO101. Because of this, you should always define any economic terms that you
introduce into your writing (if in doubt, ask a friend who hasn’t taken the course if they can
understand your definition).
1 Scenario
In the past few months, oil prices have skyrocketed. Based on this premise, using eco-
nomic concepts that you have learned from ECO 101, provide your arguments on how it impacts
the following perspectives: (i) impact on demand and supply of oil (ii) impact on complementary
and/or substitutable goods (iii) impact on goods in which oil serves as an input (iv) impact on
the short-run and long-run (v) Elasticity (iv) impact on the parties who loses or gains, etc. You
do NOT have to discuss all implications, rather, you must choose 3 implications and support
your arguments. You are encouraged to use online news articles, paper articles to support your
argument.
Your task is to think about this scenario, using the kinds of models we have discussed
in ECO101. Notice that this is not a calculation problem we have not specified the function you
need in order to perform exact calculations. Instead, we want you to think of this more gener-
ally. While there are lots of different angles that you can take on this, we encourage you to take
a more focused approach, choosing a couple of major topics covered in the course (e.g., supply
and demand, elasticity, opportunity cost, etc.). You should be clear about your analysis and any
implications that you are referring. If you make any additional assumptions, you should clearly
state them and if relevant, address what would happen if those assumptions do not hold.
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2 Late Penalties:
(1) Assignments must be submitted to both Crowdmark and Quercus (for Turnitin) by Friday,
June 17, 2022 at 11:59pm. The submission links will be posted on the course page, on
Quercus.
(2) 5 mark deduction per day from then on, until Sunday, June 19, 2022 at 11:59pm
(3) Late submissions beyond that will receive a zero. No exceptions apply.
3 Formatting:
To earn full marks, you must do the following:
(1) Your assignment must be typed, double-spaced and have a font size of 12 points in Times
New Roman.
(2) Your article must have a title that summarizes the thesis of your paper in an appealing way
(it must attract the audience to read your work).
(3) Your assignment must be 400-500 words in length.
(4) Put the word count of your assignment in parentheses at the end. For example, “(X words)”.
(5) The file you submit must be in PDF format.
4 Writing Tips:
(1) Be relatively narrow in scope. The essay is relatively short. Making fewer arguments will
enable you to more completely develop your arguments.
(2) Use words to make arguments. (Do not include graphs)
(3) Keep in mind that this is an ECO 101 assessment, so make sure your essay demonstrates a
mastery of ECO 101 concepts. The TA marking your assignment should think, “Yes, this
student has learned some econ!”.
(4) Use simple, clear language. Avoid metaphors, flowery speech1 or jargon. Remember that your
goal is to clearly communicate your ideas.
1For example: “Since the dawn of time, economists have contemplated...” this is cringy.
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(5) Limit the use of passive voice, but use active voice instead (i.e. Instead of “The box was held
by John”, use “John held the box”).
(6) Keep your sentences short.
(7) Make sure your paragraphs are self-contained and coherent: put only one main idea in each
paragraph. Avoid too long (more than 1/3 of a page) or too short (one or two sentences only)
paragraphs.
(8) Make your main point early on, and make sure that everything you write serves to support
your main point.
(9) Support each argument with evidence, such as statistics, example or economic reasoning.
(10) Make your economic concepts and reasoning clear on which your argument is based.
(11) An authored article should give proper credit. We prefer “Chen and Gazzale (2005) present
experimental evidence that...” or “The authors present evidence that...” rather than “Their
paper presents...”.
(12) Be careful with the word “prove” (or disprove). Empirical analysis and studies produce results.
These results may support a particular theory, or they may be inconsistent with that theory.
These results, however, neither prove nor disprove anything.
(13) Check for grammatical errors using word-processing software.
5 A brief note on Plagiarism:
When you write something, unless you indicate otherwise, you are claiming ownership
of both the underlying idea as well as its expressions (i.e. the words). It is plagiarism when you
implicitly claim either the idea or words of another by not attributing them to their source.
Do not, however, cite commonly known facts or ideas. For example, you do not have to
cite the fact that Canada is a large country. Likewise, you do not have to cite the idea “reducing
the market price of daycare will increase the quantity demanded”. If you must quote directly,
enclose in quotes any words written by anyone except you, and include in the text a proper
citation to the source. If you explain another author’s idea in your own words only, you just need
to provide a citation. However, if you use any sentences, sentence fragments or phrases written
by someone else, you absolutely must put them in quotes. Just as not citing the source of an
idea is an implicit ownership claim on the idea, you implicitly claim ownership of all text not in
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quotes. If you claim ownership of text not in fact your own original writing, this is a violation of
the University of Toronto’s Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters. Actually, you should rarely
use the exact words of another. Assume that when you quote directly, the reader is going
to infer that you are too lazy to do your own writing. You should therefore limit direct
quotes to those cases where it is clear that your use of quotes is not due to laziness. There are
three valid exceptions to no-quote rule.
1. Eloquence2
2. Outrageousness.
3. Subtlety.
In short, unless use of the exact words is necessary, do not quote.
2Economists, however, write little so eloquent that only the original words do justice to the idea.