1.2 A sample honors paper

Traditionally, empirical research papers in economics journals have five or more sections. In the first section, unimaginatively known as the introduction, the researcher briefly (1) describes what question he or she is attempting to answers, (2) indicates why the reader should be interested in the answer to the questions, and (3) often summarizes what the paper's conclusions. It is traditional in the second section for authors to discuss the instidutional background to the question and provide a theoretical model to be used in the estimation process. Quite often it makes more sense to refer to the variables in conceptual terms in this section and leave the actual specification of the variables in later parts of the paper. A traditional example of this is the ubiquitous "socioeconomic variables" included in many economic models. The reason for this generality is that perfect measures of the variables conceived in most models are not available and most researchers are forced to use proxies for the variables in the model when completing their empirical work. For this reason it is traditional in the third section of the paper to discuss what variables are used as proxies for the variables mentioned in the model. For instance, many papers use this section to specify what variables will proxy the "socioeconomic variables." It is appropriate to discuss shortcoming of the data set in the third section.

Economists use the fourth section of the paper to describe the econometric model estimated along with the statistical issues created by the shortcomings of data and the model. The fourth section of the paper also usually includes a presentation of the empirical estimations and a discussion of the implications of the estimations for the central questions of the paper. The fifth section of the paper usually includes a recap of the research, a discussion of the implications of the empirical work, and suggestions for further research.

Obviously, not all economics journal articles are split into the five sections described above; every author has his or her way of organizing their arguments. Indeed, how a paper is organized will reflect the story the author is trying to tell. It is as James Joyce noted in Protrait of an Artist as a Young Man , in art "the whole is related to the parts and the parts are related to the whole." In a well-crafted paper the author's message dictates the organizational structure of the paper and the material in each section must relate back to this message. In what follows we will outline what might go into each of these sections, leaving it to you to fill in the missing parts.

Section 1. introduction

In this hypothetical Honors paper we examine the impact of a law change on a desired outcome of the law. In particular, sometime during the years leading up to 2007 all of the states adopted a 0.08 per se rule on the blood alcohol content (BAC) of determining if a driver is drunk: after passage of the law any driver with a BAC of 0.08 or higher is presumed to be driving under the influence. Some of the states also have "zero tolerance for underaged drinking and driving" level that applies only to drivers under age 21. Defence of drivers accused of DUI is, not surprisingly, big business for lawyers. Table 1 reports the some of the current DUI laws by state as reported on the website of a law firm specializing in DUI cases.