You've been given an economic research essay topic for your assessment task and completed your research. Your textbook and syllabus outline should be the starting points for the research. Make sure you read the criteria on which you will be assessed.
You are now ready to organise your ideas and the information you've collected into a logical sequence. But where do you start? It is useful to begin with an essay outline.
The Structure of the Essay Outline
The beginning of an essay is the introduction containing your main ideas that you will make. It is important that these main ideas refer to the question and that you define the key terms. The end of an essay has the conclusion. The middle or body of the essay contains the arguments, supported by evidence, examples, relevant graphs, and statistics. The essay should logically progress towards the conclusion.
The outline is like a road map. It should be constructed to keep you on task as you research and write the essay. A good outline will ensure that you write a logically constructed essay that supports your ideas and helps to prevent you from wandering off the topic. It should contain the key terms in the essay question. Make sure you understand the meaning of terms such as outline, explain, discuss, analyse and evaluate. These terms will determine your approach to the essay.
Construct your outline by listing all the important points you want to cover in your essay. Refer to the syllabus and the concepts related to the question. Begin by brainstorming the key terms. Use your textbook and syllabus as a guide. You will find definitions in your text in blue and key points listed for each topic. For example, aggregate demand and its components are found in Chapter 12 of the HSC text. Your text lists and explains the components of aggregate demand and shows the related concepts in blue. These terms give you the key points you can use in your research essay. You should