<= Robert Szarka
Resources for Economics Students
- Advice
- Software
- Ubuntu: Linux for the desktop.
- Firefox: a free, open-source, extensible web browser.
- Chrome: another free, open-source, extensible web browser.
- Zotero: a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources.
- LaTeX: A free, open-source document preparation system. (MS Windows users: try proTeXt.)
- R: free, open-source software for statistical computing and graphics.
- LibreOffice: a free, open source office productivity suite
- Google Drive: a free, cloud-based productivity suite
- Writing
- The Elements of Style: On a per page basis, you'll get more out of reading this book than any other book about writing. Not all the advice is correct or current. But, taken as a whole, it should inspire you to write vigorously and concisely. (Strunk's original version is also available.)
- Garner's Modern English Usage: If you're already familiar with Elements of Style, you can think of Garner as Strunk and White on steroids. If you're familiar with classic usage guides like Fowler's Modern English Usage, you can think of Garner as the contemporary American version of Fowler (minus the snarky comments). At $35 for an 1120 page encyclopedia, it's a bargain. (I find the dead tree version easier to use, but I also own the Kindle version.) For an entertaining review of the first edition by a great American writer, see David Foster Wallace's "Tense Present" (a version of which also appears in his anthology Consider the Lobster).
- Writing With Sources: A Guide for Students by Gordon Harvey is a slim book with an excellent discussion of the why as well as the how of using sources in your research paper. Currently available as an ebook from Google or Amazon for less than $5.
- The Chicago Manual of Style: If you need to know how to cite "Chicago style", this reference is the authority. It also covers many related matters. Reasonably-priced in print; free online for UConn students. (See this page for a short summary of the Chicago style.)
- Student's Guide to Writing College Papers by Turabian et al.: A book for beginning writers of research papers that address the details of citations in Turabian's variation of Chicago style.
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A bit ranty, and addressed to a UK audience, but interesting and useful all the same.
- The Oxford English Dictionary: At $995, writers don't so much buy this 20-volume dictionary as fantasize about buying it. But UConn users can access the full text online for free. (If you're off-campus, you'll need to use the VPN.) A popular alternative is Merriam-Webster.
- Economics Research
- Google: "One [search engine] to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them."
- IDEAS/RePEc: the largest bibliographic database dedicated to Economics and available freely on the Internet.
- JSTOR: neither free nor open, but still useful
- SSRN: Social Science Research Network.
- AEA: American Economic Association.
- arXiv: Not an economics research archive. Primarily of interest for finance, statistics, and "econophysics".
- FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data
- News
- Podcasts & Blogs
<= Robert Szarka