University	University Of Canterbury (UC)
Subject	ECON208 Intermediate Microeconomics - Firms and Markets

ECON208 Essay Brief

Due Date:

By 6pm Wednesday, 22nd April (1st week of the 2nd term). Put your essay in the 208 course box on the second floor of the Law Building. Late submissions will be penalised ten marks per 24 hours or part thereof.

Hand in a hard copy of your essay. It should be stapled, with the Cover Sheet as the first page and a signed and dated Declaration Statement as the last page. On the Learn site is a Cover Sheet and a Declaration Statement. Your essay will receive a zero grade without a signed and dated Declaration Statement. Finally, you need to submit your essay as a Word or pdf file by the due date via the essay submission drop-box in the essay section of Learn. It is then checked for plagiarism by Turnitin. Note: don’t upload your cover sheet or declaration sheet, just hand in physical copies of those in with your essay.

Students can work individually or with one other student. For co-authored essays, only one person upload the essay to the Learn essay submission drop-box and only hand in one physical copy of the essay and cover sheet. Just make sure both your names are on it and the cover sheet, and you both have attached signed declaration statements. Both students will get the mark given to that paper. The essay that you write must be those of the author(s).

Essay Topic:

For the essay you have to critique the 2026 The Conversation article titled “The work women do has changed. The case for pay equity in NZ hasn’t.” The link for this article is on the essay section of the Learn page along with these instructions. Your analysis needs to be logically and factually argued using your knowledge of economics, any statistics you find, and from what you learn from your references. You need the following in your essay:

1. your writing has to be logically and factually correct and supported by facts from at least 8 authoritative references (see below for definition and examples).

2. you must cite the references in your essay when you use material from them.

3. you are NOT allowed to include in-text quotations.

The Bibliography is not part of the word limit. But, the citations of sources used in your essay are part of the word limit.

Note the following about what is meant by an authoritative reference:

1. An authoritative reference is a work known to be reliable because its authority or authenticity is widely recognized by experts in the field:

a. academic journal articles.

b. academic books.

c. university working or discussion papers.

d. government official reports.

e. international organisation official reports (e.g. OECD, World Bank, IMF, United Nations).

2. Free internet resources are sometimes authoritative (especially if they are offered by government agencies, international agencies, professional organisations, or academic institutions), but usually are not. Wikipedia, for example, is NOT authoritative because there is no way to verify authorship and anyone can edit an entry at any time.

3. The following are examples of sources which are NOT authoritative:

a. newspaper articles.

b. magazine articles.

c. press/news releases (even if from the government etc).

d. information releases (even if from Stats NZ etc).

e. blogs (no matter whose they are).

f. market or other commentary (even if from commercial banks etc).

You Must:

1. Assess whether the claim is likely to be true or false using economics and logical arguments, being clear about what you are assuming, and be able to substantiate any factual claims you make with facts from authoritative sources.

2. Write formally and write well (see below about writing and style requirements).

3. Hand your essay in on time (see above about the due date).

4. Attach a Bibliography which includes properly formatted references of all your reading material and any data sources used. You must have and cite at least 8 authoritative references. Please indicate what you consider to be your authoritative sources. Not all will nor need be, you can still use other sources but they won’t be part of “the 8”.

5. Include an AI declaration at the end of your essay, clearly indicating which AI tools were used and how they contributed to your essay.

You Must Not:

1. Cheat (see below about plagiarism and copying).

2. Include illogical and factually unfounded personal opinions, biases, and prejudices. Your essay is not talkback radio or Facebook or Twitter.

3. Waffle. Apart from being bad writing, waffle makes markers grumpy as they hate wasting their time.

Writing and Style Requirements:

Your essay must be between 1190 and 1200 words. This is a fixed range with no margin above or below it. Your essay must include a word count in the cover sheet box. Use a 12pt font like Times Roman, 2cm margins, and double spacing. Your article should be well written and use good, formal English. You should avoid slang, jargon, and over-used phrases that managers and financial market analysts use e.g. “drivers”, “going forward”, “at the end of the day” etc. Half the essay grade will be for content, and half for the quality of writing (grammar, punctuation, organisation, style, etc.).

Some major points regarding what should or should not be in your essay are the following:

1. No graphs, diagrams or mathematics are allowed.

2. You are allowed to use statistics and other simple facts and figures.

3. Your essay should not include in-text quotations or footnotes.

4. You must include a separate Bibliography containing references for every source you have read for your essay and include references for any data you might have used in your article. You must have and cite at least 8 different authoritative references (see above and the essay Learn page for what an authoritative reference is) in your essay. You must reference your work correctly using the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style (or equivalent style such as Vancouver, Harvard, or Chicago). Note that correct referencing is not just about in-text citations or quotations, it also includes the reference list itself. You can find out more about the APA style at:

a. http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/services/ref/apa/

b. http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx.

c. The library InformEd module is excellent for learning how to format references (and how to avoid plagiarism).

Just because you met the literacy entry requirements don’t assume that you can write well. Many of you will not have had the opportunity to learn to write well at high school and through NCEA. This results in many students being poor writers. Two good sources about how to write well are:

1. Strunk, W., and E.B. White. (1999). The Elements of Style. (4th ed.). New York: Longman.

2. Gowers, R. (2015). Plain Words. London: Penguin.

Write simple, clear, concise sentences. Write using correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Don’t try to appear clever or sophisticated by writing long complicated sentences using a lot of punctuation. It makes the writing confusing, introduces ambiguity, and just makes you look silly.

Plagiarism and Copying:

Plagiarism and copying is a serious academic offence and will see you get a zero for the essay. Just so you know, I will then use the Word digital copy to check for plagiarism using TurnitIn which checks your work against an international (including New Zealand) database containing 45+ billion web pages, 337+ million student papers and 130+ million articles from academic books and publications. It’s not worth cheating as you’ll get caught!!

In this essay, you are permitted to use generative artificial intelligence (AI) solely for the purpose of background research for your essay. No other use of generative AI is permitted. To assist with maintaining academic integrity, you must appropriately acknowledge any use of generative AI in your work. Please include an AI declaration at the end of your essay, clearly indicating which AI tools were used and how they contributed to your essay.

Note: Using ChatGPT or GPT-4, or similar LLM or AI programs, to write your essay is a form of cheating.

Essay Grading Key:

Letter Grade	Mark	Meaning of Grade
A+	100	EXCELLENT (first-class): mature, literate, coherent, perceptive. All points covered and the answer is well thought through and constructed. The student has clearly thought and read about the topic and has correctly applied appropriate economic concepts and principles often in ways that show how such concepts can integrate various parts of the problem. Sound and logical conclusions are well presented. Students show they have gained a clear insight into the problem by providing a concise and focused submission. Excellent standard of English (grammar, structure, flow). Very good use is made of secondary sources and these are always correctly cited.
A	89
A-	84
B+	79	GOOD (a solid essay): grasps the question, tries to answer it with relevant material, most points covered, but leaves gaps. Mostly well-organised. Some background reading evident with good use of economic concepts and ideas. Appropriate economic principles are correctly applied when used. Valid arguments, sound conclusions, but lacks full coverage or perception. Grammar, spelling and presentation are of a good standard. Good use is made of secondary sources and they are correctly referenced.
B	74
B-	69
C+	64	CLEAR PASS (average or ordinary): question only partly understood, some basic points covered but a number of important points missing, lacks detail, depth, and development. The use of economic concepts and ideas is sometimes minimal or incorrect. Conclusions not always strongly related

C	59	to what is written. Essays are “knowledge telling” in their approach where students simply appear to list as much knowledge as they can with little evidence of relating the parts together will receive this grade. Grammar, spelling and presentation are adequate though may contain several errors. Some use is made of secondary sources and referencing is correctly done.
C-	54
R	48	RESTRICTED PASS: (borderline fail).
D	40	FAIL (not satisfactory): Does not address the question adequately or is off topic. Many significant points missing, uses little in the way of economic concepts to address the question, any conclusions not related to what else is written. Grammar, spelling and presentation are poor. Little or no use made of secondary sources or sources are not cited. May have identified or used a relevant economic concept or model but has not used it correctly.
E	0	NO SUBMISSION

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ECON208 Intermediate Microeconomics – Firms and Markets Essay Brief 2026 | University Of Canterbury

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