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Aine Seitz McCarthy
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Adventures in writing literature reviews

1/3/2013

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I have discovered that my favorite part of writing my prospectus (oral preliminary defense on January 24!) is the literature review. Easily. It's also a little like planning a vacation on the internet.

I start with a reliable favorite, Ashraf, Field and Lee paper, which evaluates a family planning program in Zambia. This is basically like Vacation Rentals by Owner.  I get really excited about three or four other published papers on population policy from their literature review, which is of course equivalent to the three or four rental vacation houses in Wisconsin. But then something about the mere notion of desired fertility Pritchett's PDR paper, which I traced from Ashraf's lit review, calls into question the idea of family planning programs altogether and then I'm reading about the intellectual history of economic development and epistemology of the word need. Meanwhile, VRBO and the month of January have together inspired the cross-country skier in my Minnesota blood and then I'm looking at the qualifications for signing up for the Berkie. Meanwhile, Melinda Gates' TED talk is playing in the background, I've downloaded two papers on microcredit marketing experiments and I'm reading unpublished ideas on job market websites of up-and-coming economic demographers.

I can't wait to write a whole dissertation (read: plan my trip to Kilimanjaro).


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    Aine Seitz McCarthy

    International development, economics and some pretty ambitious ideas from a stubborn graduate student clinging to her sense of adventure.


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