How to write a reaction paper in 4 easy steps

1. Find a seed paper. How?

a) Use a paper whose presentation you have seen in class or in a related talk.
b) There exist a list of technical papers on the course website under suggested readings
c) Search through the key journals in the area you are considering for an interesting paper. (See second page for some pointers)
d) Use Google scholar and type in your favorite combination keywords of sustainability (i.e. poverty, sustainability, ecosystem, agriculture, renewable energy etc.). In order to increase the chance that you receive recommendation of papers with a computational component also add terms such as (algorithm, quantitative, machine learning, probabilistic, model etc.)
e) Ask for advice from the faculty and TA team.
f) Look for interesting ideas on the class discussion board.

2. Populate a list of papers. How?

a) Check the bibliographic references of the paper for related work.
b) Use Google Scholar to find later papers that refer to this work. For CS related papers citeseer also works.
c) Check the website of the authors for related work.
d) Google paper title. Is the paper being discussed on forums/blogs? Maybe you can find pointers to contradicting work

3. React. How?

a) Address some of the following questions about each paper

• What is the main problem that the author is addressing?

• Why is the problem important for sustainability?

• What is the central claim, argument, or point of the paper?

• What assumptions does it make?

• Are the models reasonable and supported by evidence?

• What are the main strengths and weaknesses of the paper?

• How can one improve the paper?

b)Consider texts collectively:

• How do the papers relate to one another?

• What is the overall picture they portray?

• Do they contradict each other?

• Is there a next logical step?

4. Re-edit your work. Why?
Noone gets it exactly right the first time around.

Some relevant Journals:

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM)

Conservation Biology

Biological Conservation

Ecology

Ecology Applications

Ecology Economics

PNAS Sustainability Science (special issues)

IEEE Spectrum

Resource and Energy Economics

Environmental and Resource Economics

Science

American Journal of Agricultural Economics

Energy Policy