Writing A Research paper in Political Science chaps 1-3
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4 insallments of writing a research paper
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1. draft question 2. sharpen question, write literature reviews 3. anaylisis and assesment 4. rework proceding parts of paper, develop conclusions, introductions, titles
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9 steps to a research paper
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1. develop topic & question and find sources 2. identify, classify, explain, and evaluate sources 3. develop a thesis 4. develop a model and hypothesis 5. revise 6. edit 7. plan the study (identify appropriate cases to study) 8. Evaluate the hypothesis or thesis 9. write conclusion 10. write introduction
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A good introduction
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-communicates question and thesis -entices people to read paper -provides a roadmap/snapshot of entire paper
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Why a question not a topic
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1. topics are too broad 2. a question links you to a controversy 3. forces you to provide an answer
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5 qualities of a good question
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1. interesting 2. important 3. direct 4. short 5. doable 6. puzzling
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report trap
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when students seek to describe everything they have learned from other research
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ask yourself, why is my topic interesting to these three groups
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policymakers, scholars, citizens
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what makes a question puzzling
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suprising given what we know typically means linking something empirical with your topic of interest
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Good opening phrases
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to what extent what impact given —-, why is given —-, how is how or under what conditions is why
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three factors distinguish research
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1. is there correlation? Causation? 2. extent to which the research helps to solve a particular problem 3. what the nature of the evidence is
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Theory advancing/ public policy resaearch
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insight that some effect varies with some other factor
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Public Policy research
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applied
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theory advancing research
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seeks to move our conceptual understandings forward, identifying weaknesses and strengths in existing approaches -encouraged to do this type of research in most empirical courses
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conceptual research
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encouraged to do this type of research in theory class
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middle range questions
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questions inspired by phenomena of importance in the real world that require you to use theory and evidence to answer them
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3 steps to Finding Sources
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1. uncover authors and sources that are most important 2. locate multiple competing arguments 3. understand precisely the implications of differing claims
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styles for political science
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APA or Chicago
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to avoid plagiarism you must…
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attibute ideas, information, as well as quotes and data to original authors
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AB (annotation of bibliography)
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a summary of the arguments of a work as well as key information about the cases and the findings
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How to identify Scholars
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scholars tend to be proffesors working at universities or employed at think-tanks, public policy, or governmental institutions -scholarly journals tend to have footnotes and bibliographies
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Anthologies
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edited volumes that contain a collection of articles written by different authors and course packs
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Searching for Sources
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1. perform search using Online Library of Congress or your reaserch universities library -the dots in front of the authors name indicate how relevant the search results are going to be given the terms used -if the authors name appears first, and then again after the title then it is not an anthology 2. The titles are hypertext and you can click on them for more information 3. the publication date is provided (better to use more recent sources)
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Reliable publishers
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Paradigm Publishers Yale university press CQ Press W.W Norton Rowman & Littlefeild Routledge Lynne Rienner
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Monograph
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scholarly work on a relatively narrow topic
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Matrices
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displayed by clicking on the hypertext that follows \”LCCN Permalink\” shows chapters thus giving you a greater sense of what the book focuses on allows you to find other works written by the author
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Data bases
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Academic Search Primer ProQuest Projet MUSE JSTOR search using key concepts and others you found while searching OLC database searching gives you abstracts that summarize the article
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Schools of thought to divide AB into
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Interest Based- assert that actors make decisions that maximize their priorities Institutional- focus on the rules and structures of institutions and show that these established routines or patterns have an impact on outcomes Ideas- a catchall term for ideas, identities, cultures Economic- or socioeconomic
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What to include in AB
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1.) research question 2.) sources (written as bibliographic entries in a uniform matter) 3.) summaries of the sources and their arguments 4.) characterize the School (give the approach a label)