Research And Writing Guide For Political Science

Even students capable of writing excellent essays still find their first major political science research paper an intimidating experience. Crafting the right research question, finding good sources, properly summarizing them, operationalizing concepts and designing good tests for their hypotheses, presenting and analyzing quantitative as well as qualitative data are all tough-going without a great deal of guidance and encouragement. Writing a Research Paper in Political Science breaks down the research paper into its constituent parts and shows students what they need to do at each stage to successfully complete each component until the paper is finished. Practical summaries, recipes for success, worksheets, exercises, and a series of handy checklists make this a must-have supplement for any writing-intensive political science course.

A complete, professional resource for writing an effective paper in all subfields of political science, Diane Schmidt’s 25th anniversary edition provides students with a practical, easy-to-follow guide for writing about political ideas, events, policies, passions, agendas, and processes. It offers additional formats and guidelines focusing on the growing use of social media and the need for professional communication in blogs, tweets, forums, media sites, lectures on demand, and postings on websites. A collection of student papers shows students how to write well for better grades. After reading Writing in Political Science students will know how to: choose and narrow a research topic; formulate a research agenda; quickly locate reputable information online; execute a study and write up findings; use the vocabulary of political science discourse; follow the criteria used to evaluate student assignments when writing; apply writing skills to an internship, civic engagement project, or grant proposal; and manage and preserve achievements for career development. New to the Fifth Edition Locating Research Materials: Updated links to all sources, expansion of appropriate sources to include mobile sources available through tweets, blogs, forums, and other informal communication; expansion of tools to include database searching; use of smart phone technology; and evaluation of source reliability to include commercial sources, Wikipedia, media sites, social media, and lectures on demand. Creating Evidence: Evaluating data sources on the web including government databases, non-profits, and special interest/commercial data; and using collaborative forms of data collection. Includes a new section on Memorandums of Conversations (MEMCON), essential in recent political controversies. Manuscript Formatting and Reference Styles: Updated examples of citing internet sites, blogs, forums, lectures on demand, and YouTube. Format/Examples: Updated exam-writing treatment to include on-line, e-learning, open-book exams, media applications examples using YouTube and online media; restored legal briefs treatment; revised proposal examples; revised PowerPoint instructions to include diversity considerations; expanded formula for standard research papers to include wider disciplinary treatment, expanded communication techniques, format and examples of appropriate posting for social media and organizational websites, expanded internship treatment, inclusion of needs-assessment format and examples. Career Development: Restoration of 3rd edition chapter and expansion of professional portfolio building including vitae, resume, cover letters, letters of intent, statement of purpose, and skills/competency discussions. Updated citations for changes in The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition, 2017 and The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 8th Edition, 2016.

Writing is an integral skill to the practice and discipline of Political Science. Developed specifically for the Canadian marketplace, the Thomson Nelson Political Science Writer's Guide provides students with writing instruction specific to the discipline.Full of practical information on how to write various types of political science assignments, from a basic essay to op/ed pieces, significant attention is paid to writing position papers and briefing documents, and creating documents for use within the Parliamentary process.The Thomson Nelson Political Science Writer's Guide is a practical guide to the research and writing of any type of political science assignment and includes numerous examples upon which students can model their writing. It also enables students to work through all steps of an assignment from research to writing organization and citations. With this guide at the ready, instructors are able to vary their writing assignments without spending extensive in-class time introducing students to different styles of political science writing. Instructors can also assign longer and more complex writing assignments as the students progress through their studies. The Thomson Nelson Political Science Writer's Guide serves the needs of all levels of Political Science students and is an excellent resource that can be referred to later in their careers in Political Science.

How do we know why the Soviet Union decided to place missiles in Cuba? How do we know why North Korea invaded South Korea? How do we know why the U.S. decided to invade Iraq? We know the answers to these questions because political science scholars did in-depth research and shared their findings. Conducting, presenting, and publishing research are all integral parts of being a political scientist. Students in political science courses are exposed to the research done by scholars. In turn, professors would like their students to become part of this community of scholars and will assign research papers so that students can demonstrate their knowledge of specific topics. An indispensable resource, Research and Writing Guide for Political Science provides a brief primer on the basic skills required for writing an effective research paper. It covers conducting research (finding, evaluating, and using sources); the various parts of a research paper and how they should be organized; writing, rewriting, revising, and editing; and citing the research (footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, reference lists, and different academic citation styles: MLA, APA, and Chicago). A conclusion offers a list of additional resources.

Students can easily misstep when they first begin to do research. Leanne C. Powner’s new title Empirical Research and Writing: A Student′s Practical Guide provides valuable advice and guidance on conducting and writing about empirical research. Chapter by chapter, students are guided through the key steps in the research process. Written in a lively and engaging manner and with a dose of humor, this practical text shows students exactly how to choose a research topic, conduct a literature review, make research design decisions, collect and analyze data, and then write up and present the results. The book′s approachable style and just-in-time information delivery make it a text students will want to read, and its wide-ranging and surprisingly sophisticated coverage will make it an important resource for their later coursework.

“A compelling case for transforming how research methods are taught to undergraduate students of political science.” —London School of Economics Review of Books Each year, tens of thousands of students who are interested in politics go through a rite of passage: they take a course in research methods. Many find the subject to be boring or confusing, and with good reason. Most of the standard books on research methods fail to highlight the most important concepts and questions. Instead, they brim with dry technical definitions and focus heavily on statistical analysis, slighting other valuable methods. This approach prevents students from mastering the skills they need to engage more directly and meaningfully with a wide variety of research. With wit and practical wisdom, Christopher Howard draws on more than a decade of experience teaching research methods to transform a typically dreary subject and teach budding political scientists the critical skills they need to read published research more effectively and produce better research of their own. The first part of the book is devoted to asking three fundamental questions in political science: What happened? Why? Who cares? In the second section, Howard demonstrates how to answer these questions by choosing an appropriate research design, selecting cases, and working with numbers and written documents as evidence. Drawing on examples from American and comparative politics, international relations, and public policy, Thinking Like a Political Scientist highlights the most common challenges that political scientists routinely face, and each chapter concludes with exercises so that students can practice dealing with those challenges.

The Nelson Guide to Research and Writing in Political Science is a short handbook that helps Political Science students at the university or college level begin to think and write as Political Scientists. Updated to included expanded instruction on writing in the online environment, and plagiarism, this guide provides students with writing instruction specific to the Political Science discipline.

Practical summaries, recipes for success, worksheets, exercises, and a series of handy checklists make Writing a Research Paper in Political Science a must-have supplement for any writing-intensive political science course.