Writing a Research Paper in Political Science

A Practical Guide to Inquiry, Structure, and Methods

Lisa A. Baglione

• Publisher: CQ Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781506367422
• eBook ISBN: 9781506367415
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

New to the Fourth Edition:

• A non-causal research paper woven throughout the text offers explicit advice to guide students through the research and writing process.     
• Updated and more detailed discussions of plagiarism, paraphrases, "drop-ins," and "transcripts" help to prevent students from misusing sources in a constantly changing digital age.  
• A more detailed discussion of "fake news" and disinformation shows students how to evaluate and choose high quality sources, as well as how to protect oneself from being fooled by bad sources.  
• Additional guidance for writing abstracts and creating presentations helps students to understand the logic behind abstracts and prepares students for presentations in the classroom, at a conference, and beyond.  
• A greater emphasis on the value of qualitative research provides students with additional instruction on how to do it.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Features
• Preface
• About the Author
• 1 So You Have to Write a Research Paper
• 2 Getting Started: Finding a Research Question
• 3 Learning Proper Citation Forms, Finding the Scholarly Debate, and Summarizing and Classifying Arguments: The Annotated Bibliography
• 4 Making Sense of the Scholarly Answers to Your Research Question: Writing the Literature Review
• 5 Effectively Distilling Your Argument: The Thesis, Model, and Hypothesis
• 6 Revising and Editing Your Work: The Research-Writing-Thinking Spiral
• 7 Making Your Plan and Protecting Yourself from Criticism: The Research Design
• 8 Evaluating the Argument: The Analysis and Assessment Section
• 9 Bringing the Paper Together in Essential Ways: The Conclusion, Introduction, Title, Abstract, and the Utility of a Presentation
• Bibliography
• Index