Writing in Political Science

Writing in Political Science
Author: Diane E. Schmidt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2019-01-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351252828
GET BOOK

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.

Thinking Like a Political Scientist

Thinking Like a Political Scientist
Author: Christopher Howard
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-03-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 022632754X
GET BOOK

There are a plethora of books that aim to teach the research methods needed for political science. Thinking Like a Political Scientist stands out from them in its conviction that students are better served by learning a handful of core lessons well rather than trying to memorize hundreds of often statistical definitions. Short and concise, the book has two main parts, Asking Good Questions and Generating Good Answers. In the first section, one chapter each is devoted to the three fundamental questions in political science: who cares?, what happened?, and why?. These take up, among many other topics, crafting a literature review, creating hypotheses, measuring concepts, and the difference between correlation and causation. The second section of the book has chapters about choosing a research design, choosing cases, working with written documents, and working with numbers. All of these are essential skills for undergraduates to have when reading published work and conducting their own research. Every chapter ends with several exercises where students can read examples from published work and develop their own skills as researchers. Finally, unlike most research methods books, Christopher Howard s sprinkles humor and surprising analogies throughout."

Writing, the Political Test

Writing, the Political Test
Author: Claude Lefort
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2000
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780822325208
GET BOOK

One of the preeminient political philosophers of the 20th century makes a compelling argument for the political cogency of literary writing in this book which among to his intellectual autobiography and an introduction to his work.

Writing Political History Today

Writing Political History Today
Author: Willibald Steinmetz
Publisher: Campus Verlag
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2013-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 3593398060
GET BOOK

In recent years political history has been rediscovered by historians. In this volume the contributors approach the new political history in a constructivist way, conceiving the political as a communicative space whose boundaries are constantly reconfigured through acts of verbal, visual, and sometimes violent communication. Writing Political History Today is organized into four sections, focusing on politics and the political as contested concepts; boundary disputes between the political and other spheres; the question whether violence is a means, an object, or the end of political communication; and on a future agenda for writing political history.

Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science

Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science
Author: Stephen Van Evera
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0801454441
GET BOOK

Stephen Van Evera greeted new graduate students at MIT with a commonsense introduction to qualitative methods in the social sciences. His helpful hints, always warmly received, grew from a handful of memos to an underground classic primer. That primer evolved into a book of how-to information about graduate study, which is essential reading for graduate students and undergraduates in political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, and history - and for their advisers. -How should we frame, assess, and apply theories in the social sciences? "I am unpersuaded by the view that the prime rules of scientific method should differ between hard science and social science. Science is science." -A section on case studies shows novices the ropes. -Van Evera contends the realm of dissertations is often defined too narrowly "Making and testing theories are not the only games in town.... If everyone makes and tests theories but no one ever uses them, then what are they for?" -In "Helpful Hints on Writing a Political Science Ph.D. Dissertation," Van Evera focuses on presentation, and on broader issues of academic strategy and tactics. -Van Evera asks how political scientists should work together as a community. "All institutions and professions that face weak accountability need inner ethical rudders that define their obligations in order to stay on course."

Uncivil Agreement

Uncivil Agreement
Author: Lilliana Mason
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2018-04-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022652468X
GET BOOK

The psychology behind political partisanship: “The kind of research that will change not just how you think about the world but how you think about yourself.” —Ezra Klein, Vox Political polarization in America has moved beyond disagreements about matters of policy. For the first time in decades, research has shown that members of both parties hold strongly unfavorable views of their opponents. This is polarization rooted in social identity, and it is growing. The campaign and election of Donald Trump laid bare this fact of the American electorate, its successful rhetoric of “us versus them” tapping into a powerful current of anger and resentment. With Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious, and cultural lines, which have recently come to divide neatly between the two major political parties. She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, they tend to view one other with distrust and to work for party victory over all else. Although the polarizing effects of social divisions have simplified our electoral choices and increased political engagement, they have not been a force that is, on balance, helpful for American democracy. Bringing together theory from political science and social psychology, Uncivil Agreement clearly describes this increasingly “social” type of polarization, and adds much to our understanding of contemporary politics.

Writing a Research Paper in Political Science

Writing a Research Paper in Political Science
Author: Lisa A. Baglione
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2018-12-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1506367437
GET BOOK

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.

What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies

What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies
Author: Leo Strauss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1988-10-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780226777139
GET BOOK

"All political action has . . . in itself a directedness towards knowledge of the good: of the good life, or of the good society. For the good society is the complete political good. If this directedness becomes explicit, if men make it their explicit goal to acquire knowledge of the good life and of the good society, political philosophy emerges. . . . The theme of political philosophy is mankind's great objectives, freedom and government or empire—objectives which are capable of lifting all men beyond their poor selves. Political philosophy is that branch of philosophy which is closest to political life, to non-philosophic life, to human life."—From "What Is Political Philosophy?" What Is Political Philosophy?—a collection of ten essays and lectures and sixteen book reviews written between 1943 and 1957—contains some of Leo Strauss's most famous writings and some of his most explicit statements of the themes that made him famous. The title essay records Strauss's sole extended articulation of the meaning of political philosophy itself. Other essays discuss the relation of political philosophy to history, give an account of the political philosophy of the non-Christian Middle Ages and of classic European modernity, and present his theory of esoteric writing.

Peripheral Visions

Peripheral Visions
Author: Lisa Wedeen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2009-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226877922
GET BOOK

The government of Yemen, unified since 1990, remains largely incapable of controlling violence or providing goods and services to its population, but the regime continues to endure despite its fragility and peripheral location in the global political and economic order. Revealing what holds Yemen together in such tenuous circumstances, Peripheral Visions shows how citizens form national attachments even in the absence of strong state institutions. Lisa Wedeen, who spent a year and a half in Yemen observing and interviewing its residents, argues that national solidarity in such weak states tends to arise not from attachments to institutions but through both extraordinary events and the ordinary activities of everyday life. Yemenis, for example, regularly gather to chew qat, a leafy drug similar to caffeine, as they engage in wide-ranging and sometimes influential public discussions of even the most divisive political and social issues. These lively debates exemplify Wedeen’s contention that democratic, national, and pious solidarities work as ongoing, performative practices that enact and reproduce a citizenry’s shared points of reference. Ultimately, her skillful evocations of such practices shift attention away from a narrow focus on government institutions and electoral competition and toward the substantive experience of participatory politics.

Empirical Research and Writing

Empirical Research and Writing
Author: Leanne C. Powner
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2014-11-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1483370666
GET BOOK

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.