Writing a Research Paper in Political Science: A Practical Guide to Inquiry, Structure, and Methods

by Lisa A. Baglione

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



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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Textbooks, Political Science, School

280 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 23, 2011

Reviews

[Jami Cole]

Every student who studies political science should write a research paper in political science when he or she is in the fourth year of a bachelor's degree. I know the excellent service that can help with writing a research paper in political science in order to students get excellent grades.

[Alizabeth Mariott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for my research methods class this past semester, and her content is deeply insightful. Her organization makes it easy to follow and look back on the content, and her addition of practical summaries of each chapter and a “recipe” for each new step made writing a research paper less scary.

[Shatha Sbeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful teaching tool. Nothing more or less.

[Abigail · Rating 2 out of 5]

if I'm going to have to read the whole textbook I'm going to get Goodreads credit for it

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every time this book compared writing a research paper to running a marathon I wanted to throw it out the window. Terrible analogy— not comparable. Other than that, the book was helpful

[Jess Grayson (bookspastbedtime) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was actually a really helpful book. I didn't necessarily like reading it since it was for school, but it definitely had merit.