Introduction:
Writing quality term papers is essential for academic success. Developing the ability to write clear and compelling essays will be of great benefit to you throughout your college experience. The development of excellent writing skills will also help you to attain professional success. This guide provides an overview of the elements of a quality analytical paper.
Topic Selection:
The first step to writing a quality research paper is to select a topic that is consistent with the guidelines of the course, and about which you are deeply interested.
Research:
Research papers, of course, require students to perform a considerable amount of research on their topic. Your research material will constitute the sources of your paper, and ought to consist primarily of:
- Books
- Political science journals
o Ex: International Security, International Organization, APSR, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy
- Leading Newspapers
o Ex: New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution
- Respected Weekly Periodicals
o Ex: The Economist, Newsweek
You should utilize the Library’s book catalog and especially the Galileo research website. Galileo contains numerous databases granting you access to thousands of journal, periodical, and newspaper articles.
Finding Books:
WorldCat is a highly useful tool which gives you access to books in libraries across the world. If your desired book is not located in your library, WorldCat will conduct a worldwide search. When it finds your book, you can often request the book and it will be sent to the school library and held for you. It also has a feature – Article Search – which offers the same service for articles. To find WorldCat: click on “Databases A-Z” at the top right of the Galileo homepage and scroll to the bottom of the list where you will find a link.
Finding Articles:
Proquest is an excellent database for high quality articles. To find Proquest: click on “Databases A-Z” at the top right of the Galileo homepage, and then click on the letter “P”. You will then see “Proquest Databases.” Article First, as previously mentioned, is another useful database. You can find it by using WorldCat, or look under “A” in the database list. JSTOR is a quite useful article database as well. Google Scholar -- http://scholar.google.com/ -- is also an excellent tool for identifying articles from reputable academic sources. When you find a useful article, you can plug the title and author’s name into the search function in Proquest or Article First, and it will often provide you with the full text article. Otherwise, you can request an electronic copy of the article by going to the interlibrary loan section of the Library’s website.
Using the Web:
The internet is a highly useful research tool. The speed and ease of plugging the name of your research paper topic into a search engine (ex: Google) and picking from the results makes this approach tempting. Be wary of the results of your query. It is important to scrutinize the quality and veracity of works on the internet. The most reliable websites tend to be ones affiliated with an entity that has an established reputation, such as: leading journals, magazines, and newspapers; blogs with cited sources and verifiable material, make sure that they have a reference page with their information to cite in your paper; well-established organizations; universities; and federal and state government agencies. (A Caveat…be wary of the objectivity of government sources when they are commenting on the government’s own performance.)
There are many quality websites, but also, much dubious information on the internet. Information from websites should, in any event, represent a small minority of the sources you use in your paper. Books, and edited journals, magazines, and newspapers should constitute the basis of your paper. These sources are not foolproof, but they are time tested and enjoy editorial quality control.
Outline:
It is helpful to construct an outline of your paper. Starting with an outline will help to overcome writer’s block and procrastination. An outline will also help you to construct a more organized paper, with a coherent progression of ideas.
Introduction Paragraph:
The first paragraph should introduce the topic of your paper. It should contain an outline statement which articulates the main issues which you intend to explain and analyze. Often it is helpful to present this as the questions you intend to answer. The outline statement provides the reader with a helpful overview of your paper and is an essential component of the paper. You should also include a thesis statement; a brief statement that expresses the main argument you are positing, or main conclusion you have reached about the topic of your paper.
Body:
The body of the paper constitutes the majority of the work. In the body you will provide the reader a brief background for the topic, and present your research findings. Make sure to provide not only factual details, but also your own unique analysis of the phenomena, event, etc., that you have studied.
Conclusion:
The conclusion will consist of one or two paragraphs. In this final section you will summarize the main findings of your research, and clearly state your main conclusions or arguments about the topic.
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is the practice of presenting other individuals’ work as your own. This includes submitting material written (entirely or in-part) by someone else and presenting it as your original document. Plagiarism also includes the incorporation into your paper of the ideas and information presented in someone else work, without properly citing the source of the ideas or information.
Remember to provide parenthetical notes citing the source every time you use information or ideas that are not your own. Of course, if you use the same language for all or part of a sentence that is contained in your source, you must use quotation marks. Plagiarism is a serious violation of the policy on academic honesty.
Citation:
You can avoid plagiarism by properly citing sources when you incorporate ideas or information from these sources. It is best to use citations liberally throughout your paper. This practice not only helps to ensure that you properly cite all of your sources, but also demonstrates that you have conducted significant research on your paper. There are three main types of citations: parenthetical notes, footnotes, and endnotes. Most readers find parenthetical (“in-text”) notes and footnotes preferable to endnotes, as it is more efficient to read bibliographical information on the same page as the citation is listed. APSA is the preferred citation style for political science papers. APA style is also generally accepted.
The example provided below is for citing books following the APSA style:
- You will list the name of the author, the year of publication, and the page from which the citation derived. This information should be located at the end of the sentence, or immediately after the quotation or idea used if you are utilizing more than one source in a single sentence.
- Ex: The country’s GDP declined 9.5% in 2003. (Jackson 2005, 85)
You can examine the excellent website created by the writing center at the University of Wisconsin, which provides detailed examples of APSA style citations: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPSA.html
Bibliography/Reference List
You must also construct a bibliography (reference list) for your paper. The bibliography lists all of the sources cited in your paper and is located at the end of the document. Sources are listed alphabetically. Remember to italicize titles of books (ex: Global Politics), and use quotation marks for titles of articles and chapters, “Global Politics: A Brief Introduction”.
In the bibliography you will list the authors’ last name, then first name. See the book reference example below.
- Jackson, Linda. 2001. Global Politics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
For questions on how to structure your bibliographical references, I would suggest that you consult the UW writing center website:
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPSA_RefList.html
For sources that can only be found on the internet, be certain to provide the full html address. See the following website for examples of internet source citations:
http://cooklibrary.towson.edu/docsLibrary/styleguides/APSA_print.pdf
Writing Center Websites
For general questions on writing research papers, including citation and bibliography format, you can consult the following websites which contain very helpful information:
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center:
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/index.html
The University of North Carolina Writing Center:
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