Submitted by: Submitted by scholzey3
Views: 290
Words: 696
Pages: 3
Category: Societal Issues
Date Submitted: 11/20/2012 10:25 AM
The following 10 points provide some advice for your research paper. This mimeograph is based,
with permission, on a handout by Peter Hall for his courses in comparative politics at Harvard
College. None of the following advice is set in stone, but I hope it will help you write a convincing
paper and organize your research and writing efficiently.
1. In almost every paper, you are explaining some phenomenon (why something occurred or did
not occur in a particular way). At the outset, then, identify what you are explaining and why it is
puzzling or important. Make sure the reader knows at the beginning what the paper is about and
what it explains. You might want to do this by posing a question.
2. Then, consider any special issues that arise in defining the dependent variable, that is, what
you are explaining. If stating your question involves using any terms that are ambiguous or not
commonly understood, define them. In some cases, a phenomenon that looks simple is really
complex, i.e. it has several different dimensions. For example, you might want to ask why public
opinion initially strongly supported, indeed seemed to call for, military intervention for
humanitarian purposes in Somalia in 1992, then seemed to turn strongly against it in 1993. You
would then need to differentiate between US public opinion and public opinion abroad (not least,
maybe, in Somalia itself). You also might want to differentiate between mass public opinion and elite
public opinion, or between the general public and issue publics, i.e. members of the general public who
regularly pay attention to a particular issue, such as the humanitarian situation in East Africa. In
your paper, you could focus on any one or any combination of these, but you need to be clear about
it. Depending on your choice, even the...