Political Science 3000
Political Analysis
First Paper Assignment


Article Synopsis

Objective: The purpose of this assignment is to acquaint you (or reacquaint maybe) with the process of researching articles in academic journals and to get you to recognize the key components of empirical research. This is important because a major initial step in the research process is finding out what is known about your research question. It can also be useful in coming up with a research question in the first place. Many times published research will raise new questions to be answered. In the end, it is something that you will HAVE to do in future research projects for other classes.

Task: Go through issues from the last 5 years of one of the following political science journals: American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly or The Journal of Politics, and find one article dealing with some topic of interest to you. Make certain that the article is from one of these journals, and that it is an empirical study. If you are not sure if it is an empirical study, ask me.  One hint will be if you are having troubles discerning the answers to the questions below for your article, you are probably not dealing with an empirical study.

Write up a typewritten synopsis (3-4 double-spaced pages in length) of this article giving the following details:

• What is the author(s) research question (ie. what is it they are trying to explain)?
  
  
• What are the central concepts of their study? How do they define those concepts?
  
  
• How do they operationalize their concepts? (ie. how do they specifically measure their concepts?)
  
  
• What are their hypotheses? (ie. What statements are they testing)?
  
  
• What method do they use to test their hypotheses (ie. what research design did they use)? [I am not expecting a discussion of statistical techniques here]
  
  
• What conclusions do they draw (ie. How do they answer their research question and how do they add to our understanding of the phenomenon they are trying to explain)?
  

What this paper is NOT:  It's not a "book report." It's not about summarizing what the article is about. It's about identifying the elements of inquiry that we've discussed in class. If you do not clearly answer each of the questions above, you will lose points.

Your paper will be graded on style and content. You must include a copy of the article with your paper. Plagiarism will not be tolerated: use your own words, and use proper citation when you use the author's words to highlight a point (but such practice should be kept to a minimum). If you have any questions, ask me.

Due:	Submit your paper via Blackboard ( will discuss how to do this in class) by Thursday, October 7. Late papers will be penalized, and late papers will NOT be accepted after October 14. "I didn't know how to upload it in Blackboard" is NOT a legitimate excuse for being late.