| WEEK # | TOPICS | ASSIGNMENTS |
|---|---|---|
| Section I: Method, Causal Inference, and Research Design | ||
| 1 |
The Scientific Method as Applied to Political Outcomes In class: Introductions, review of the syllabus, discussion of what constitutes political science, discussion of ways to test a potential claim (from a prospective student thesis or on candidate appearance). |
N/A |
| 2 |
Theory and Method in Political Science In class: Research design and examples of good work, discussion of limits to scientific method, accumulation of knowledge, and “theory decay curves”. |
One-page essay: Is a “science” of politics possible? Desirable? Desirable or not, what would such a “science” look like? (Make sure to review the Hints for Writing Papers) |
| 3 |
Experimental Work and Its Challenges In class: Student presentations, experimental social science and its discontents, discussion of readings. |
Read one of the following articles and be prepared to comment in class on your selection in light of the readings listed in Session 3 of the table in the Readings section:
Your presentation should be 5 minutes long; it should summarize the article — its argument, its method, its empirical evidence — and offer your critique (which should be informed by the other readings). You will be strictly timed, and you should make use of visual aids; make sure to review the Hints for Making Presentations. Your slides should be submitted to the instructor by 4 PM the day before class. |
| 4 |
Observational Data and Its Challenges In class: Discussion of measurement, discussion of causal heterogeneity in Fearon & Laitin article, discussion of causal inference and Brady’s critique of Lott, discussion of mechanisms and examples of misinterpretation of data. |
One-page: Where did Lott go wrong? What specific things besides those mentioned by Brady probably threw off his analysis? What more could he have done to get the story right? |
| 5 |
Cases Selection and Its Challenges In class: Discussion of Pape paper. Discussion of Axelrod. Discussion of proposed research designs. |
Approximately one page:
|
| 6 |
Evaluating Individual Studies In class: Presentation of peer-reviews. Subjection of the readings to an exegesis normally reserved for the denser passages of King Lear. Discussion of assignment for Week 7. |
Write two peer reviews, one on each of the articles listed in Week 6 of the table in the Readings section. Your peer reviews should each be about two pages in length. As background, a referee’s report normally contains the following elements:
In practice, as you may discover in the future, (3) is sometimes omitted. The overall assessment in a review typically takes one of four forms: reject, revise and resubmit with no guarantee of ultimate acceptance, a favorable revise and resubmit, or publish as is. (In practice, very few articles receive a “publish as is”.) Assessments are normally conservative, in order to encourage authors to submit their best work the first time around. Thus, an article that has significant problems would normally receive a rejection, even if these problems could potentially be fixed. Come to class prepared to present the results of your peer-reviews. |
| 7 |
Evaluating a (Small) Body of Work: The Effects of Candidate Appearance In class: Discussion of candidate appearance studies (first hour). Introduction to Qualtrics (second hour). In preparation for your assignments over the following two weeks and in Week 12, you will gain familiarity with the survey software Qualtrics. As examples, we will preview the candidate appearance and immigration experiments. |
Three pages: Assume that the articles you read this week, plus the Todorov article from Week 6, constitute a “literature”. (They are actually only a subset of one part of the literature on candidate appearance – the part on facial appearance – but pretend otherwise.) Now write a three-page review of this literature, based on what findings and flaws there might be in the individual articles, what tensions there might be among the articles, and what gaps there might be between the articles. What do scholars know about the effects of facial appearance on election outcomes? What do they not know? What studies are needed to resolve the debates? This review should not be a separate critique of each article but rather a holistic assessment of what the literature tells us. |
| Section II: Collecting Data | ||
| 8 |
Conducting an Experiment (or Generating Quantitative Observational Data), Part I In class: Discussion of ethics in experimental contexts. Introduction to Qualtrics (continued). |
Work on project — continue coding surveys in Qualtrics. Run test surveys with each other, look for errors, timing, etc. |
| 9 |
Conducting an Experiment (or Generating Quantitative Observational Data), Part II In class: Work on project. |
Work on project (continued). |
| 10 |
Conducting Field Research, Part I In class: Discussion of field work challenges and stories from the field, discussion of how “scientific” field work can be, ethics in participant-observation. |
Two pages: Imagine that you were going to do field work on a topic of your choice. If you do not have a thesis topic in mind, consider (a) a study intended to assess racial disparities on the use of force by police, per the Fryer paper from Week 6, (b) a study intended to assess how politicians’ physical appearance might matter, per the research in Week 7, or (c) a study of Cuban legislative elections, per the project for Weeks 8–9. Write a full COUHES proposal for your project and send it to the instructor; do not send it to COUHES. |
| 11 |
Conducting Field Research, Part II: Interviews In class: Interview role-playing, ethics in field work. |
Rewrite your two-page paper from Week 10, turning it into a six-page document that includes an interview guide. |
| 12 | Student Presentations of Experimental Findings | Working with the TAs, prepare and present the results of your group project in a 10-minute presentation. You will be strictly timed, and you should make use of visual aids. Your PowerPoint slides should be submitted to the Instructor by 4 PM the day before class. Be sure to review the Hints for Making Presentations. |
| 13 |
Using Archives, Libraries, and the Like In class: Introduction to library resources and “treasure hunt” by Jennifer Greenleaf, Social Science and Management Librarian, MIT Libraries, discussion of electronic “archives” on police shootings, discussion of student data requests, discussion of content analysis. |
Make a Freedom of Information request for a topic of your choice, for data that you have concluded are not already publicly available. Pick a coroner’s office or a police department and find out what information they collect on fatal shootings and what is reported to the federal government. |
| 14 |
Picking Research Questions In class: Discussion of tradeoffs in choice of topic, informal student presentations of their questions. Is a science of politics possible (redux)? |
Pick between 1–3 possible thesis topics (presented as researchable questions) to discuss in class. Make sure to email these to the class ahead of time. They can be quite rough, but there should be an identifiable dependent variable and one or more identifiable independent variables. |
Calendar and Assignments
1. Practice ahead of time.
2. Get in and get out gracefully.
- Make sure you have a good opening and closing line;
- Provide an orienting context, a reply or follow-up to what someone else has just said, an acknowledgement of the previous speaker, etc.;
- If you are part of a team, conclude with a good hand-off to the next speaker.
3. Give a roadmap of your presentation: (1) tell them what you’re going to tell them, (2) tell them, and (3) tell them what you told them. Organize your presentation in a format that makes them easy to absorb — e.g., 1, 2, 3, summary.
4. Unless it is entirely obvious, make sure to articulate the “so what” of your talk — that is, why anyone should care.
5. Use visual aids to orient and engage your audience. For the graphical presentation of data, consult Tufte, Edward R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd edition. Graphics Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780961392147. If you plan to use the blackboard instead of PowerPoint, make sure to write out whatever you want ahead of time.
6. Where possible, invite questions and audience participation. If you think you might be pressed for time, however, make sure to wait until you have finished your presentation to take questions.
7. If you will be interrogated or cross-examined afterward (for example, if you are participating in a debate, presenting to an academic audience, or testifying before a legislative oversight body), anticipate the questions that you may be asked and come with prepared answers. If you do not like the question or cannot answer it, say why it’s the wrong question, explain what the right question is, and answer that one. If you do not like the premise of the question, reject it explicitly.
8. End your sentences on a downbeat, not an interrogative upbeat.
9. Practice.
10. Practice again.
11. And finally, PRACTICE!
Substantive hints
- Make a clear argument in the first paragraph (or second paragraph if you start with an anecdote to draw in the reader). Then present evidence to support that argument.
- Do not ignore contrary evidence. Either acknowledge that such contrary evidence limits the generality of your argument or show why it is not actually contrary to your argument.
- Draw on all the potentially relevant readings.
- Be skeptical of web-based sources. Wikipedia, for instance, is not an authoritative source.1
Stylistic hints
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Avoid contractions in formal writing. In informal writing, they’re OK.
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Avoid the passive voice (e.g., “it was done by him”) where possible.
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In formal writing, never use the second person as a substitute for impersonal or general references. Thus you should not write: “living in a democracy makes you less likely to be arrested for political reasons.” You might write instead: “People in democratic countries are less likely to be arrested for political reasons.”
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Consider avoiding the first person singular. If using that format, however, stick with it throughout. Do not switch back and forth between impersonal presentation of your argument and the first person singular. Thus, you could write: “In the first section of this paper, I discuss the reasons for the collapse of Chilean democracy in 1973. In the second section, I discuss how General Augusto Pinochet was able to consolidate a personalistic dictatorship.” You could also write: “The first section of this paper discusses the reasons for the collapse of Chilean democracy in 1973. The second section describes how General Augusto Pinochet was able to consolidate a personalistic dictatorship.” But you would not write: “In the first section of this paper, I discuss the reasons for the collapse of Chilean democracy in 1973. The second section describes how General Augusto Pinochet was able to consolidate a personalistic dictatorship.” The same point holds for the first person plural (“we”).
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“It’s” is a contraction of “it is”. “Its” is the possessive of “it”. As you will not be using contractions in formal writing, you won’t be using “it’s”.
Do not use impersonal pronouns when the referent is unclear or nowhere in sight. An “it” should refer clearly to a specific noun used in the preceding clause, rather than a general concept in the previous clause or a specific noun two or more clauses away. Similarly, avoid using “this” and “that” as subjects or direct objects. Thus, you would not write: “Dahl and other scholars have advanced the argument that democratization depends little on international factors. But this ignores important exceptions, such as Greece, Argentina, Taiwan, and the Eastern Europe.” Instead, write: “Dahl and other scholars have advanced the argument that democratization depends little on international factors. But this argument ignores important exceptions, such as Greece, Argentina, Taiwan, and Eastern Europe.”
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If your first language is not English, check for common mistranslations. For instance, if you are a native speaker of Portuguese or Spanish, you should make sure to write “make decisions” instead of “take decisions”, “soccer” instead of “futbol” or football”, “commitment” (for compromiso) instead of “compromise”, etc.
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Do not worry about split infinitives. If Captain Kirk can do it (“to boldly go…”), so can you.
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If in doubt about style and grammar, consult Strunk and White2 or some similar volume.
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Always include page numbers on your papers.
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Spell check and proofread your paper before handing it in.
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If your footnotes are abridged or you are using the academic journal style of including citations in parentheses, be sure to include a list of references cited. Make sure the formatting of your bibliography and references corresponds to one of the appropriate styles. Stick with ONE style and use it throughout. If in doubt about formatting issues, consult the Chicago Manual of Style.
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For your first paper, allow at least an hour after that paper is written to your satisfaction to go back through it and check to make sure that you have covered all these points. For subsequent papers, check through your paper both for these points and for any hints you have received on previous papers.
Seigenthaler, John. “A False Wikipedia ‘Biography’,” USA Today, November 29, 2005.
“Fatally Flawed: Refuting the Recent Study on Encyclopedic Accuracy by the Journal Nature.” (PDF) Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., March 2006.
2 Strunk Jr., William, and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. 4th edition. Pearson, 1999. ISBN: 9780205309023.
