Here’s the whole assignment:
Research Essay
One of the most important skills in political science or any humanities course is to develop the ability to write a research paper.
This assignment will give you an opportunity to demonstrate your skills in:
- Understanding and applying political science reasoning that we’ve learned in the course.
- Researching a political topic in depth.
- Writing a political science essay with proper form and presentation of information.
The Prompt
Pick a political issue, election, or politician to analyze. Your job will be to explain what we are seeing in our world today.
The question: What issues are raised by and what impact did or does your topic have on U.S. politics.
Some examples of topics you could choose are: Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative George Santos, former President Donald Trump, gun laws in the U.S., immigration in the U.S. as a political issue, environmental policy, the 2020 presidential election, the 2016 election, the 2008 election. The options are endless! in your paper:
- What are the political conflicts expressed by the politician, issue, or in the election?
- What is the popular response to the politician, issue, or election?
- What are the current outcomes of the politician’s actions or campaign, issues being confronted, or the election results?
- Use data! Opinion polls, vote counts, facts to back up your claims.
- It is important to remember, your job is to analyze as a political scientist. Your job is to tell what you think is real. This is different than giving your opinion, even though naturally, you will be opinionated. Stick to the facts, folks!
What Should My Essay Include?
- The paper should be about seven pages in length, Times New Roman font, double-spaced, one inch margins.
- There must be at least seven sources. At least 4 of the sources must be books or ebooks based on the topic. The remaining 3 sources can be newspapers, encyclopedias or academic articles.
- All sources MUST be cited. We will be using American Political Science Association (APSA) citations which are standard in writing political science.
How Do I Write This Essay?
This is a political science essay, and for political science essays, we generally want to follow a simple and clear formula:
- An introductory paragraph with a clear thesis statement.
- A series of body paragraphs with supporting details that show how your thesis is true.
- A conclusion that restates the thesis, and makes a concluding statement based on the supporting details.