Final Paper Assignment Sheet, Policy and Politics
Final Paper Assignment Sheet
Your final paper will look to answer a question about a policy or policy-related topic by testing a hypothesis that you develop, using data that you find, through a research design that you create. The hypothesis will be firmly grounded in facts and data (empirical), it will look at a cause and effect relationship (causal), and it will allow for more general conclusions (generalizable). During the semester, we (you, your tutor, and I) will work together to develop all of these things, leading to a paper that includes the following:
1. A title page, abstract, and table of contents to lead things off. The abstract should be no more than 200 words.
2. Then, an introduction to your research topic and question that explains why your topic is important to study, lays out a hypothesis that you will test, a schools of thought section that lays out the scholarly thinking on your topic and positions your hypothesis into that thinking, and a research methods section that lays out your design and approach for the project.
3.Then comes your report and analysis of your research. You should explain your cases or data thoroughly, present your analysis, and then explain the inferences you reached from your comparison. Make sure to generalize your results, discuss problems in the analysis, and suggest what effect your work has on the larger schools of thought around your topic, and suggest potential future avenues of exploration.
4. Finally, finish off with a section that analyzes the policy implications of your findings. You should identify the actors interested in your particular policy, what the current policy is, and what changes (or not!) your findings would suggest for that policy.
Form: 7500 word minimum, 10000 word maximum. Abstract (separate page with name, tutor’s name, title of paper, date. Send separate copy of abstract to Kim Niefer). Table of Contents. Citations. Bibliography.
Style Guide is the American Political Science Association style guide, linked to here.
Due: May 13 at 5 pm.
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