Assignment due Thursday, June 26, 2025 by 11:59pm
This assignment allows you to explore a political science topic of your choice, encouraging independent research and critical thinking.
- Topic Selection: Choose a topic within the realm of political science. Topics can range from political theory, comparative politics, international relations or any other subfield.
- Research: Conduct thorough research using academic journals, books, and credible online sources. Utilize the library resources and seek guidance from the instructor if needed.
- Essay Structure: The essay should be 2,000 words long and include the following components:
- Introduction: Introduce your topic, state your thesis, and outline the structure of your essay.
- Analysis: Present your analysis, supporting your arguments with evidence and examples. Discuss different perspectives and counterarguments.
- Conclusion: Summarize your findings, restate the significance of your topic, and suggest areas for further research.
- References: Provide a list of all sources cited in your essay, formatted according to APA/MLA/Chicago style.
Grading Criteria:
-** Clarity and Cohesion**: Clear and logical presentation of ideas, well-structured arguments.
- Depth of Research: Demonstrates comprehensive research and understanding of the topic.
- Critical Thinking: Analyzes different perspectives and constructs well-reasoned arguments.
- Originality: Presents unique insights and original thought.
- Writing Quality: Uses proper grammar, spelling, and academic style.
- Adherence to Guidelines: Follows the word count, formatting, and submission requirements.
Assignment Information
Length:2000
Weight:
35%
Learning Outcomes Added
- Constructivism: Interpret the causal role of ideas, identity, norms, and repertoires in determining political and social outcomes over time.
- RationalChoice: Apply rational choice theory to explain individual and collective political decisions.
- Structuralism: Identify and analyze structural factors that help explain political and social outcomes over time, including the causes of degradation in institutions.
- Democracy: Identify the democratic elements of a particular society and explain the causes of liberalization, transition, and/or consolidation.
- IntegratingTheories: Define and utilize theory to explain political behaviors of the past, present and future.
- Politics: Define politics and explain how they affect social behaviors, interactions, and relationships on the individual, group, or societal levels.
- PoliSciMethods: Identify, define and utilize political science methodologies in conducting analysis and addressing research topics.
- SocialDynamics: Analyze the processes and conditions of mobilization for social and political causes.
MORE INFO:
- Have at least 5 academic resources.
- Include a list of references following APA style. Make sure you use reliable non-academic sources academic sources.
- Style/Formatting: cover page (title of your paper, name and ID, name of uni, name of college, course title, name of professor, date of submission), no running headers, Times New Roman, font 12, 1.5 or 2.0 spacing, indent new paragraphs, no spaces between paragraphs, footnotes single spaced and font 10, reference list single spaced and alphabetized, page numbers, word count at the end of the paper (before references).
- Feel free to use statistics, tables, graphs, etc, which support your paper/argument, but make sure you cite them. Place them either in the text or an appendix.
- In-text citations are required and have to include page numbers or paragraph for online sources that do not provide page numbers.
- Footnotes: these are great to add additional information for the reader when the word count has been exhausted since they do not count towards the word limit. Make sure you are familiar with the formatting footnotes in the text and the footnote itself. Footnotes font 10 and they also need citations if sources are used.
-at the bottom of the assignment description you find a list of eight learning outcomes. Read them carefully and then pick four to be assessed on in your assignment.
Have an appendix before the references where you address your best application of the four LOs you chose for the paper. Have three to four sentences that explain how you best applied each LO. These are the LOs you will be graded on, so make sure you address them directly and in-depth.