Overview
Research Paper Guidelines
For the research paper, students are to explore one aspect of democracy in America. Students can choose any topic as long as it is focused on the United States and it deals with some aspect of democratic practice or theory. In general, your topic should be specific and narrow—the broader the topic, the more difficult it will be to analyze the topic fully.
The paper will be written in two parts:
Part I: Literature Review. For the first part of the paper, you should review the academic literature on the topic, examining the scholarly debates. Your sources should be journal articles or scholarly books; you should not rely heavily on “popular press” sources such as newspapers or magazines (you can cite them for some bits of information but they should not be your primary sources). Websites are also discouraged as a source (unless the website contains scholarly material, such as that of an academic journal). There are a number of library databases that index scholarly journals, although note many of them are not complete. You can also use Google Scholar (note that if the full text isn’t available through Google Scholar you can usually find the full text through our library). There is no minimum number of sources you need to use, but my expectation is that you will have enough sources to adequately cover all the different perspectives on the topic you have chosen. Typical “A” papers have 7-10 sources.
Literature reviews are not simply summaries of books and articles. You should not write this paper in the format “author A said x, and author B said y,” which is essentially a series of book reports rather than a literature review. What you should do is integrate your sources to map out the terrain of the scholarly discourse on the subject. You should pull out core ideas and concepts from the readings, and weave them together into a coherent discussion of your topic. Part of this process involves “comparing and contrasting” different authors, but a literature review goes beyond that: it not only compares authors, but also fits them together into a coherent picture. The best literature reviews (i.e. “A” papers) say something about the literature as a whole: in addition to describing the scholarly debate, they also comment on it. This is not in the form of who’s right or wrong (that belongs in part II of your paper), but rather a commentary on the fundamental issues at stake or the particular shape or characteristics of the debate. In other words, a good literature review is not just a description of the literature, but also an interpretation.
Part II: Analysis. The second part of your paper is an analysis of your topic. Here, you are to develop your own argument, drawing on the ideas and research in your literature review. Even though your argument should be your own, it should also be grounded in the scholarly literature. Students often make the mistake of thinking that an original argument is completely unconnected to previous research. Far from it: arguments are built from previous research. You should think of the analysis part of the paper as a contribution to the discussion on your topic, engaging the work of previous scholars. The analysis should be an extension of the literature review, and should not repeat information contained in part I.
Paper Requirements
1. There are no specific page minimums or maximums, but since students will keep asking me “how long should it be?” if I don’t provide any guidance, I’ll say this: in the past part I tended to be around 2,000 words and part II around 1,700 words. But the number of words really isn’t all that important, and how long or short your paper is will not affect your grade.
3. Students found intentionally plagiarizing will automatically fail the course, and will be referred to the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities for further disciplinary action. Please note that using AI tools to write any part of your essay is a form of plagiarism.
4. You may not hand in a paper written for another class. Students who do this will fail the assignment. In other words, the research paper must be an original piece of work written specifically for this class.
6. You should not repeat information in part II covered in part I, even though the analysis in part II will rely heavily on the literature covered in part I. When you are writing part II, you should assume that the reader has already read part I.
Grading Criteria:
Papers will be graded based on the following criteria (not in any particular order):
- The quality of the student’s research
- Student’s knowledge of the issue
- Student’s ability to write a well-organized, coherent paper
- Student’s analytical ability
Can’t think of a topic? Here are some examples of topics students have addressed in the past:
- The causes of political apathy among young people
- The effects of voter ID laws on voter turnout
- Does “individualism” undermines democracy?
- Does the media influences the attitudes and beliefs of citizens?
- What influence does the media have on the public agenda?
- What impact does “Last Week Tonight” and other “soft news” programs have on political participation?
- Does negative campaign advertising demobilize voters?