Get
Started on your Research
Familiarize yourself with interesting parts of your
discipline.
1.
The Library has many online
journals. Search in the
"Journals at PLU" dialog box on the library home page for Annual Review of Political Science. Browse through the table of contents for
the latest issue. If you see a
topic that interests you, read the abstract for that article. If still interested, read the first page
or two of the article to see what are the main questions, the cutting edge
research, and the research controversies.
Repeat for earlier
issues. If you already have a
political topic that interests you, you may use their search engine to find
appropriate review articles. If you
are lucky, someone has already done an excellent review of the literature on
your topic.
2.
Google Scholar is a powerful search
engine. The problems are generally
two-fold. First, it includes pretty
much everything. That means if you
don't know the ins and outs of a topic, you are unlikely to know if a
particular source is useful, or if it is in a sufficiently reputable
journal. Second, a wonderful source
may turn out to not be included in our library
journals online. Still, it is an
important resource for any researcher.
3.
Wikipedia is
actually pretty good, um, most of the time. Stephen Bryer,
Supreme Court Justice, used a Wikipedia citation in a Supreme Court
opinion. The wall has been broken,
and professors who prohibit it are fighting a losing battle.
4.
Some guides to
research are quite good. Among
them:
á Booth, et.al., The Craft of
Research, Third Edition, University of Chicago Press, 2008.
á Charles E. Lindblom, Inquiry
and Change, Yale University Press, 1992.
Elements
of a Research Project
|
1. Find a Question. á Talk to a mentor! á Here is one guide
to topic selection. á Trust your attraction to particular current policy
issues or political trends. á Browse through issues of Annual Review of Political Science, as noted above. |
2. Design your Project á One way to design a project is to write a draft of
your likely abstract.
á You may wish to write a policy paper. á Another model of a research project is a critical
review of a book. á
Choose a model
and emulate it. For example, see
Martin Gilens, "Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness,"
in Vol. 69 no. 5 of Public Opinion
Quarterly. |
|
3. Clarify the Relationships. á What are your concepts, and what are the relations
among them? How will your measure
these? You might use interviews, documents,
statistical representations, and more.
What patterns do you expect in the data, also known as your
hypothesis? When you answer these questions, you will have written an
important first section of your paper.
á Make sure you use Clear Argumentation á Keep drafting successive abstracts. |
4. Collect your Data. á The Yale University Library maintains a site
with advice and resources on collecting social science data. á The ICPSR
is probably the largest social sciences data repository you will find. What do other people collect? Has anyone collected data about your
questions? á
You may want to
generate an original dataset. Interviews
with subjects, trends in word usage in news outlets, geographical
distribution of votes for a particular candidate... it all depends on your research
question. |
|
5. Talk with a mentor! Show this person or persons what you
have written so far. á Your analysis of your data will depend on your
methods. If using historical
qualitative data, for example, how will you record patterns? How will you check these against your
hypothesis? Consult research
methods textbooks for specific suggestions. Talk about these with your
mentor. |
6. Write up your Paper. á
Expect to write
several complete drafts. á
See the chapter
entitled Analyze This in any
edition of Graff & Birkenstein, They Say/I Say (Norton). |
Here are some subject guides
for the study of politics and government.
á A recent trend among scholars of politics is the study
of inequality.
á International Relations,
Security, War and Peace
And, you may find it useful
to stay informed
about political news.