PSCI 4002: Western European Politics (Honors)

Fall 2006

Research Paper Guidelines

If you have chosen writing option #2, you will be required to submit a 5,000-6,000 word research paper, worth sixty percent of your final grade. You will progress in stages, due and weighted as identified in the following table:

Element	Grade%	Date Due
Paper Topic	5%	20060922
Paper Outline	5%	20061006
Paper Draft	10%	20061103
Final Paper	40%	20061215

The aim of the research paper assignments is to have you engage in extended individual research into, and to communicate in a scholarly paper, some aspect of the European Union. I expect this to be a substantial piece of originally-researched scholarship. Depending upon your topic, you may well have to analyze primary documents, utilize quantitative data, etc.

Here are some of the nuts and bolts. Failure to respect these requirements will result in point deductions.

• You must have a title page (not included in your page total) which provides a descriptive title (something other than “research paper”) and your name. Your name should not appear anywhere else in the paper.
• Papers must be double-spaced, in 12-point font, with normal margins, paginated, and spell-checked.
• Do not bind the papers other than with a staple at the top-left corner.

The paper must contain the following elements, organized as you see fit.

• An introductory section comprised of four elements: 1) mood music (introducing the topic, identifying your main question); 2) thesis/argument; 3) plan/outline; 4) implications. This should be very brief, certainly not more than two pages.
• A literature review, in which you present an organized survey of the knowledge frontier with respect to the issue that you examine. This should “set up” your own research insofar as it will form a response to or departure from the existing literature.
• A theoretical section in which you state your arguments and derive testable hypotheses.
• An research design section in which you identify and justify the evidence and methods that you will use.
• An empirical section in which you present, analyze and interpret your evidence.
• A concluding section in which you summarize your arguments and findings and draw out the broader implications of your research.

The topic of your paper is up to you. But your topic will need to be approved by me, hence the several stages of the project.

Paper Topic

Your paper topic reflects your initial characterization of the paper. In 1-2 pages (not more!), you must identity and introduce the question that you will be addressing in the paper; briefly identify the relevant literatures (e.g., at a broad level of generality such as “theories of legislative organization”); identify the hypotheses that you will test; provide the broad contours of your research design; and discuss implications of your findings for our understandings of the question in play and the EU more generally.

Paper Outline

Your outline will lay out, in less than two pages, the anticipated structure of your paper. You will have had some time since the return of your paper topic to think concretely about the structure of the paper. Spell it out in the outline.

Paper Draft

Your draft will be a substantially complete initial version of your paper. Minimally it should contain a full introduction, a full literature review, full specification and operationalization of your hypotheses, and initial discussion of data/results and implications. The more you can get done at this stage, the better off you will be. It may take me two weeks to return these drafts, so you should plan on continuing data collection/analysis and write-up in the interim.

Final Paper

The final paper will have all the qualities of a paper that is conference-ready. It should have a title page, be paginated, be formatted with normal fonts & margins, and fully sourced and written. Imagine that you this is a paper that you might submit for publication somewhere (not a bad idea!) – write it with the scenario that it will be read by experts in the field in mind.