Project

Outline

The next step in the paper process is submitting information about your paper proposals. This is to be done in a format appropriate to a “Call for Proposals”. Your proposal should be about two pages and should include the following information:

  • Group member names and contact information
  • Paper topic and question paper seeks to address
  • Preliminary Paper title
  • Summary of the organization of the paper – include proposal of responsibilities across group members
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    The expected output of the project is a paper between 5 and 15 pages, most good papers are about 8 pages in length.

    Rubric

    Following is a draft of the rubric to help you understand how the paper will be graded.

    Introduction and conclusion Introduction explains importance of topic. Includes a clearly identifiable statement of the research question. Conclusion reiterates the research question and explains how the paper answered the question and the papers main points. (20) Introduction and/or conclusion are insufficient to give a high-level understanding of the point of the paper. (0)
    Chart, table or figure (10) Included with title, citation, and note if necessary – reader should be able to understand with little reference to paper (10) Included but without aforementioned extras. No Included (0)
    Coherence All sections help better understand and address research question, all paragraphs help reader better understand section and how it relates to the research question (20) Some sections of paragraphs seem out of place (10) Paper seems to be a mish-mash of ideas with no clear coherence or reference to the research question (0)
    Understanding Writer and reader come away fully understanding argument.(20) Some evidence that material was included without author understanding or in a way that is unclear to the reader (-2 to 5 per occurance))
    Spelling and grammar Perfect grammar and spelling is ideal but errors are understandable. Introduction and conclusion should be error free or nearly so. Errors in the content should be minimized so that the reader is not distracted (10) Spelling and/or grammar errors distract the reader but rarely if ever effects reader understanding. (5) Spelling and/or grammar is a consistent problem which affects readability and reader understanding.
    Sources and Citations 6 or more academic sources, all cited correctly using same style (Chicago or APA preferred) (10) 6 or more academic sources, noticeable errors in citation style (8) 3 – 5 academic sources, all cited using same style (Chicago or APA preferred) (6) 3-5 academic sources, noticeable errors in citation style (4) 2 or fewer sources (0)
    Turned in on time: Turned in Dec 13 (10) Dec 14 (8) Dec 15 (6) Dec 16 (4) Dec 17 (2) Dec 18 (0) (note – papers will not be accepted after this date)

    Final draft

    Format

    A good paper should be as long as it needs to be. It should include the number of charts and tables that it needs. It should include the number of references that it needs. If your paper is very different from these guidelines, that may be because writing a good paper about your topic requires some adjustment, but it may be a sign that there is a problem. That said, I expect the paper to be between 10 and 20 pages 2x or 1.5x spaced. If you go long, that is fine, but if you go over 25 pages, let me know in advance and tell me why. It may be the case that you should focus more and we might discuss that.

    I expect you to use at least 3 academic sources or primary data sources in your main argument. The data of your paper is likely to be the existing research, and the data should consist at least in a substantial part in works outside of the popular press. That doesn’t mean you can’t use popular press, but official or academic publications should be used to ensure some degree of rigor and impartiality. By main argument, I mean that these sources should be used to support your argument, not merely as a part of a review of existing literature.

    Some information is best presented as a chart or table and I encourage the use of charts and tables.

    Structure

    Make things easy on the reader. Use section headers. Don’t write run-on sentences or over-long paragraphs. Your paper should follow the principle of, “In the first part I tell ’em what I am going to tell ’em; in the second part—well, I tell ’em; in the third part I tell ’em what I’ve told ’em.” That is, an introduction and conclusion section should be included.

    On top of that, there should be a literature review section near the beginning of the paper and a discussion section near the end. The literature review should discuss recent, similar papers or articles in the academic and possibly popular press. The discussion may include your opinions on the meaning of what your found, policy implications, and/or new questions your research uncovered.

    In most cases, material should be your own analysis of existing research. The main body of your paper will likely include the facts of the issue and how those facts inform your research question. It may include a discussion of the model used to address the question (for instance, you may discuss a social science approach or a way of organizing data). It may also include a discussion of how you chose and found your data (for instance, if you are comparing and contrasting a set of policies, how did you chose those policies and how did you come up with principles used to compare them).