researchmanual

Research Manual:

Bill Newmann/Judyth Twigg

Department of Political Science and Public Administration

Virginia Commonwealth University

Here's a small manual with some tips on how to write a research paper. This will help you in my classes and in other classes. But first: AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE!!!!

Make a copy of the paper for yourself before you hand it in to me, so that you have a copy even after you turn it in. Do this always, in every class, in the event of disaster (such as a professor losing your paper, etc.)

How To Write a Successful Research/Review Paper

1. Make sure you have a subject and verb in every sentence. (you would be surprised how many important journals allow non-sentence sentences).

2. A long sentence is not necessarily a better sentence -- each sentence should express only one thought. Don't be afraid to break up a long sentence into two or three shorter ones. It will usually flow better that way.

3. Make an argument in the paper, preferably one that answers a question starting with the word "why." Do not simply recite facts and figures. I'm interested in your opinions and in what you think is the most interesting way to frame a topic or an issue. Facts and figures are for supporting your argument.

4. Make sure that the reader of your paper knows: (1) what question you are asking; (2) what your answer is; and (3) how you are going to go about supporting that answer -- all within the first couple of paragraphs of the paper. In other words, the first page of your paper (maybe even the first paragraph) should provide your reader with a "road map" that explains exactly what you will say during the paper. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Basically, what you need to do is write the outline you have for your paper in sentences in the first few paragraphs of the paper.

5. Your opening paragraph (or couple of opening paragraphs) should also give the reader some reason to be interested in your topic and in your argument. Tell the reader why this subject is important.

Here is an overly simplified example of an opening paragraph, illustrating points 3, 4, and 5:

The attempted right-wing coup in the former Soviet Union captured the world's attention in August 1991. (There's the topic) Its aftermath constituted the final stage in the transformation of the U.S.-Soviet (now Russian) relationship from one of confrontation to one of cooperation. It would be prudent, however, for world leaders to remain fixated on Moscow. It seems inevitable that conservative forces will try to take control once again within the next several months, perhaps jeopardizing the much-heralded resolution of the Cold War. (There's the general argument you are trying to make and why it is important) This paper will argue that Boris Yeltsin's leadership is in severe jeopardy for a variety of reasons: (1) the failure of recent attempts at economic reform, (2) the resurgence of Russian nationalist political forces, and (3) discontent among Russian military personnel. (There's the specific argument and the conclusion of your research--Yeltsin's in trouble--and the organization of your evidence to prove your point.)

So, this paragraph tells me what you think (that Yeltsin is in big trouble), summarizes why you think that is true (because of failed economic reform, resurgent nationalists, and a discontented military), and why I should care (because of the jeopardy to the U.S.-Russian relationship). The paper might then proceed to give a meatier introduction with a bit of history on the coup attempt, its aftermath, and Western reactions; the bulk of the paper will give detail on the support for the argument that Yeltsin's on his way out -- again, the three arguments given in that opening paragraph; and a concluding section might once again summarize the main argument, and perhaps speculate a bit on the implications of the argument.

6.Use lots of topic headings and subheadings to correspond to the points on your "road map" -- they'll help you organize your thoughts, and they'll help your reader clearly identify where he is on the "road map." The above paper might have five main sections:

A. Introduction: The coup, the aftermath and the danger to US-Russian relations and Yeltsin's leadership.

B. Failed Economic Reform: your evidence and why this endangers Yeltsin.

C. Resurgent Nationalism: your evidence and why this endangers Yeltsin.

D. Military Discontent: your evidence and why this endangers Yeltsin.

E. Conclusion: Summary of how your three areas of research illustrate Yeltsin's peril; how this, in turn, could reshape US-Russian relations; and what significance you think this has.

7. As you make the points that support your argument, you'll probably be aware of the places in which your argument is controversial or in which a reasonable person might disagree with you. Preempt those controversies in your text. Point out what those opposing arguments might be, and why you think your point of view is more accurate or reasonable. Going back to the above example, a good paper would point out that some people think that the Russian economic reform is showing signs of success, explain why those people think that's the case, and show why the author thinks they're wrong.

8. Don't use a bigger word when a smaller one will do. One silly thing writers often use is the word "utilize" -- why not just say "use"? Of course, if a five-syllable word is the only way to convey your meaning, then by all means use (not utilize!) it, but remember, the important thing is the content and sophistication of your ideas and analysis, not your skill in using a thesaurus.

9. Citations: They can be footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations, whatever. It does not matter to me which you choose. Every book does them differently, even though there is an "official" style as detailed in the Chicago Manual of Style or Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers. Make sure you are consisten, however. Use the same format all the way through your paper. The importance of the citation process is to see where you are getting your information from. You only need to cite things that are not general knowledge: statistics, specific details of governmental policy decisions, specific ideas that you discovered in specific books. Look at some of the sources you use; how do they use their citations? Don't go crazy with citations. If you have a paragraph in which almost all of the information comes from one source, cite the first sentence, and in the citation say something like: "The following information is drawn from...." Pay attention to this. I will take points off if you do not use some type of recognized citation style.

The VCU honor system covers plagiarism. It is not a fine line. Either ideas are yours, or they are not. But just because someone else has already written an idea that you agree with 100% doesn't mean you can't discuss it in your paper. Just point out whose idea it is; paraphrase it in your own words, cite the source of the idea, and expand upon it. Generally, that is how Political Science works. 90% of all Political Science articles and books do the following:

There are various explanations for the Moscow coup in August 1991. Moe, in his article, "What happened during the coup," says the military instigated the overthrow. Larry, in his book, The Coup that Never Was, disagreed, saying the military prevented the coup from being successful. Curly, in his article, "The Gang that Couldn't Plot Straight," says the coup failed because its leaders were inept. I think that the three of them are wrong (they're knuckleheads); the coup really failed because of the Russian peoples' yearning for Democracy.

The article would then outline the theories of Moe, Larry and Curly, criticize each one, and then develop the fourth theory. There is no problem as long as Moe, Larry and Curly get credited with developing their theories, and the fourth theory is new; or if it belongs to a fourth author (Shemp?), the reader must be told that the fourth theory is Shemp's and your article will show why his theory is superior to the other three.

10. Bibliography: Include one, so I can see what sources you used. On the syllabus, I suggested you use a specific number of sources. Feel free to use more.

11. Newspapers as sources: A lot of recent information may come from newspapers or even newsweeklies like Time, or Newsweek. It gets to be a real pain to have to cite and include in a bibliography every newspaper article you use. In the bibliography just list the newspaper or newsweeklies you used; you don't have to include each article. For citations, you also don't have to include each article. You should cite specific articles that were very useful, or had specific details in them. Other than that you can simply cite the first sentence in a paragraph, or first sentence in a section dealing with an issue, and say something like: "The following section draws on material from the New York Times."

12. Citations: They can be footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations, whatever. It does not matter to me which you choose. There are several "official" styles as detailed in the Chicago Manual of Style or Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers. Make sure you use some recognized style and that you are consistent -- use the same format all the way through your paper. This counts for internet resources as well!!!! If you simply give me the address, I will take points off. That is not a recognized style of citation. IMPORTANT! The importance of the citation process is to see where you are getting your information from. You only need to cite things that are not general knowledge: statistics, specific details of governmental policy decisions, specific ideas that you discovered in specific books. Look at some of the sources you use; how do they use their citations? Don't go crazy with citations. If you have a paragraph in which almost all of the information comes from one source, put a footnote/endnote at the end of the first sentence, and in the footnote/endnote say something like: "The following information is drawn from...." Pay attention to this. I will take points off if you do not use some type of recognized citation style. Research is about finding information and using it to make an argument or illustrate a point. Since no one in this classroom is actually a governmental official or has been involved in governmental policy making, all the information you have gathered comes from somewhere else. You need to document where! If you do not, I will take huge amounts of points off your paper. This is a research paper, so 50% of what you are doing is finding sources of information. You absolutely must cite the source of your information with endnotes, footnotes, or parenthetical references. The points you will lose are bad enough, but there are potentially worse things that can happen if you do not cite the sources of your information in your papers for this or any other class. You can be accused of plagiarism -- simply copying down information from other sources without giving credit to those sources, essentially stealing someone else's work. This would be a violation of VCU's Honor Code and a case for instant failure and academic probation. I have never found cases of plagiarism, but you leave yourself open to those types of charges if you do not document the source of your information. Some professors may not give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming your lack of citations is a mistake. Instead they may see it as a deliberate attempt to hide the fact that you copied someone else's research. The easiest thing to do is to do it right -- document your sources. In the long run there is a greater issue. Out in the business world, if you bring your boss a report that has not sources documented, you won't have to write reports anymore because you will be fired. You are only as good as the quality of your information, so you must document the sources.

A special note on internet sources: Just because it's on the web doesn't mean it is accurate. You want to know who posted this information. This will tell you a bit about how reliable it may be. There is a lot of crap on the internet--unreliable information, outright lies, propaganda. Be careful of the information you find. Who supplies this information is the most important part of the information. The American Nazi Party home page is probably not a good place to find information on Israeli foreign policy, for example. You also don't want to rely on the government of North Korea's home page for information on East Asian security. North Korea is the only Communist nation left on earth. It is still fighting the cold war. These are extreme examples, but I hope you get my point.

A bibliography must be included with the paper, a list of all the sources you have used, cited in proper bibliographic form.

Cabell Library Research Resources

Cabell library is undergoing some changes. It is making the transition to a library that contains numerous electronic resources. In particular, many journals are now available electronically on VCU's on-line journal system. I won't even attempt to be comprehensive here, but I will provide you with some information on sources that are of primary use for International Affairs and Comparative Politics. Most of you probably spend a lot of time on the web. While the internet has amazing data and current information, the best political analysis, ideas, and conceptual studies of political, economic, historical, and social phenomena are still primarily found in books and journals. Papers written with only internet resources will be inferior to those that use a combination of print and electronic sources. What you will be missing will be perspective, context, and depth.

Reference Indexes - located on carrels, first floor

For Political Science and International Affairs, the best two indexes are:

1. Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) - lists journal articles and some books and government documents by subject

2. ABC Political Science - lists journal articles by specific journal

There are others:

ABC-CLIO Kaleidoscope Current World Data - card file with information on individual countries

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature

Social Sciences Index

Books in Print - good for finding information necessary to make Interlibrary Loan requests

Newspaper Indexes - both in hardcopy volumes and on computer. Computer indexes New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.

U.S. Government Monthly Catalog - lists all U.S. government documents (CIS lists only Congressional documents).

Business Index - only on computer; indexes articles on business topics from a variety of sources.

USPSD (United States Political Science Documents) - located on shelf in reference section, call number Z 7163 U5. Indexes articles by author, subject.

For government documents the best index is:

CIS (Congressional Information Service) Index - lists U.S. Congressional documents by subject and committee. Best source for Congressional documents.

United States Government Documents - on shelf, by call number:

AC - documents on arms control

AE 2.114 - Public Papers of United States Presidents; Weekly Compilations of Presidential Documents

D - military documents; publications of National Defense University; translations of some Soviet military documents; military service journals. There are two types of military journal:

1. Military/Academic: journals that cover world affairs as well as military/national security issues: Parameters (Army War College), Military Review (Army), Naval War College Review (Naval War College), Air University Review/Airpower Journal (Air University). These are all excellent.

2. Service journals that deal with military operations: Army Reserve, Aviation Digest, Army Logistician, Armor, Military Intelligence, Infantry, Naval Aviation News, Surface Warfare, Airman

D101.22 - individual country studies by Department of Defense

EP - documents on United States environmental issues

PrEx - Presidential documents, including economic reports and commissions; United States Government Annual Budgets and budget analyses

PrEx 3.15 - World Factbooks

PrEx 9.10 - Foreign Trade Barriers

PrEx 14.1 - Environmental Quality

S - Department of State documents

S 1.1 - Foreign Relations of the United States (historical)

S 1.3 - Department of State Bulletin

S 1.71/2 - American Foreign Policy - Current Documents

S 1.118 - Department of State Newsletter

S 1.70/8 - United States Participation in the United Nations

S 1.127 - Post reports (from embassies; listed by country)

S 9.12 - Treaties

X/A - Congressional Record. Listed by Congressional number and session

Y 10 - Congressional Budget Office reports

United States Government Documents - on microfiche

PrEx 7.10 - Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) daily reports - selected translations of periodicals from world regions, including Subsaharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, China, Eastern Europe, South Asia, Latin America, Middle East, Near East and South Asia, Soviet Union (now called Central Eurasia), and Western Europe.

Y - Congressional hearings, reports, prints.

Journals

The library has a huge number of journals that will be helpful in researching international affairs or comparative politics. However, the library is in a transition phase. Some of these journals have been available in the stacks on the second floor and will continue to be available there. Others were available on the second floor, but are now only available through VCU's on-line journal system. Others are new to the VCU library system and are only available electronically. I won't list them all; you can find them easily enough by using subject searches within the library catalog or the on-line system. What I can do is tell you what the best journals are in their fields. I will miss some, so if you find something that's very useful, let me know. I haven't really begun exploring what is on-line yet. The list of journals also seems to be expanding pretty rapidly. What I have listed below are the journals that I have found useful. Some may be on the shelf on the 2^nd floor of Cabell library; some may be on-line. Again, check from time to time on the on-line system. Journals that were not there yesterday may show up tomorrow.

General Interest on current events

Business Week does a great job of following international business or economic trends as they happen.

The Economist: British newsweekly covering international affairs, very useful. US periodicals simply do not cover Africa, Asia and the Middle East on a weekly basis, but this does. Probably the best newsweekly in the world.

World Monitor

More academic on international affairs/comparative politics

Alternatives: International Relations Theory.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: arms control and nuclear weapons

Comparative Politics

Current History - each issue on different region with yearly survey of national events in various countries. One of the best out there. To find out what happened in any region throughout the past year start here.

Diplomatic History a great source on foreign policy decision making

Foreign Affairs: the most influential journal in the US foreign policy community

Foreign Policy: the second most influential journal in the US foreign policy community.

International Affairs (London): Britain's most influential journal on international affairs.

International Organization: very theoretical, you probably want to avoid this one unless you have an aching need for international relations theory

International Security the best journal in existence on international affairs. It is also the most well-written. Take a look at any of the articles in here if you want to learn how to write a research paper or anything for that matter.

International Studies Quarterly: quantitative; the journal of the International Studies Association, tha largest US organization for professors who study international affairs and comparative politics.

Journal of Conflict Resolution - quantitative

Journal of Developing Areas - contemporary politics and economics

Journal of International Affairs usually theme issues, that can be excellent

Orbis: often has a missile and nuclear proliferation focus.

Political Quarterly - focus on Europe

Political Science Quarterly: one of the best on international and domestic issues; very readable and useful on contemporary issues.

SAIS Review - Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies journal

Survival - An excellent source on national and international security published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

United Nations Chronicle - the official UN publication;

Washington Quarterly extremely influential journal on national security; the one read by policy makers.

World Politics: the most influential academic journal on international affairs.

World Today excellent; contemporary articles on major events around the world

Military affairs

Remember the journals in the government document section. They are all excellent Parameters is the best.

Armed Forces and Society - military/sociological studies

Aviation Week and Space Technology: the best weekly on the Aerospace industry.

Journal of Political and Military Sociology great stuff on civil-military relations, among other things.

Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute: on Naval warfare.

Business/economics most of the general journals on international affairs and comparative politcs cover economic issues more than security issues

Euromoney - European economic issues

International Financial Statistics - IMF data on member countries

International Management - European business

Journal of International Business Studies

Journal of World Trade

Multinational Business - global business climate

OECD Observer

Ward's Auto World - international automobile trade

By Region:

Soviet Union/Eastern Europe

Current Digest of the (Post-) Soviet Press - selected translations

(Post-) Soviet Geography

Problems of Post-Communism has articles on East Asia too

Slavic Review - primarily history and literature

Sociological Research - translations from Soviet journals

Europe-Asia Studies

Studies in Comparative Communism

Latin America

Central American Report - weekly, current affairs

Journal of Latin American Studies

Asia

Asia Week - a newsweekly on Asia

Asian Affairs

Asian Survey - current affairs, the best on Asia. This is the place to start for research on Asia. The January and February issues are reviews of political and economic events in every nation in Asia

Beijing Review - official Communist Party views of cultural and current affairs of China

China Quarterly - tends to be historical, but does include articles on Chinese foreign and military policy.

Contemporary Southeast Asia - on politics in Southeast Asia

Far Eastern Economic Review - weekly covering Asia and its relations with the rest of the world. The best source for keeping up to date with East and Southeast Asia.

Issues and Studies - covers politics and international relations in Taiwan and China; published out of Taiwan

Japan Quarterly - current affairs, published in Japan

Journal of East Asian Affairs - Excellent source on Northeast Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China)

Pacific Affairs - very good journal on Asia and international relations; academic

The Pacific Review - excellent source for East Asia

Africa

Africa Report - current affairs

Journal of Asian and African Studies - current issues

Africa Today - current affairs

African Affairs - cultural and historical

African Studies Review - historical

Journal of Modern African Studies - current affairs

Middle East

Journal of Palestine Studies - current, Middle East

Middle East Journal - current affairs

Middle Eastern Policy - current affairs

Other regions

Journal of Common Market Studies - current affairs, Western Europe

Mediterranean Quarterly

Journals not at VCU

The VCU libraries do not subscribe to the following journals yet, but they contain valuable information on international and international security affairs. Most of them are available at the Virginia State Public Library or at the University of Richmond. If you encounter a reference to any of these journals (in one of the indexes, for example), and the article seems central to your research, check with me. Perhaps I can help you track it down.

Defense News: weekly on Defense industry and international developments.

Space News: weekly in international aerospace industry and policy.

Adelphi Papers: companion to Survival; a quarterly monograph on some topic in international relations; VCU gets some of these, but not all. They are usually listed by the author or title in the catalog, but some are listed under Adelphi papers. If you find one of these on a topic you are interested in, use it. These are excellent.

Arms Control Today: a monthly on the US-Russian nuclear relationship, nuclear proliferation and the conventional arms trade. It is published by the Arms Control Association and includes monthly news sections which update all the important events concerning arms control. It is the best source that exists on these issues that is available in most libraries. ( I believe this is on line through the Arms Control Association now).