Even students capable of writing excellent essays still find their first major political science research paper an intimidating experience. Crafting the right research question, finding good sources, properly summarizing them, operationalizing concepts and designing good tests for their hypotheses, presenting and analyzing quantitative as well as qualitative data are all tough-going without a great deal of guidance and encouragement. Writing a Research Paper in Political Science breaks down the research paper into its constituent parts and shows students what they need to do at each stage to successfully complete each component until the paper is finished. Practical summaries, recipes for success, worksheets, exercises, and a series of handy checklists make this a must-have supplement for any writing-intensive political science course.

So you have to write a research paper --Getting started: Finding a research question -- Learning proper citation forms, finding the scholarly debate, and summarizing and classifying arguments: The annotated bibliography -- Making sense of the scholarly answers to your research question: Writing the literature review -- Effectively distilling your argument: The thesis, model, and hypothesis -- Revising and editing your work: The research-writing-thinking spiral -- Making your plan and protecting yourself from criticism: The research design -- Evaluating the argument: The analysis and assessment section -- Bringing the paper together in three essential ways: The conclusion, introduction, and title.