PE 105E
TERM PAPER

The intent of the term paper is to read more carefully into a topic of your choosing, develop good research techniques for locating good sources, develop your ability to read and analyze good sources of political information, and enhance your writing skills. For general information on writing papers please see my Web site by clicking here.

THE PROCESS: The process is to put together a presentation of ideas and information on your chosen topic with a couple of stages in the process so that you might work through a tentative bibliography and then a graded paper which can then be revised to improve quality and grade if you desire.  

THE PORTFOLIO: This should include your paper, bibliography and copies of articles used if pulled off the Internet. 

1. Choose a topic. This should be a topic that probably has had books, professional articles, news articles and court cases written on it. In particular, the following are good choices:

    Several of these can draw easily upon chapters in our text by Tatalovich and Daynes. I've indicated which ones with (TD) alongside them.
 

2. Bibliography: Locate through internet or library search sources and place in proper bibliographical format

    Sources may be located:

            NOTE: See below on how to use the proper citations, especially with regard to on-line sources. YOU NEED TO INDICATE WHERE ON-LINE YOU LOCATED THE ARTICLE FROM THE JOURNAL, NEWSPAPER, ETC.

             Your bibliography should be in the proper format. This includes using the proper format for internet sources. For examples of the proper format see below at end of this assignment sheet.

3. What is the format for the paper and what is expected in each section:

THIS FORMAT SHOULD BE FOLLOWED. IT PROVIDES A MEANS TO COVER ALL THE BASES AND TO BECOME MORE AWARE OF THE LINE OF QUESTIONS THAT MIGHT BE SUCCESSFULLY PURSUED IN DEALING WITH THE TOPIC.

 

    (1) Values at stake:
        These should indicate:
            a. Personal values involved in the issue, e.g., in the abortion debate is the  value of life and its definition, religious and or philosophical beliefs, personal sense of freedom ( choice and abortion, etc.), etc. Similarly in all issues personal general values of what is good and bad, right and wrong are involved.

            b. Social values such as community security, community notions of morality, national unity, etc.

            c. Constitutional values such as freedom of speech, assembly, religion and ideas on what is meant by liberty in the due process clause (no taking of life or liberty without due process of law) or equal protection in the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, etc.

            d. Political values such as tolerance, more government or less government, democratic participation, etc. While personal values refer to general notions of good/bad. Political values refer specifically to how political power should be formed and exercised.

    (2) The second item is to indicate how one would frame the issue for political reasons in a positive or negative direction. For example "affirmative action" is a positive framing of the issue as compared to "reverse discrimination." Framing for political purposes is intended to co-opt discussion somewhat and lead to opinion through the simple portrayal of the issue.

    (3) Ideas and data presented on one side of the issue. "Data" may include statistics or historical events, case examples, etc.

    (4) Ideas, arguments and data presented on the other side of the issue

    (5) Any possibilities of a middle position combining elements from both sides.

    (6) Judicial position(s) from some of your sources. You might want to use a key judicial opinion as a source also and provide some analysis or the opinion including what and why the court decided. Court opinions can be easily located through a couple of sources. See my Web site for resources by simply clicking here. Lexis-Nexis is the key database used to find court opinions federal and state.

    (7) Any information you might have on the impact of Congress and the President on the issue. Your news sources may indicate if this is a partisan issue with one party more likely to favor a particular position than another or with particular congressional actors or presidents affecting the issue. Does who's president make a difference and, if yes, how?

    (8) Any information you might have on  public opinion [poll data especially]. This can easily be obtained by going to the Web site for survey opinion information at  Lexis-Nexis

    (9) Any information you might have on key interest groups involved in the issue. [Who are they? What main concerns do they have? What impact do they seem to have on the politics? What do they do -- protest, raise money, take cases to court, etc.This will come mainly from news articles that refer to various groups or books like Tatalovich and Daynes which deal with this item somewhat. Also a search on the Internet will usually reveal key Web site for groups on different sides of the issue. 

    (10) Conclusion:
         A. Where does the information lead in terms of a conclusion. Whatever you indicate in the opinion must be supported by information presenting in the body of the paper.
         B.  Your personal opinion. Throughout the paper stick to a research approach and the fair presentation of ideas. Here is the opportunity to state your personal opinion with supporting argument.
 
 

4. LENGTH:    APPROX.  6-8 SINGLE-SPACED PAGES. [Save paper -- 40 students using single-space instead of double-space save 200-300 sheets of paper. Imagine if that happened throughout the university [2000 students times 6 pages = 12,000 sheets of paper/ semester and 24,000 sheets of paper/academic year if each student wrote one paper a semester ]and then throughout all universities.

5. Proper grammar should be used throughout. Please note my Web site for writing papers at Writing Research Papers in General
 
 
 
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY CITATIONS

 Bibliography Style--- Some examples of citation format using the APSA (American Political Science Assoc.) system:

        Book -Single Author:
            Jones, Sam. 1998. The Politics of Sweden. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
        Book—Multiple Authors:
            Jones, Sam, and Terrence Will. 1999. The Political Goal. Chicago: Nice Publishers.

        Scholarly Journal Article:  Bartels, Larry M.  1993. “Florida Elections.” American Political Science Review 87 (June): 267-85. [87= vol. and 318-348=pages]

        Newspaper Article:
              Benton, Scott. 1999. “Israelis Last Election.” New York Times 12 Feb. C7. [The c7 refers to section C, p. 7. You may be able to use simply a page number if sections not individually numbered.]

    Magazine Article:
              Barney, Ralph. “War and Peace Today.” New Republic 5 May 1999: 10-12.

    Court Case:
              Baker v. Carr. 1962. 369 U.S. 186.
                [U.S. refers to the Supreme Court decisions. If  lower court the source may be F.  Supp. Thus the citation might read Jones v. Meyer. 1999. 300 F. Supp. 1044 (E.D. Wisconsin)  to indicate a case in the eastern district of Wisconsin.]

        Online Data Bases: The style for using internet sources is still evolving.

            The American Psychology Assoc. uses the following for an article from a journal:

Jacobson, J. W., Mulick, J. A., & Schwartz, A. A. (1995). A History of  Facilitated Communication: Science, Pseudoscience, and Antiscience:Science Working Group on Facilitated Communication. American Psychologist, 50, 750–765. Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/journals/jacobson.html


                For an article from a newspaper it recommends the following:
 

Sleek, S. (1996, January). Psychologists Build a Culture of Peace. APA Monitor, pp. 1, 33. Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/monitor/peacea.html


                For articles retrieved from databases such as EBSCOHOST the APA recommends  the following:

The basic retrieval statement for databases accessed via the Web is:      Retrieved [month day, year] from [source] database ([name of database], [item no.-- if applicable]) on the World Wide Web: [URL]


               Examples:

Schneiderman, R. A. (1997). Librarians Can Make Sense of the Net. San Antonio Business Journal, 11(31), pp. 58+. Retrieved January 27, 1999 from EBSCO database (Masterfile) on the World Wide Web:       http://www.ebsco.com
Kerrigan, D. C., Todd, M. K., & Riley, P. O. (1998). Knee Osteoarthritis  and High-heeled Shoes. The Lancet, 251, 1399-1401. Retrieved January   27, 1999 from DIALOG database (#457, The Lancet) on the World      Wide Web: http://www.dialogweb.com


        Newspapers online:

                Adapting the above APA style to New York Times would look like this:
 

 Joy, Jimmy. “New York Politics Heats Up.” New York Times 19 April 1998, late ed.: C5. Retrieved March 10, 1999 from Lexis-Nexis on the World Wide Web: http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe.
            [Essentially you need to indicate the basic source of the information, e.g., New York Times, etc., then the online source, and the date of access to the online source March 10,1999 March is the date of access in this case.]


        Web Citation from the Modern Language Assoc.:
              The following examples are from the MLA Web site for citations:
 

Article in a Reference Database

 "Fresco." Britannica Online. Vers. 97.1.1. Mar.1997. Encyclopaedia      Britannica. 29 Mar. 1997 <http://www.eb.com:180>.

Article in a Journal

Flannagan, Roy. "Reflections on Milton and Ariosto."Early Modern         Literary Studies 2.3 (1996):16 pars. 22 Feb. 1997            <http://unixg.ubc.ca:7001/0/e-sources/emls/02-3/flanmilt.html>.


                             WITHIN-TEXT CITATIONS

    Within-text citations generally are in parenthesis unless directly indicated. For example: The latest study on roll-call analysis by Jones (1999) was supported by other key studies (see Smith 2000, 30-33). The first reference needs only the date. If it were a quote then the page would also need to be indicated. The second reference needs author - date, page  -- all in parenthesis.
 

                 Book -Single Author:  Jones 1998, 14-16
                 Book—Multiple Authors: Jones and Terrence1999, 21 - 24
                 Scholarly Journal Article: Bartels 1993,  267-85
                 Newspaper Article:

If news articles are included in the bibliography then one need only use the author - date format: Benton 1999. If numerous articles then  lower case letters can be added to the bibliographical entries and referred to in the within-text citations, for example: Benton, Scott. 1999a“Israel's Last Election.” New York Times 12 Feb. 1999, C7.  The within-text citation would be Benton1999a.

If newspapers are not included in the bibliography than the full citation is necessary:

Benton, Scott,  “Israel's Last Election,” New York Times 12 Feb. 1999, C7. Note that in these citation commas are used instead of periods as are found in bibliographical entries.

                               NOTE: many of the news articles are now being located through online sources, thus requiring online citation formats. For college papers it is best to place the news articles in the bibliography with full citation format and then use the short form for within-text citations. Thus one could refer simply to author - date to indicate the bibliographical source.
             Magazine Article: Barney 1999,  10-12.
             Court Case: Baker v. Carr 1962

            Online Data Bases: You need only use the above formats since the online information is in the full citations in the bibliography.