policy paper

Order Description
1. You may want to read Chapter 16 in Ginzberg before starting your research. It may help to look at the sources before you decide where you will focus on the topic. Select your topic just as if you intended to write a research paper (based entirely on secondary sources). Your topic should be narrow enough to enable you to make rational decisions about which books and articles would be most useful to you, but broad enough to insure that you will find sufficient secondary material. For example, “Tax policy around the world” is too broad. “Deficits in Shoreline” is too narrow. In addition your research should focus on the role of the federal government in this area. This assignment is also tied to your class presentation (see instructions below).

2. Once a topic is selected you will begin the preparation of an annotated bibliography. Consult a style manual for proper bibliographic organization. Political Scientists use the Chicago Manual of Style format. You cannot make this up as you go. Form will be one criteria for evaluation. Each abstract should begin with a complete bibliographic citation at the top of the entry. Example:

Taylor, Terry, “How to Write an Abstract.” Abstracts Quarterly, 31 (December, 1632):22-111.

3. Abstract each of the articles you find from the sources you use below. Your task is to re-construct the argument of the article – your description cannot be over-burdened with factual detail. The annotation should not exceed one page. It should be a smooth essay (1-2 paragraphs) which faithfully reconstructs the argument of the article. What is its thesis? What is the author trying to prove? What evidence does he use? How does he use it? All of your entries should be put in alphabetical order under the type of source.

4. Finally you should write a three to five page paper in which you add your own analysis to the topic. Discuss the articles you read and how they disputed or confirmed your previous impressions about the subject. What convinced you, or failed to convince you, the most out of all of your articles? What did you discover about the political divisions in your selected area? This research will also be the basis of your presentation in Policy Week (23-25 November).

5. The final draft of your annotated bibliography and your essay should be typewritten and submitted in class.

Sources:

In addition to the information in your text you will need to select additional source material. Some of these sources can be found online (some online papers charge for archival stories or require a paid subscription), others can be found at the Ray W. Howard Library and still others at the University of Washington Library or the Seattle Public and King County Libraries. Articles from scholarly journals can be found in the JSTOR database available from computers on campus.

You will need to find articles in the following types of publications. Other sources, not listed below, must be approved by the instructor in advance.

Magazines: (Select at least two (2) articles from the following)

The Economist The Washington Monthly

The Atlantic In These Times

The National Review Mother Jones

The New Republic Utne Reader

The Nation Common Cause

The Progressive Z

The Humanist Commonweal

The Weekly Standard
Newspapers: (Select at least two (2) articles from the following)

The New York Times The Los Angeles Times

The Wall Street Journal The Washington Post

The Christian Science Monitor

Political Science Journals: (Select one (1) article from the following)

American Political Science Review World Politics

American Journal of Politics Journal of Politics

Political Science Quarterly Review of Politics

Comparative Politics International Affairs

Public Opinion Quarterly Political Studies

Political Quarterly Foreign Affairs