Govt. 157 Group Paper Assignment 2004

The assignment is composed of segments completed each week. The final product will be a survey write-up paper. This paper should follow the format of a scholarly paper, including a literature review, hypothesis, bibliography, etc. For good examples, look online at Public Opinion Quarterly through jstor.org or go to the library and look through paper copies. Your paper should be a scaled-down version of a scholarly paper such as those published in POQ. The paper should be 15-20 pages long (appendix and biblio do not count towards this number), double spaced, times new roman 12 point or similar sized font. The paper should have a title page which includes the names of every participant. The paper needs to flow as one work - in other words, it should be collaborative from start to finish – not 6 or 7 separate papers cobbled together.

The paper should include the following ingredients:

I. Introduction (one page or so)

The intro should let the reader know what your thesis is – essentially what you are attempting to study and why it is an important or interesting topic. You may include your hypothesis or hypotheses here.

II. Literature review

This is where some outside research comes in. You will need to read relevant academic (or occasionally journalistic) coverage of your topic. If someone else has done similar work or surveys of this type, discuss that. Cover the basics on your topic. You are essentially answering the question: “what have others discovered on this topic?” The last paragraph here should explain how your study will shed light on the relevant questions. (and be different from what others have already done).

III. Methodology

Discuss your sampling techniques and any potential problems with your sampling design here (you may cite sources that discuss how to do this sort of thing). Also, assume an audience that is educated, but not in the class, and explain to them how you conducted the survey. Include your strategies and techniques for question ordering, experimental design, etc.

IV. Results and discussion

Here is where you do your write-up of the results. You may identify where your expectations before you ran the survey were different from (or the same as) the results you ended up with. Identity patterns – are there subgroup differences in responses? Essentially let the reader know what you came up with. Make reference to your charts and graphs within this section. Say things like, “as figure 1 shows....” The figures themselves can be placed in the appendix. Make some attempts to interpret the results – what do they mean? Why? Make sure to note what you don’t know too – limitations to your results. You may end up citing outside sources here too, such as, “contrary to what Zaller would predict, we found that.......” and so on.

V. Conclusion

Sum it up – compared with what you set out to find, what did your results look like? How reliable are your results? What further study would be needed to better or more completely answer your questions? In short, what have you found and what do you now know?

VI. Appendix (include a paper copy of the entire survey – all of the questions and responses to each question ), also include a copy of the letter you used to solicit responses, and anything else that is relevant

VII. Bibliography – reference any sources you used, whether quoted or not. Use MLA or APA style (just be consistent)