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Writing Tips from Political Science Professors
General Writing Advice
Frontload your work to prevent train wrecks at the end of the semester.
How can you have a thesis when you don’t have any evidence?
– Professor Peter VonDoepp
At the upper levels I would encourage students to pick topics that would in the medium–to–long–term match with their career interests–an issue or job they have an interest in pursuing, or a region where they have an interest in living or studying. Such a paper can be used as a potential writing sample for a job or for working and living abroad. And so getting the eyes of a professor to review and grade a piece that you will then go on to keep improving over time will then serve as an advantage to you. It will allow you to do something that you’re very passionate about in the current term, and it will allow you to keep working through revising this paper even after the class has been completed, to enable you to have at the end a writing sample that could be provided to potential employers.
In higher levels. From the 100 level and above, professors would take the opportunity to encourage students to do an investigative paper. In the upper level classes–in the 200–level classes–innovation is very much encouraged, and presentations are also usually done because these classes tend to be smaller.
The World Bank [is my favorite database]. And the UVM library subscribes to it. The World Bank’s database has a vast spread of broad economic indicators for most countries for long periods of time, so it’s a good starting point for students who are considering doing a paper on a region or country. Martha Thomas
– Professor Martha Thomas
Start early. Start early and be very clear about the problem you are addressing. Issues of international relations can be easily conflated. Thus it is best for students, in thinking very early about their paper, to be able to clarify the problem they are addressing, so that it will save them the pain of having a convoluted solution at the end.
Don’t push it beyond your current vocabulary. Stay with what you know and can explain. Never plagiarize. It is bad in the academic setting and it is bad in the professional setting. If you are doing research for legislative policy briefs and you plagiarize, then it undercuts all your credibility. It is never the right choice.
– Professor Jack Gierzynski
Start ahead of time. Outline, organization is good; but that makes no difference when you don’t have any substantive thing to write about. Find some passages from the text that seem key. Even if you don’t know how the whole argument may fit together, it helps to work from key passages. Trust your instincts. These might be the most central passages from the theory. If you explain why you thought it was a neat thing, your mind will be engaged and you will be explaining and connecting something. Figure out a way to work passages into the paper.
Students always have trouble explaining. They don’t spend a lot of time explaining…In political theory, you have to not only intellectually understand what is going on in the text, but you have to artfully explain that to a reader that doesn’t already know it. Students should not be summarizing masses of data or ideas-this approach doesn’t work well if you’re trying to dig into an argument and explain how it works. What I notice more than anything is when students rush to say the point of the argument without showing specifically how it works.
An awful lot of bad writing comes from people trying to paraphrase. Your paraphrase will not be as intricate as what philosophers were trying to do. If you drift away from the text, you are robbing yourself of the raw material that is available to use to display your skills.
– Professor Patrick Neal
Using an outline
Have a really good outline in mind. This will lead you to write a coherent piece because you will be able to present your ideas in a logical and coherent manner.
– Professor Jack Gierzynski
There is this idea that you create a classic outline, and then you write from beginning all the way through the paper. But I tell students to write the introduction last, because as you’re writing, you figure out what’s missing and what you’re actually writing about.
– Professor Peter VonDoepp
We are all taught early in school to begin with an outline, and then write from that. Most don’t do this. I actually think that it is often more effective to just write your ideas-get them on paper. And THEN, go draw an outline of what you’ve written. You’ll see that there are gaps in logic, etc., and then you can revise in light of what the outlining has taught you.
– Professor Bob Taylor
Outlines are very crucial. Outlines allow you to stick to the initial point you started with or allow you to reference back to where your starting point is, so that you will not lose yourself along the way. I encourage students to consider the use of subheadings. Subheadings allow you to see the buildup or the trajectory of your paper; sometimes we ask for papers that are relatively long–20 or more pages–and in writing such long papers you may begin to lose the paper along the way. To avoid that, cutting the paper into clear sub–pieces would allow you to ensure you’re constantly addressing the central issue in each piece of the paper.
– Professor Martha Thomas
Good Revising and Proofreading Strategies
The more you write, the better you get at writing. Make sure to revise often because only that way can the paper become better. Try writing in different styles to get more practice at constructing arguments and using what you know to write coherently.
Don’t rely on spell check! Make sure to look through the paper yourself without relying on the technology to highlight your mistakes for you. If you want to avoid making a professor laugh, then definitely read through your writing to catch any spelling mistakes.
– Professor Jack Gierzynski
First of all, do it. Read out loud. Take your time and read out loud.
– Professor Peter VonDoepp
Practice your writing skills! How else will you develop them unless you practice? There is no memorizing or getting them out of the book.
Teachers are human. If there are two typos or mistakes in the first sentence you write or in the first paragraph, then it’s worse than if they are in the 5th paragraph. Even if you’re not willing to take the time to polish the whole paper, at least work on the beginning. It creates the first impression. An overwhelming impression.
– Professor Patrick Neal
I also often suggest that students read their writing out loud to themselves. We tend not to know the formal rules of grammar, but we do tend to know when they are violated in speech. Our ears are more skillful than our eyes, simply because we speak (and listen) much more than we write (and read). We also are often more attuned to the flow of an argument when we listen to it. Overall, if we read out loud and it sounds at all “funny”, it is-and it needs to be fixed.
– Professor Bob Taylor
Writing for Your Audience
Don’t imagine you are writing to the professor. Rather, imagine you are writing to your peers-smart, capable people, but people who are not expert at the material. You can’t talk baby talk to them, but you do need to be clear about explaining basic ideas. If they get their audience right in their heads, the paper is most likely to be pitched at the right level. When you think you’re writing for the professor, you know that if you just “wave” at certain issues (very briefly mention them, or allude to them), that’s sufficient-the professor, after all will know what you’re talking about. But that often leads to underdeveloped ideas.
– Professor Bob Taylor
You have to think of yourself as a kind of authority, that you understand what is going on in the text. And it is your job to explain it to someone who doesn’t understand. It helps to use analogies, examples, metaphors, or allusions to other texts to make those connections.
Since you’re being asked to explain difficult, abstract concepts, the simplest and easiest thing to do is find another human being and have them listen to you sketch out an idea. It’s not enough to do that in your head. It could be your roommate or someone in the dorm: if they can’t pick up your paper and know what is going in your writing, then that’s a sign you need to go back and rework it. That is a very simple test to see if you’re doing it right.
– Professor Patrick Neal
Depends on what the assignment is. If I’m asking you to write a letter to the editor, it’s a broader audience. If you’re doing a research paper, it’s for an academic audience. In some of my classes I do policy briefs. They should be sophisticated but for a lay person who wants brief.
– Professor Peter VonDoepp
From Good to Great Papers
Draw connections between materials. Create a conversation. Have multiple sources to support your claims.
– Professor Peter VonDoepp
What draws me back in a really positive light is when a student is able to give me the best version of an answer in the most concise way possible.
I’ve seen over the years several good papers that needed an extra push that the author would have gotten to if they had done one or two revisions of that paper, if they had started that paper earlier. In the paper I can see the potential for excellence. The key elements are there, but if a student starts earlier in the semester and is able to undertake one or two revisions of the final product, they would be able to tighten that paper, and improve the areas where they are not saying exactly what they want to say to the reader.
– Professor Martha Thomas
Typically, what distinguishes a good response from a great one is the amount of detail in the answer. Ask yourself, “Is it possible to summarize all the material presented in this course about a particular concept in one sentence?” In almost all instances, the answer will be no. So that means you should be able to write more than one sentence on that concept. You might write about the origin of the idea, the context in which it arises, or scholarly debates concerning the idea. You might also provide specific examples to illustrate the idea or discuss class readings in which the idea was presented. Your goal should be to show what you know. If you’ve taken the time to study the course material in-depth (which you should) and therefore know a lot about it, then show that in your essay. However, make sure you don’t spend all your time discussing details concerning one concept, when the essay question asks you to address several other concepts as well. Jotting down an outline before you write will help you avoid this.
– Professor Melissa Willard-Foster
In-Class Essays
[To prepare for an in-class essay] make sure you understand how the concepts, terms, ideas, theories, etc. you’ve learned in class fit together and how they can be applied to understand real-world problems. Look for the connections between course concepts. How do the ideas you’ve studied in class complement or compete with one another? What questions/puzzles do they explain? What relevance do they have to the real world? Typically, in-class essays are an opportunity for students to show that they not only know the material presented in class, but they also understand its significance and application. The typical strategies used to study for in-class tests (e.g., flashcards, quizlets, etc.) are only a first-step to preparing for an in-class essay. While it is essential to know definitions of core concepts, you won’t see how these concepts fit together unless you practice it. Toward this end, try anticipating what an essay question might look like and then take the time to write the essay. If you have a friend in the class, write sample essay questions for each other. Additionally, when preparing flash cards, make sure your cards contain more than a simple definition of the term. Add information related to the term’s significance, its relevance to other course concepts/terms, and any examples that illustrate the term or course readings that discuss it.
Standard term papers [differ from in-class essays because they] are typically judged not only on how well they demonstrate a grasp of the course material, but also on the quality of the writing. The quality of the writing still matters for in-class essays, but given the time pressure involved, there is often a direct trade-off between time spent answering the question and time spent crafting the prose. In many instances, students are better off investing more time in answering the essay question with as much detail and substance as possible. However, one way to ensure you both answer the question entirely and do so in a clear and coherent manner is to write an outline on scrap paper before you answer the essay question. An outline will help make sure you don’t skip over any important ideas or parts to the question and make it easier for your reader to follow your train of thought.
[A common mistake in in-class essays is that] students either miss important parts of the question or they fail to provide sufficient detail to demonstrate they understand the appropriate concepts. Make sure to take the time to define the concepts you use in your essay. Your professor undoubtedly knows the definition, but you need to show that you know it too. Make sure to provide sufficient detail, because this signals to your professor the depth of your knowledge.
– Professor Melissa Willard-Foster