Term Paper
The purpose of this paper is to display your new knowledge of basic statistical computing applied to research in American Politics.
After we discuss the various datasets that are available and you had an opportunity to think about topics of interest to you, I would like you to provide me with a paragraph identifying the research question you wish to address, a list of hypotheses you hope to examine, and some indication of the data you will use.
Final data sets should be chosen by Week 8. Lists of data archived in the Social Science Data Lab are available via the internet. Check the "Resources" page for this course to find the appropriate links.
The paper is due Thursday, December 6th. Each paper should be approximately 8-10 pages in length. It should be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before you turn it in! Please present professional quality tables and figures with your work. They may be integrated within the text or placed at the back of the paper with reader guides (e.g., [Insert Table 1 Here]) placed in the text.
You do not need (i.e., I do not want) special bindings or plastic covers for your term paper. A single staple in the upper left hand corner is all that is necessary. But you do need a cover page that identifies the title of your paper, the author,and any other key information that is necessary to identify the paper (class name and number).
Not all results need to go into the paper. Some preliminary or secondary
analyses may be attached as an appendix. References to these results should be
clearly noted both in the text of the paper and in the appendix.