For additional information and resources, visit the Criminal Justice Research Guides or the Political Science Research Guides.
You are a consultant/researcher and were recently hired by Georgia Department of Community Supervision (DCS) to give policy recommendations on their community-supervised offenders. They are particularly interested in the topic RECIDIVISM. Like many criminal justice agencies, they are interested in reducing recidivism. More specifically, how they can increase successful completion among their supervised offenders.
DCS provided you with a dataset of individualized community-supervised offenders information (see data and variables list). You will analyze the dataset and produce a research paper that contains recommendations on how to reduce recidivism and successfully integrate more reentry offenders into the community.
In no more than 8 double-spaced pages, please identify and review the major studies that have examined your topic in the past. What are their methodological strengths and weaknesses? How does your research build from these studies and fill the gap in the literature? In other words, how does your study contribute to the current knowledge of the subject? It should include all relevant findings from credible sources, such as academic books and peer-reviewed journal articles. The literature review should lead to your thesis statement and be followed by the major hypotheses that your study will test (You can always review your hypothesis later)
Writing a Research Paper in Political Science by
Writing an introduction, coming up with effective headings and titles, presenting a conclusion, and the important steps of editing and revising are covered with class-tested advice and know-how in this book. In addition to using updated examples of student topics that pull from both American government and international relations, Baglione also includes examples of actual student writing to show readers how someone "just like them" accomplished tasks while writing their papers. Practical summaries, calendars, exercises, and a series of handy checklists make this a must-have supplement for any writing-intensive political science course.
Writing in Political Science by
A complete resource for writing an effective paper, Diane Schmidt's latest edition of Writing in Political Science gives students a practical guide for writing and arguing about political events, ideas, passions and agendas. A collection of actual student essays shows you how to write your way to a better grade. After reading Writing in Political Science students will know how to: Choose and narrow a research topic Formulate a research agenda Quickly locate reputable information online Execute a study and write about your findings Use the vocabulary of political science discourse Follow the criteria used to evaluate student assignments when writing Apply your writing skills to an internship, civic engagement project, or work-study program Manage and preserve achievements for career development
Empirical Research and Writing : a political science student's practical guide by
This book offers clear, detailed, and often entertaining instructions for formulating hypothesis, doing pre-research, selecting appropriate research designs, selecting cases, collecting and managing both qualitative and quantitative data, preparing data for analysis, writing up research findings, practicing peer review, and delivering findings in posters and presentations, and preparing work for publication. Each chapter contains interesting and useful examples (both hypothetical and real), exercises to help students apply what they've learned, and pedagogical features to inspire, instructor, and aid further research, including "Peer Pointers" (quotes from former students that illustrate "aha!" moments), "Talking Tips" (fundamental and surprising tip for research), and appendix materials that include formatting guidelines and a list of major data sources for political science. Making the book as turnkey as possible are downloadable student and instructor resources, including lesson plans and activities for instructors, solutions manual to in-text exercises, links to common citation guides, data sources, journals that publish student papers, and conferences where students can share papers and posters.
Writing in Political Science: a brief guide by
Writing in Political Science: A Brief Guide applies the key concepts of rhetoric and composition - audience, purpose, genre, and credibility - to examples based in political science. It is part of a series of brief, discipline-specific writing guides from Oxford University Press designed fortoday's writing-intensive college courses. The series is edited by Tom Deans (University of Connecticut) and Mya Poe (Northeastern University).
