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Research paper format

Research paper format. Introduction Theory & Literature Review Research design Results Conclusions (& limitations). I) Introduction. Identify the general question/puzzle that motivates this research

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Research paper format

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  1. Research paper format • Introduction • Theory & Literature Review • Research design • Results • Conclusions (& limitations)

  2. I) Introduction • Identify the general question/puzzle that motivates this research • BBD: In response to claims that policy variation is unrelated to political variables, BBD ask: do parties make a difference? • Briefly discuss the state of the art (i.e. previous work) and explain what your contribution is: • BBD: existing studies offer conflicting evidence and use small number of cases (pg. 47) • Summarize concisely what you do in this paper: • BBD: “Our objective is to determine whether it matters which party forms the government. We intend to assess the impact of parties on the size of government”

  3. II) Theory & Literature Review • Summarize existing theoretical explanations for the phenomenon you are exploring and, possibly, your own novel theoretical contribution. • BBD: Question 1: Do parties make a difference? • Downs: expects party convergence to median voter and thus no party difference. • Strom et al: parties have goals other than election, namely, implementing preferred policies and thus party policy choices will differ based on ideology of party leaders. • Strom II: Parties are not unitary actors, they depend on partisan activists for various resources and thus must be partially responsive to these activists and thus party positions will diverge. • Other constraints: bureaucracy and interest groups affect ability of parties to implement their most preferred policies. • General conclusion: parties will matter but only moderately.

  4. II) Theory & Literature Review • Summarize existing theoretical explanations (cont’d…) • BBD Q2: What kind of difference? • Parties can be arrayed in left-right continuum. • This continuum essentially boils down to the relative role of the state vs the free market. • “To the extent that parties differ, then, one substantial difference should be the greater propensity among parties of the left to resort to government intervention and among parties of the right to rely on the market”…

  5. II) Theory & Literature Review • State the hypothesis (hypotheses) to be tested: • BBD Hypothesis: “In other words the more leftist a government, the greater the size of government” • BBD Hypothesis II: Parties have less impact on government size when there is a minority government.

  6. II) Theory & Literature Review • Review existing empirical studies that have tackled the same question, summarize their results, explain why your test is different and (ideally) better: • BBD: Include a very large section which reviews many studies. They conclude… • “The empirical literature, therefore, does not offer a clear answer as to whether parties of the left spend more than those of the right…. The results, moreover, are usually based on a few observations…. This calls for a more thorough analysis that combines cross-sectional and longitudinal dimensions.

  7. II) (Your) Theory & Literature Review • Normally the theory/literature review section of the paper is relatively large and detailed. For our purposes this need not be the case. • You still need to identify existing theories that are relevant to your research question but you do not need to summarize and cite all other studies that are related to yours. • This should not be perceived as permission to plagiarize. If you are testing an existing theory you need to cite the source where you found it. • It is unlikely that any of you will be testing original and novel theories. What will be unique about your papers is that no one else will have ever used your data to test these theories. • You do not need to summarize all existing studies on your topic (like BBD). Evidence that you have consulted some existing empirical studies would be good and you should certainly cite any articles/books you have consulted. But you are not expected to provide an exhaustive summary of the literature.

  8. III) Research Design • Explain the data and methods you used to test your hypothesis (& defend/explain choices). • Your research design section should include: unit of analysis, measurement of DV, measurement of IV, control variables, how you collected your data, and how you analyzed the data. • BBD (Reappraisal): • Unit: country-year. (15 liberal democracies over 28 years) • DV: Change in central government spending. • Key IV: Party composition of government (difference in % of seats in the cabinet held by parties of the left and parties of the right). • Control IV: Unemployment, GDP, Lagged Debt. • Method of analysis: regression (time-series cross section)

  9. IV) Results • Report what you found in your analysis of the data you collected. • Explain clearly whether your results are consistent or inconsistent with your hypothesis. • If you have statistical results, explain them in words. • BBD: “Everything else being equal, central government spending increases by 0.4 percentage points more when the government is entirely controlled by the left, compared to when the government is entirely controlled by the right.” • “…if the left controls the government over a period of 10 years, spending will have increased by 5 % points” • No effect of interaction between ‘party’ and ‘minority’ and thus party does not have less impact when there is a minority government.

  10. IV) Results • Report what you found in your analysis of the data you collected (cont’d…) • Make clear what the general implications of your findings are: • BBD: “on the basic question of whether parties make a difference, our verdict that they do make a difference, though a small one, remains intact”

  11. V) Conclusion (& limitations) • Summarize the main finding of your paper and reiterate why it is important. • For your papers, I also want you to use this section to highlight the main limitations of your study. For example: • Were there other variables that might influence your dependent variable that you were unable to control for? • Is one of your measures not ideal? • Do you expect that your findings are generalizable (i.e. they apply to similar situations such as other policy domains or other years or other countries?)?

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