The following pointers reflect a number of qualities that I look for when I grade a student's paper. If you pay attention to these suggestions, your writing will be more forceful and effective and you will avoid some serious writing problems.

1. Answer the question. If the assignment involves answering a question I have posed, your task is to address the problem put before you. In other writing assignments, including term papers and review essays, you are posing one or more questions for yourself. Either way, please bear the following in mind: It takes discipline to stick to the subject at hand, especially when almost any question will limit you and prevent you from exploring some interesting issue or citing some noteworthy fact. But learning to distinguish material that bears on a topic is an important step in developing your powers of mental discrimination. Refer back to the question(s) frequently while you write and stick to the point.

2. Introduction. The introduction is the most important part of the paper. If you get it right, what follows becomes much easier. So please note carefully what I think an introduction ought to accomplish.

Readers of your paper cannot know what it intends to show and how it will proceed unless you tell them up front. The introduction should identify the problem you will address and indicate how you intend to go about making your argument, step by step. You should think of the introduction as an outline within the paper or a road map for your readers that shows not just the final destination but the route you will follow to get there. (In any paper of ten pages or less, the introduction should be the first paragraph.)

Do not waste time with preliminaries such as attention-getting devices. I gave you the assignment, so you already have my attention. For a short paper (under ten pages), state your central claim/point in the very first sentence.

You also need to introduce the major substantive claims of your paper in the introduction. Readers have a right to know where you are taking them -- you're not writing a mystery novel here, so suspense has no value. It will be your job in the paper itself to actually support the claims you make in the introduction. As a general rule, use one sentence for each of the main sections of the argument. (See appendix "Sample Paper Introduction.")

The introduction should be both the first and last part of the paper that you write. You cannot write effectively unless you have thought through the entire paper and drawn up some kind of an outline. These pre-writing steps become the basis for the first introduction. (They also save you from stream-of-consciousness writing, a creative process that should never be confused with analytical argument.) At the same time, no initial introduction can be perfect, because as you present the argument you will make changes and decide to rearrange the pieces. When you have finished the body of the paper, go back and adjust the introduction so that it previews the actual content of the paper.

3. Paper organization. Now that you've written an introduction, you must stay on the path you've laid out for your readers. The outline you presented will remain in the readers' minds, and they will expect you to deliver as promised and in the order you promised. Readers should never be forced to guess about which part of the topic you are addressing at any given point in the paper.

A paper will be held together by the transitions you use linking paragraphs. Unfortunately, this is one of the most common weak points in many papers, including published work. Remember that transitions are tools for expressing the logical relationship between points and therefore must be used with the utmost precision. For example, a term like "however" indicates a contradiction and should not be used to link points that are merely dissimilar.

4. Tyranny of the paragraph. The organization of your paper must be sustained throughout each paragraph. The points I made under "paper organization" again hold true here. But writing proper paragraphs can be more difficult than organizing the whole paper. For the paper as a whole you can refer back to the introduction to make sure you stay on the right path; for each paragraph you essentially work from scratch.

I will suggest a number of familiar things to keep in mind as you construct paragraphs. First and foremost, the topic sentence (almost always the opening sentence in the paragraph) has to carry the greatest burden and therefore should be constructed with special care. Readers need to be told both what the paragraph is about and how it relates to the rest of the paper. The topic sentence communicates this information. Accordingly, it must (1) contain a logical connection to the preceding paragraph through some kind of transition and (2) give a clear overview of the paragraph itself. Second, the topic sentence rules over the paragraph, determining what belongs and what doesn't. If a point does not relate clearly to the theme announced by the topic sentence, it does not belong in that paragraph. Put it somewhere else. (A warning sign: when you notice a paragraph wandering on for over a page, you almost surely have included material not relevant to the topic sentence and should therefore look for logical paragraph breaks.) Third, transitions are important within paragraphs, too. Handle them with care, because upon them rests the logic of the basic unit of your argument. Fourth, the transition to the next paragraph belongs in the next paragraph - do not end paragraphs with transitions.

5. Writing is easy, thinking is not. When I find myself having trouble with my writing, I stop long enough to ask myself whether I know what I want to say. I do the same thing when I read: I ask whether the writer has made up his/her mind. Virtually every writing problem that arises in the introduction, the paper organization, the topic sentences, or the internal coherence of the paragraphs reflects a breakdown in reasoning. If you haven't understood the problem before you or if you are not sure where you stand, your words will reflect the confusion or incompleteness of your thinking. The result will be poorly-formed arguments.

6. Write within yourself. You probably have a style of writing with which you are comfortable, and I would urge you to adhere to that style. Students sometimes write as though big words and elaborate sentences will impress an instructor. But if that's not your natural style, you end up sounding pretentious and your writing tends to become labored, wordy, and awkward. I am partial to a paper that expresses its point clearly with a vocabulary that is correctly employed.

7. Avoid passive voice. Politics is a field of human actions in which we always seek to know who committed a particular act. Passive voice -- the use of intransitive verbs -- obscures the subjects engaged in political activity and discourse. Consider the following: "The Constitution was criticized as an elitist document, and it was challenged in each state." Note how we cannot determine from this sentence who criticized or challenged the Constitution. This kind of information matters in the study of politics -- and in every social science. Use active verbs whenever possible.

8. Identify the speaker. When you get involved in a subject, you may absorb the point- of-view of an author. This can have two negative consequences. First, as you write the paper, you fail to make clear who is speaking -- you or the author of the book or article you have been using. Second, you tend to lose your critical perspective, adopting instead that of the source. I want you to maintain your perspective and distinguish carefully your own views from those expressed by someone else.

9. Quotations and sources. A paper should never consist primarily of direct quotations from other sources. I expect you to demonstrate that you've understood what you read by putting it in your own words. And if you do find it necessary to quote someone, keep it short. Bear in mind that a quotation may still need to be explained; don't expect your readers to see how it fits into your argument. (In part for this reason, quotations make poor topic sentences.) Also remember that when you quote from a source, you do so only because the author expresses a point in language that is unusually powerful or distinctive. There is therefore no reason to quote directly mere factual statements. Many paper assignments contain specific limits on the amount of quoted material you may use.

When you derive information or ideas from other sources you are required to acknowledge them. Students sometimes think they only need to use a footnote when quoting directly from a source, but all facts, conjecture, and interpretation that a paper writer draws from someone else must be credited.

Assignments usually specify the format style I want you to use. If the assignment does not direct you to use a particular style, use one of the common in-text citation systems, with full source information at the end of the paper. Take care to cite authors, not editors of books or anthologies, both in the text and at the end of the paper.

10. Important technical details. Please take note of the following when you are writing: (1) All papers must be word-processed. (2) Papers must be double-spaced, in 12-point font size, left-margin justified, with one-inch margins on all sides. Do not assume your word-processing program uses these as its default setting, so check. (3) Always make a photocopy of your paper before you turn it in. Papers sometimes get lost or damaged. You are responsible for providing a replacement. (4) To check for possible plagiarism, I reserve the right to request a computer file of any assignment. (5) Computer malfunction is not a valid reason for turning a paper in late. Precisely because a computer may devour documents, you should keep hardcopy backups of rough drafts and make use of features common in word-processing programs to make automatic backups of your paper. If something goes wrong, you will be able to replace the paper quickly. Expect no sympathy should you fail to exercise these simple precautions. (6) Never slip a paper under my office door. If you do not hand it to me in class, leave it in my mailbox in the political science department office (1724 HW). (7) I impose late penalties on all assignments unless you provide a documented, valid excuse. These penalties become more severe the later the paper. If you turn in a late paper at the department, ask the secretary to initial it and note the date and time. Otherwise, given that I may not retrieve the paper for another day or longer, you continue to accrue "late charges."
 

POLSC 301 Professor Andrew J. Polsky

American Political Thought Spring 2007
 

6. Contrast and compare the theory of representation expressed by Publius in the Federalist Papers with that held by the Anti-Federalists. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each theory?

Sample introduction, based on the paper-writing guidelines:

"Although both backers of the Constitution and their foes agree that a republic must be based on the consent of the broad mass of the people, they differ sharply over the form that representation should assume. Publius argues that a relatively modest number of elected representatives can speak for the people because the people retain effective control through frequent elections. Further, Publius stresses the value of delay and deliberation to direct the voice of the people to serve the people's public interest. By contrast, the Anti-Federalists insisted a representative body ought to look like the people themselves and be sufficiently large as to assure the participation of the middle order of society. They also feared the impact of distance and diversity on a workable legislative body. The Federalist conception of representation correctly stresses that elections represent a powerful tool for tying representatives to their constituents, but it minimizes the challenge of making the legislature the voice of all the people. On the other hand, the Anti-Federalists, though carefully attuned to the need to design a legislature that could empathize with all types of people, underestimated the power of elections to keep representatives responsive to the people."