Paper topic
o Identify a current event or topic on a news item in the past six months. Your choice should be directly related to what we have been discussing in class (i.e., American politics or government) and limited to a domestic issue. Your topic can be related to the federal, state, or local governments or a multiple level of governments.
o You should choose a news article from a reputable publication. Do not use a news story from news aggregating sites such as Drudge Report or Huntington Post or that from a television network.
E.g. Appropriate news sources: the New York Times, the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times, the Hill, the Economist, or Newsweek.
o You should not pick an op-ed, an editorial, or a column.
What to include in your paper
1. Have a title that is concise and informative.
2. Have an introduction paragraph describing what this paper is about.
3. Provide a brief summary of the news article you choose. Your summary should
not exceed 250 words.
4. Identify four concepts and/or theories that you learned from class. You need to clearly name these concepts. * If you cannot make four connections between your news article and what you have learned in class, find another article.
5. Clearly Explain what those concepts mean.
6. Examine how the concepts and/or theories relate to the event you choose. In
examining the concepts, you should use at least four additional sources beyond the required materials for this class. You must properly cite those sources.
Examples of additional sources include scholarly journal articles (e.g., American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Annual Review of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly), governmental agencies reports, and books.
7. State and explain your own position on the issue under review.
8. End your paper with a concluding paragraph.
9. Provide References
Cite all the sources used for quotes, statistics, and facts in body text. *
Plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the course.
Provide a list of sources in a reference section.
Formats and Page Limit for Papers
o Your write-up must be write-ups must be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, in a 12-point font.
o The length of an entire paper (excluding references, tables, and graphs) should be 1,100~1,300 words. * A paper with less than 1,100 words or more than 1,300 words will get points deducted.
o For your references and citations, please carefully study and follow the Department of Political Science Citation Guide
(https://polisci.cofc.edu/documents/12policitationguide.pdf). Failure to attribute sources correctly may constitute plagiarism and result in a grade of F for the course.
Submit the following two things as a separate file in the designated OAKS folder.
