Empirical Research and Writing

Höfundur: Leanne C. Powner (Útgáfa: 2)
Empirical Research and Writing

Kaup valmöguleikar

Empirical research papers are a mix of technical skill and unwritten insider information. Providing practical guidance on how to design, analyze, and write about research, this engaging second edition is fully updated with expanded coverage of finding and using data, a topical running example, and new appendices introducing quantitative analysis techniques. It covers everything from crafting a question, theory, and hypotheses to choosing a research design, acquiring and analyzing data, drafting, peer review, and presenting your work.

Practical strategies are combined with a step-by-step breakdown of every stage of the research design and writing processes, conveyed with clarity and humor. The intuitive presentation illustrates the core insights and concepts in a lively and accessible manner for readers, including those with no mathematical background and from fields beyond political science. New 'Common Challenges' boxes join a wealth of inspiring pedagogical features.

Nánar um bókina

Útgefandi
Cambridge University Press
ISBN
9781009651967
Print ISBN
9781009651936
Format
Page Fidelity (PDF)
Útgáfa
2
Höfundar
Leanne C. Powner
Tungumál
English
Útgefið
2026-01-22
Prent takmörkun á líftíma
10
Prent takmörkun
2
Afritunar takmörkun
2

Kaflar

  • Half-title page
  • Reviews
  • Title page
  • Copyright page
  • Dedication
  • Brief Contents
  • Detailed Contents
  • List of Figures
  • List of Tables
  • Preface
  • To the Student
  • Why Do We Need an Entire Book to Tell Us How to Write a Single Paper?
  • How Do I Use This Book?
  • Why Are You Making Us Do This? And Why Do You Have Such High Expectations? Can’t We Just Do It the
  • This Is Still Going to Be Hard. What Else Will Help?
  • What Kind of Nutter Are You?
  • To the Instructor
  • Changes to the Second Edition
  • Acknowledgments
  • Glossary
  • Part I The Preliminaries
  • 1 From Research Topic to Research Question
  • Doing Social Science
  • Research Questions and This Course’s Research Project
  • From Research Topic to Research Question
  • Crafting a Research Question
  • Finding and Refining a Research Question
  • Where Do Research Questions Come From?
  • How to Phrase a Research Question
  • Writing Your Paper
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 2 From Research Question to Theory
  • What Is a Theory?
  • The Parts of a Theory
  • Where Theories Come From
  • From Question to Theory
  • DEI Efforts as a Concept
  • Anti-DEI Challenges as a Concept
  • From Concepts to Theory
  • Tools for Theorizing
  • Identifying Potential Explanations
  • Parsing the Theory: The Causal Mechanism
  • Specifying Assumptions and Scope Conditions
  • Writing Your Theory Section
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 3 From Theory to Hypothesis
  • From Theory to Hypothesis
  • The Parts of a Hypothesis
  • Types of Hypotheses
  • Four Probabilistic Hypothesis Types
  • Directional Hypotheses
  • Hypotheses of No Relationship
  • Relative Hypotheses
  • Conditional Hypotheses
  • Two Deterministic Hypothesis Types
  • Examples of Hypotheses About Anti-DEI Efforts
  • Hypotheses and Evidence
  • A Caveat About Hypotheses
  • Exploring Measurement
  • Concepts, Indicators, and Validity
  • The Ethics of Hypothesizing and Finding
  • Writing About Hypotheses
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • Part II The Practicalities
  • 4 Finding Out What We Already Know
  • The Parts of an Empirical Paper
  • How to Think About Literature(s)
  • What a Literature Review Is Not
  • How to Find Literature(s)
  • The Ethics of Using Unpublished Work
  • How to Organize Literature(s)
  • Managing the Reading and Information
  • A Few Last Thoughts
  • Managing the Reference List
  • How Many Sources Do I Need?
  • How to Write the Literature Review
  • Strategies for Finding an Organizational Structure
  • Organizing a Literature
  • Actually Writing the [********] Thing
  • A Sample Literature Review Excerpt
  • A Good Revision
  • A Better Revision
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 5 Choosing a Design That Fits Your Question
  • What Type of Analysis Should I Conduct?
  • Similarities and Differences in Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
  • Strengths and Weaknesses of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
  • Overview of Techniques
  • Major Forms of Quantitative Analysis
  • Major Forms of Qualitative Analysis
  • Within Case
  • Between Case
  • Other Technique Families
  • Intermediate-N Designs
  • Content Analysis
  • Mixed Methods Designs
  • Big Data
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 6 Case Selection and Study Design for Qualitative Research
  • Qualitative Study Design
  • How Many Cases Should I Study?
  • Which Cases Should I Study?
  • A Note on Background Research
  • Hypothesis-Testing Techniques and Case Selection
  • Analytic Narratives
  • Study Design and Case Selection
  • Case Control/Controlled-Comparison Method
  • Study Design and Case Selection
  • Structured Focused Comparison
  • Study Design and Case Selection
  • Process Tracing
  • Study Design and Case Selection
  • Examples of Qualitative Designs
  • Process Tracing with Case Control
  • Structured Focused Comparison
  • Analytic Narrative
  • Writing Your Methodology Section
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 7 Qualitative Data Collection and Management
  • Information, Data, and Evidence
  • Information versus Data
  • Measurement
  • Validity and Reliability in Qualitative Measurement
  • Maximizing Leverage over Your Hypotheses
  • Kinds of Qualitative Data Sources
  • Data and Counter-factuals
  • Data Collection Techniques
  • Research from Sources
  • Archival Research
  • Human Subjects Research and Its Ethics
  • Elite Interviewing
  • Sources and Resources
  • Data Management Options
  • Writing About Data Collection
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 8 Quantitative Data Acquisition and Management
  • Identifying Data Needs: What Cases?
  • Units of Analysis
  • Populations and Samples
  • Identifying Data Needs: What Variables?
  • Control Variables
  • Multiple Indicators and Robustness Checks
  • Measurement: Matching Concepts to Indicators
  • Operationalization: Validity
  • Matching Concepts and Indicators
  • Measurement: Reliability
  • Getting Ready-To-Use Data
  • Replication Datasets
  • Data Repositories
  • The Ethics of Citing Datasets
  • Collecting and Managing Your Own Data
  • A Brief Discussion of Coding
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 9 Preparing to Analyze Quantitative Data
  • File Preparation and Data Import
  • Tidying Up
  • Variables, Variable Names, and Variable Labels
  • Cleaning: The Chores List
  • Detecting and Dealing with Nonlinearity
  • Dealing with Nonlinearities
  • Detecting and Addressing Collinearity
  • Other Data Manipulations
  • Generating New Composite Variables
  • Making Scales and Indices: Cronbach’s Alpha
  • Generating Interaction Terms
  • Recoding Variables
  • The Theory-Data Danger Zone: Endogeneity, Simultaneity, and Omitted Variable Bias
  • Endogeneity and Simultaneity
  • Omitted Variable Bias
  • Nonlinear Models
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • Part III Prose and Processes
  • 10 Writing Up Your Research
  • The Abstract
  • The Bookends
  • The Introduction
  • The Conclusion
  • The Results: Conventions of Reporting and Discussing Quantitative Analysis
  • Tables and Figures
  • Conventions of Reporting Results
  • Regression
  • Difference of Means Test
  • Chi-Squared Test
  • Discussing Qualitative Evidence and Claims
  • Be Explicit About the Study’s Limitations
  • Confine Your Conclusions
  • The Ethics of Writing Up: The Acknowledgments
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 11 Practicing Peer Review
  • Writing Without Whining
  • Self-Editing
  • Strategies for Self-Editing
  • Editing for Style and Tone: Social Science Writing
  • A Note on How Much Background Is Enough
  • Practicing Peer Review
  • Peer Review in the Social Sciences
  • Getting the Most out of Peer Review
  • Procedures for Peer Review
  • Reviewing Research Preliminaries and Design
  • Reviewing Qualitative Research
  • Reviewing Quantitative Research
  • Writing Your Review of Peer Research
  • The Ethics of Peer Reviewing
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • 12 Posters, Presentations, and Publishing
  • Presentations
  • Logistics
  • Preparing Your Presentation
  • Presenting Your Paper
  • Participating as a Discussant
  • Posters
  • Logistics
  • Preparing Your Poster
  • Preparing to Present Your Poster
  • Slip ‘n’ Slide
  • Graphing Quantitative Results
  • Post-Paper Possibilities
  • Presentation
  • Professional Conferences
  • Publication
  • Brief Remarks on Graduate Study in Political Science and International Relations
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • Appendix A Quantitative Foundations
  • Variables, Distributions, and Descriptive Statistics
  • From Description to Inference
  • Populations and Samples
  • Sampling
  • Sampling Distributions
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • Appendix B Quantitative Applications
  • Tabular Analysis and the Chi-Squared Statistic
  • From Description to Inference: The Chi-Squared Test
  • Interpreting a χ[sup(2)] Test
  • Moving up the Measurement Scale: Differences in Means
  • Interpreting t-test Output
  • Regression: Mixing IV Types with Continuous DVs
  • Moving on: Regression
  • Interpreting Regression Results
  • What Do We Mean by “Control”?
  • Presenting Regression Results
  • Mixing IV Types
  • Summary
  • Key Terms
  • References
  • Index