The Craft of Research

Having a capability to conduct basic research is an important skill as a political science major. It allows you to explore the areas of the political world that interest you. It also allows you to be a critical consumer of other research. Some research is good – some research is sloppy, and findings questionable (and in some cases even fraudulent). You should be able to “separate the wheat from the chaff.”

This paper is designed to be a very basic introduction to research. With that in mind, there are 7 basic steps in the process:

1. Literature Review – While it doesn’t necessarily have to be first, it needs to be one of the first steps. It is important to know what questions other researchers have addressed. It can certainly be a frustrating experience to go through your own research process only to find out that someone else had already answered your question years ago. Beyond avoiding “reinventing the wheel,” literature reviews are also useful as a guide to how to conduct your own research. They may provide theories, conceptual definitions or even data sources that you had not considered.

2. Question Development – The first task in your specific research is to develop a research question – the “why question.” For instance, “why do incumbent candidates win more often than challengers?” This step will identify what is being investigated and will point the research project in the direction of providing an explanation for that phenomenon. Without this step, the research process can become confused and muddled.

3. Conceptual Definitions – Often in political science (and politics), we are dealing with phenomena which can have multiple definitions. What is Power? Democracy? Representation? For instance, both sides of the affirmative action debate say they are the side which is advocating “equality.” The difference is that the anti-affirmative action groups define “equality” as the process, whereas the pro-affirmative action forces define “equality” as the outcome. To avoid this problem in your research, it is important to specify exactly how you are defining your concepts. In particular, your definition should link your concept to observable and measurable phenomena.

4. Proposed Hypothesis – Hypotheses are essentially guesses. Now, that being said, they are educated guesses. In a more formal sense, they are defined as “explicit statements that indicate how a researcher thinks the phenomena of interest are related.” Again, if you have defined your concepts into specific indicators, it makes validating or disproving your hypothesis much easier.

5. Data Collection – You have to have information on the subject if you are going to analyze the subject. Your research design will specify exactly how you will gather the information in the most practical and efficient manner. It is essentially your plan as to how you will collect your data. There are 3 primary sources of data in political science:

· Documentation – Written records of previously gathered information. This can be particularly useful when trying to analyze phenomena that are distant in terms of either distance or time.

· Observation – Either directly or indirectly, you personally observe some activity personally. For instance, in Home Style, Richard Fenno observed the relationship that congressmen have with their constituents by actually going with them to their home districts and watching their activities.

· Interviewing and Surveys – This method of data collection is particularly useful to social scientists since we are often interested in preferences, motivations, etc. Surveys and interviews allow you to ask what people are “thinking” as a way to understanding what they are “doing.”

6. Analysis – After gathering your information, you must tell the reader what you have discovered. Does the evidence support you hypothesis? This can take the form of a statistical analysis where you will use quantitative data to illustrate your relationship. It can also be more contextually oriented such as a case study (or multiple case study). Both are valid and useful approaches to analyzing phenomena. Indeed, the most compelling research usually utilizes a combination of the two.

7. Findings and Conclusion – This section is where you get to report on what you have uncovered, what its significance is, and where the future research projects in this area should focus. What do your findings mean for political science theories related to your topic? In this section, it is also acceptable to talk about the normative implications to your findings. For instance, if I find that incumbents win elections more often because they always raise more money, I might speculate that the process is less democratic than it could be and advocate the cause of campaign finance reform.

Note: The actual paper does not have to conform to these headings. Many papers will integrate the literature reviews and conceptual definitions into an introduction section. The point is that to write an effective research paper (regardless of how you structure the paper), you must follow this basic research process to get the necessary information.