Research question topic for political science
In-text citation and referencing
Every fact and claim/opinion (which is not yours) you mention in your paper has to have a source.
When we mention the source in the body of the paper (in-text citation), we only write the last name of the author(s), the year of publication, and the page number(s) in case of a quote.
The form of in-text citation does not depend on the type of source, e.g., book, journal paper, newspaper article.
Every in-text citation should have a corresponding full reference at the end of the essay.
In-text citation
When the source has one author
Format: last_name year
Example: In 2008 and 2009, a total of 5,740 children and teenagers died from gun shots across America (Gopnik 2012).
When the source has two authors
Format: first_author’s_last_name and second_author’s_last_name year
Example: Filindra and Kaplan (2016) find various similarities between the gun rights movement and the anti-civil rights resistance.
When the source has three or more authors
Format: first_author’s_last_name et al. year
Example: The Michigan Felony Firearm Statute did not result in the expected reduction in gun crime in Detroit (Loftin et al. 1983).
In-text citation (continued)
When directly quoting from the author
Format: author’s_last_name (year: page_on_which_the_quote_is)
Example: Lasswell (1958: 37) defines political science as the study of “who get what, when, and how.”
Taking information from a webpage which does not have an author
Format: Add a footnote at the end of the sentence and in the footnote paste the link of the page, followed by (accessed month_in_words date, year) (note: such a source will not have an entry in the bibliography)
Full references in the bibliography
Newspaper or magazine article
Example: Gopnik, Adam. 2012. The Simple Truth About Gun Control, The New Yorker, December 19.
Journal article
Example (1 author): Aggarwal, Ankita. 2016. The MGNREGA Crisis: Insights from Jharkhand. Economic and Political Weekly 51, No. 22 (May): 38-43.
Example (2 authors): Sambanis, Nicholas and Moses Shayo. 2013. “Social Identification and Ethnic Conflict,” The American Political Science Review 107, No. 2 (May): 294-325.
Example (3 authors): Loftin, Colin, Milton Heumann, and David McDowall. 1983. Mandatory Sentencing and Firearms Violence: Evaluating an Alternative to Gun Control. Law & Society Review 17, No. 2: 287-318.
Full references in the bibliography (continued)
Book
Example (1 author): Spitzer, Robert J. 2016. Politics of Gun Control. New York: Routledge.
Chapter in a book (where chapter author(s) and book editor(s) are different)
Example (1 chapter author, 1 book editor): Nagareda, Richard A. 2009. “Gun Litigation in the Mass Tort Context,” in Suing the Gun Industry, ed. Timothy D. Lytton. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Example (2 chapter authors and 3 book editors): Koopmans, Ruud and Paul Statham. 1999. “Ethnic and Civic Conceptions of Nationhood and the Differential Success of the Extreme Right in Germany and Italy,” in How Social Movements Matter, eds. Giugni, Marco, Dough McAdam, and Charles Tilly. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Assignment
Submit at least five relevant sources for your research paper by 29 September.
The sources must be cited in a standard referencing system.
At least one of your sources should not be older than two years.
Try to ensure diversity in your sources and their content.