Research Paper Part 3: FINAL PAPER

I've read at least 500 of these in my life and I've got a few tips for you to help you do as well as you can. I want to give everyone an A. I love A papers - they are enjoyable to read and they are much quicker to grade. Everyone wins. Here are things that will help you earn an A.

The Right Topic

Pick the right topic! It is amazing to me how many people have basically limited their grade just by choosing an inappropriate topic. What makes a topic "good"? Well it should:

Be international in scope. Don't write about something that focuses on the US. I love American politics (I teach that class too!) but for an IR paper your topic should focus on international issues.

Be contemporary. As it turns out, I also love history - I was a history major in college after all. But it is so much easier to do well on this paper by focusing on a contemporary topic.

Be able to answer all FIVE questions with it. Look over the five questions (summary, international agreements/IOs/NGOs, relevant states, theories, future of the issue). If you don't think you can answer one or more of those with your topic, it's probably not a good topic.

Talk to me about it. After reading 500+ of these I've gotten really good about seeing potential pitfalls with topic selection. Send me an e-mail. Include me in the process.

Reread That Assignment

Read the assignment thoroughly. Read it twice. Notice the MOST IMPORTANT part of the assignment: the five questions you need to answer. Make it easy on yourself and structure your paper around those five questions. Answer each for 400-500 words. Label the sections of your paper after each of them. Check out the rubric at the end of the paper. Follow it as completely as you can.

Academic Integrity

When in doubt, CITE. Every semester there are at least two or three students who receive zeros on their papers for plagiarism. Some of them knowingly plagiarized. Others failed to realize that if you directly quote someone, you need to attribute their words to them. BUT EVEN IF YOU ONLY USE THEIR IDEAS IN YOUR OWN WORDS YOU STILL NEED TO ATTRIBUTE IT TO THEM. You can do that by using footnotes or endnotes or paranthetical citation such as at the end of this sentence (Fuerstman, 2012). You can use MLA or APA or Chicago or whatever style you want, just stay consistent. And add a works cited page because you don't want the -10% penalty.

A Little Editing Goes A Long Way

Proofread, proofread, proofread. I know how hard this can be. It's best if you can finish the paper a day or two before the deadline to give yourself some space. It's a lot harder to edit something you just wrote. But even if you finish it four hours before it's due, there's one trick for editing that can help almost anyone. Read the paper out loud to yourself, slowly. The best tool you have for writing is actually your ears. You can often hear when things sound a bit off. You probably want to write a bit more formally than you talk but you'll still be able to tell if you've got typos or the wrong word in the wrong place, etc.

On the whole the papers are you usually very good, but a few key changes here and there can help everyone do better. Good luck!