Order 776769: political philosophy

Writing a Quality Theory Paper

Organization

Introduction: Your intro should include some reference to the question being answered in the paper (hint: It’s the prompt if there is one), and then clearly state your thesis as an answer to the question and a brief summary of the reasons for your view. One should be able to know what your paper is going to argue just from reading the intro. This should be a page at most, and it is often helpful to write the introduction last so you correctly summarize what is actually in the paper.

Body: This is where you should present your arguments. Be sure to use paragraphs to keep your ideas organized and place them in an order that makes logical sense. It is often helpful to “mind dump” in this area and then organize and flesh out your thoughts once you’ve gotten everything on the page.

Conclusion: This should be roughly a mirror of your introduction, though not identical. You should restate your thesis and demonstrate how your paper has proven it. A good conclusion will also posit further questions for study surrounding the topic of your paper.

Finding Sources

Many of the sources used in political theory will be available online for free. Fordham University operates the Ancient and Modern History Sourcebooks, which contain many theory texts. The university library will also have many of them in physical copies, which is how I would recommend citing them.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbookfull.asp

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/modsbookfull.asp

https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

If you want to cite academic literature about the theorist you are writing about, you can utilize the library database search. Keep in mind that scholars have been writing about some of these theorists for hundreds of years. You will have to make your search terms specific to the topic you are discussing, rather than the theorist as a whole. Google Scholar is also useful for finding sources, though you may not always have access to them all (in this case, search for the article you want on the library database). Google Scholar is especially useful for its “cited in” and “cited by” feature, which allows you to find an abundance of sources on a specific topic and see the disagreements between scholars on the subject for your paper.

Citations

You must cite each source you utilize in your paper to avoid plagiarism. In general, more sources and citations are better than fewer.

The American Political Science Association utilizes Chicago (author name, date) format. If Political Science is your major, it is probably wise that you get used to using that format. However, you may prefer to use Chicago with footnotes, MLA, or APA. I personally prefer the footnote version of Chicago; however, MLA is probably the simplest format to learn if you are new to paper writing. Whatever citation style you choose to utilize, make sure you are using it correctly and consistently. You’ll find links to the three primary citation style guides below.

Chicago, both styles: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

MLA: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

APA: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

While you need to know the proper formatting for the style you will use, citationmachine.net is a great tool for making citations quickly without manually formatting each one. It is not perfect, and you will need to fix its mistakes, which requires knowing the format! Use at your own risk.

Making a Good Argument

Make a clear thesis

Back that thesis up with strong premises and evidence

Address counter-arguments

Common Mistakes in Writing or Logic

Basic Sentences Combined

“Jane is good artist she likes to draw horses.” A semicolon would fix this, but both parts are poor sentences on their own.

Non-Sequiturs Written in Haste

“Plato agreed with Machiavelli’s theory on the state.” This is impossible as written, Plato died many years before Machiavelli was born. Instead, write “Machiavelli’s theory on the state shares many ideas with Plato’s” or something similar. Make sure your claims make sense!

“The poor people are bronze.” Are they literally made from bronze? Instead, try something like “Plato argued that the lower classes express a bronze soul because of their desire for more material wealth.”

Quick Tips

It is always better to focus on a narrow topic and discuss it in depth than to paint broad strokes. This is a theory paper, not a book report.

We all know Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Marx are important thinkers who have influenced countless politicians and philosophers since their time and should be studied by all, etc. We also know this is a good way to pad out a poor intro.

Re-read your paper out loud, sentence by sentence. If you don’t know what it says, neither will the person grading it.

Word’s spelling and grammar checker isn’t perfect and will often mark full sentences as fragments. Remember, a sentence only has to have a subject and verb to be complete, but a well written one will have much more than the minimum.