Job options after getting political science degree

Here is a useful collection of ideas from Yahoo! Answers. Worth reading!

What is a cool/fun political science major or job. I was considering teaching.?
Im a junior in college and i am majoring in political science and international relations. I am interested in human rights and inner city issues. Im taking some philosophy classes right now. I have no idea which path to take, and i feel like im wasting my money and time not knowing what i wanna do. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Change your major. I have a poli sci degree and had to get a MPA to get a good job. Good luck.

What's a good job for a political science major besides a lawyer or teacher?
I graduate in December and I'm a double major in history and political science. I hate working in a law firm though, so what else would be cool?

Gov't agencies

Non-Profits

Lots of Businesses will take Poli Sci people

You can dedicate yourself to some voluntay work like the Peace Corps.

I would suggest checking out Assessment.com where you can take the MAPP test. It may give you some ideas of different things you could do.

public administration and other non-profit policy jobs.

I have a B.S. Political Science degree and MPA degree and no JOB!!!?
I have an B.S. Political Science degree and a MPA degree and I cannot find a job. I am currently working for my local police department but I am making pennies. Every job that I apply for turns me down so I am left at a non-progressive department. I am thinking about changing fields but I have no idea what field. I am also thinking about going to law school but I need a break from school. If anyone can help me out and give me some directions it will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I'm going to suggest a career path for you that will let you use your skill set. But first, I'll chastise you a little. I don't know you, so this is clearly out of line--I can only go on the single paragraph you wrote above: Your degrees will not get you a job. You wrote that paragraph in a way that implies, "Hey, I've done my schooling, now it is someone else's obligation to hire me." NOT THE CASE. You need to do two very important things: First, work like it is a full-time job in getting a job. That means work at getting a job from 8:AM until 5:PM Monday through Friday. If you can't send out 60 resumes-a-day, you aren't a very good worker! Your degrees only help show that you have some specific qualifications for some specific types of jobs. A degree doesn't make it anyone else's responsibility to hire you. Second, to hire at a Master's Degree level candidate often takes years to get employed. YEARS! My son applied for a job with the Department of Defense, as a civilian, in 2003, right after he got his Bachelor's degree. He was offered a position that started in June of 2007 (just a few days ago) and after he had completed his Masters of Public Policy. The background and security checks, and getting the opening took that long. (He's very happy now, and loves his job.)The last link below shows that the DoD is still hiring, and they love folks with Master's degrees. Apply with them, but make those applications just one in the 60 or so a-day you should be filling out. Nothing is more important than getting out the 60 or so resume's-a-day. THAT IS YOUR FULL TIME JOB!Finally, don't change career paths now. Let your new employer guide you. If your new employer needs you to get a JD, he'll pay for it.Now, the real way to use your Masters of Public Administration is to get a job with the Federal Government. And the best way to do that is to attach yourself to whichever political candidate you really believe will win the Presidential election in 2008. They will reward those who work on their campaign. The problem here is that no one knows who will win even the party election, let alone the general election. Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney have the best chances to win their respective party races. They have active, professionally run campaigns, and will win their nomination. If you choose wrong though, your work for them is essentially lost for four years and you close a door. If you choose right, you open a door. I can't tell you which (if either) will win. I've included both of their web sites. But you need to work for a campaign as a volunteer for six months, and work up to a paid position. This you can do from wherever you now live. They need local people in every State, in every county, and in every town in America if they're going to win. Forget the hype--choose one of these two. This is a LONG road though. Hillary's campaign workers have to raise $150,000.00 to get "noticed." Mitt's have to raise $100,000.00, before the convention. Both campaigns have hundreds of openings though for doing things like "advance" work (getting the area ready for the candidates arrival); "press" work (making sure the all the local media cover every event); and "community" work (getting local elected officials to the events, and committed to the candidate.) These positions start as "volunteer" positions, but become paid (poorly paid) after you've proven your ability to work 80-hours a week as a volunteer. They'll keep you fed, and clothed, but nothing more. But if your candidate is elected--you've got a job in the new administration.My final word of advice is to WORK at getting a job. This can't be a casual thing. Every city in the nation needs a city manager. Your degree says you'll work for the government. That's good--because they are steady jobs that you'll have a great career path in. But you'll move every two or three years from city to city throughout your career. If you don't like the DoD (which is doing a LOT of hiring now--link included) then go into city management. Start with small cities (Ottawa, Kansas; Rantoul, Illinois; LaGrange, Georgia; Idaho Falls, Idaho; any town with 25,000-50,000 people.) Go to their websites, and look for positions that REQUIRE an MPA. Then, after you've worked for a small city for a year or two, look for a city with a population of 100,000 or so. Work up the ladder. No one is going to let you run the city of Chicago now--until you've "mastered" the skill set to handle smaller city budgets.Your job now is to send out sixty resume's-a-day to every city in the US to become a city manager (or similiar) position. There are more than 10,000 cities with populations of less than 100,000 people in it. They should all have a chance to tell you 'no'. Start each morning with a search of which cities qualify. Start locally, and begin spreading out from there. You won't have heard of most of these towns--but that's okay, they still need a city manager. (Cities under 25,000 people usually can't afford a "manager.")Good luck.The final link is to the census bureau. It can provide you a list of cities with pertinent populations. In summary, my career guidance to you is to get a job with a small US city. Accept any reasonable offer, and use it as a stepping stone to your next position.

Be your own boss. Get a franchise or two

Great job on getting your education in place. That's the first step to being successful!
Unfortunately, you're going to find out that the jobs you most likely want are going to also come with an experience requirement. Now, I don't know anything about your situation, so if I'm off base please excuse me. But, it sounds like you've got the education matched with no experience.
What your degrees will do is get you in the door for the interview. Where you go from there is up to you. Are you willing to start in a position which is "beneath" your level of education until you catch up on the experience? Those that do will find that they'll get the valuable experience necessary to take the next step. Those that don't will be complaining about how educated they are without having a job.
As a law school graduate, let me tell you that getting that degree will put you in the same spot you're in now...except you'll have an additional degree. At some point, you're going to have to take that first job, and it's going to pay less than you expect and you're not going to have the prestige you want. However, you'll get more pay and more prestige the longer you work, and that will vault you ahead of the folks without your educational background.

What job will a Political science bachelors degree get me ?
I would love to work for Procter and Gamble , but not sure if my chances are diminished with this degree even though its a business minor

A Political Science bachelors degree probably will not land you a job at Proctor and Gamble. I would change my major to business.

Political Science degrees are very versatile. They teach public relations and communication which are essential when working in a business environment. I think if you highlighted your strengths when applying for the job with P&G, you should have a strong chance of getting hired. It could be in human resources, public relations, advertising, etc.

I heard working the fries and the cash register were two of the most popular options after graduation for kids in your major

What are some good job fields for Political Science majors?

the thing about majoring in political science (or psychology, sociology, etc. etc.) is that you are not prepared to be a specific profession. if you graduate with a bachelors degree in civil engineering.......you qualify to get a job as a civil engineer. with a bachelors in poli sci, you do not get a job as a "politcal scientist." having said that.....evaluate what you want to do with your life. it may take a while. the key for you is to get a good entry level job and take it from there. good luck.

What kind of a job should a political science grad seek?

a job in the GOP, where the brains, ammbition and leadership lay, its not perfect, BUT nothin is, at least they move foward and arent stuck in nuetral like another party

a teaching position

I got my BS in Poli Sci. I'm going on to get my Masters in Public Administration. If more school isn't in the cards, you could work on a campaign, write books, teach, or do something with the media and political commentary.
If your strengths include international relations, you could try to work somewhere overseas in any public policy area. If you like Environmental policy, work for a company with those interests in mind.
If you want to be in the thick of things, become a lobbyist on Capitol Hill for your favorite interest group. Really, the possibilities are endless.

What is a good job for a political science major?
I graduated last year, with a not so hot gpa. But I am very good with MS Office.

I was a poli sci major myself. Luckily I had a double major with communications to compliment it. Its really tough finding a job with just the poli sci major. Definately go towards lobby groups or firms, or public action or interest groups. Try local offices around your hometown too. Try public affairs offices, or for now try getting an admin job to get your foot in the door. More than likely you will at first probably get a very very low paying job, (I am talking mayb $8-$10 an hour) until you work your way up. Unless you are one of the lucky ones. Also consider getting a masters. Don't forget to try your local chamber and see if they are hiring, or your local county, city or village offices. Try law offices, or temp-agnecies to try your hand at being a paralegal. Insurance offices also might have something you can dab into. Also maybe take a stab at event planning or something different. There is a huge array you can try. You may or may not get a job at a hot-shot office right off the bat, but remember, we all work our way up!

Lobbyist.Send your resume to Political Action Committes (PAC).Major industries all have those.I worked as exec. secretary for one in Arizona. It was formed by members of the mining support industry (heavy equipment manufacturers, utilities and the like).

Look for a job with a politician. Normally they have a section of available jobs on their websites. It could be just for the campaign but that looks very good on a resume, particularly if they win. You would definitely be an asset as well because of your proficiency with MS Office.

get a masters in public administration they make big bucks

You normally have to go on and get a master's in something specific. It's a nice generic undergrad degree for going into law or medicine or criminal justice or education.

How can you find job for a political science student?

Speaking as a poli sci major, there are LOTS of things you could do:
* I joined the U.S. Marine Corps, and as a college graduate, was able to become an officer. It was the most important job I've ever had. (And, of course, the U.S.M.C. is the best of the military services!)
* Political campaigns are ramping up for 2008, so you could get a job in a political campaign, perhaps even a paid one. Just track down the Website of the candidate of your choice, and apply.
* Go to work for the U.S. Federal Government in a civilian role. Check out these sites: - USAJOBS, the main Federal Government job site (lots of jobs on other government job sites, though) - http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/ - USA.gov, connects you to lots of information about the Federal Government plus jobs - http://www.usa.gov/
* For jobs in state or local government, Job-Hunt.org's state and local government page will connect you with literally hundreds and hundreds of local government job sites, by state.

American Politics Canadian Politics Comparative Politics International Relations Methodology Political Psychology Political Science (Field Open) Political Theory Public Administration Public Law Public Policy Other Environmental Politics Rational Choice Theory Research Positions Postdoctoral Fellowships Faculty Exchanges and Other Opportunities

Can you get a good job with a Political Science degree?

Oh sure, look at www.princetonreview.com it will let you know what you can do with the degree.

Maybe as a teacher.

i have a double majot in poli-sci and psych. used the poli-sci to get my jobs, especially in dc (private, not govt) the psych just helped me in those jobs. got my ba in 68.

Usually most people who major in political science go to law school.

You can get a good job period as long as you want one. And if you have a degree regardless of the kind of degree you can get an even better one...just getting one is a good job.

More to follow!

Political science jobs

I compiled a small list of useful catalogues which may help you find some politics-related jobs:

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/browse/politics/
http://www.academicjobseu.com/content/categories/SocialScience-polit.asp
http://www.execsearches.com/exec/
http://www.apsanet.org/
http://www.aspanet.org/scriptcontent/index.cfm
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.heritage.com/
http://www.gopjob.com/
http://www.jobsinnonprofit.com/
http://www.opportunitynocs.org/
http://www.movingideas.org/
http://www.naspaa.org/
http://www.apsanet.org/jobplc/onlinejobs.cfm
http://www.brubach.com/opawebversion3/opa.htm
http://pss.la.psu.edu/
http://www.rollcall.com/
http://www.hillnews.com/
http://www.sector1.net/jobsearch/default.asp
http://www.delaware.gov/agencies/egovernment/agencyindex
http://www.rileyguide.com/
http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/polisci/jobs.html

This list is far from full - I will try to revise and append it in future.

Professional writing in political science

Here is another useful article about writing in political science - reading highly recommended!

Professional Writing in Political Science: A Highly opinionated Essay

This essay is a compendium of the reactions to student writing over a long career, the kinds of ideas that are notes on critiques of numerous papers, articles, theses, and especially, dissertations. It is a set of principles and guide-lines for how to turn the product of political science research into something readable. Or to put it in the negative, it is guidelines for how not to have your work rejected because it is dragged down by the quality of your writing.

1. Attitude

Writing is hard. At its best it is bringing intelligence—to the limit of what we have—toward clarifying a world that is messy in its natural state. None of us do it as well as it could be done. It is a shame that writing is captured by the humanities and taught by those with humanistic inclinations, because the artsy idea that it is “expressive” gets in the way of understanding that it is the application of highly disciplined intelligence.

Writing is thinking. The idea that one might have good ideas but be unable to express them is, I think, wrong. If you can’t express an idea, you haven’t had it. When your prose is muck, it is delusion to believe that you have a clear understanding of a topic. If you’d had it, you could have written it.

Writing is hard also because what you know about your topic is radically different from what a reader knows and also from what he or she wants to know. To succeed in communication, you must figure out what the reader knows and wants to know. That means developing the discipline of reading your own words, from beginning to end, and simulating the reality in the reader’s mind of knowing only what can be known from your words, and in the order you have written them.

(Bad) writers often assert, “I know what I want to say and if the reader can’t figure it out, that is his or her problem!” Wrong. It is your problem. Readers who can’t follow an argument usually conclude that its author is not very smart. And, having been both author and reader, I think readers are right. So, if you have this attitude, that figuring out what your prose means is the reader’s problem, change it or prepare yourself for professional failure.

2. Structure: The Kosher Principle

Part of the rules of keeping kosher is that certain foods ought never to touch one another, that contact contaminates one or both. I have long thought that this idea is a useful principle for good scientific writing, that an exposition contains logically quite different features which ought never to touch one another because doing so contaminates their logical clarity in the reader’s mind.

I strongly suggest as a strategy for writing that these segments be written in a kosher form, that theory is never discussed in the same section, much less paragraph, as literature or design or analysis. Running them together confuses their logical structure in the minds of readers, which is probably caused by the even more dangerous confusion in the mind of the author.

Sometimes this confusion is from intent. Authors who know that they have no original theory like to write sections called “Theory” which are in fact literature review. Having many words to say about other scholar’s theories covers up the absence of original ideas in the current document.

While I don’t like the mechanical aspect of having sections named, “Problem,” “Literature,” “Theory,” and so forth, I do think that this initial structure ought to dominate the author’s conception of the writing task. These are logical requisites, each of which must be accomplished for success.

I take them up in order.

The first section of a paper is the most crucial because readers form initial judgments of the quality of a paper, proposal, or whatever on-line, and initial impressions are unlikely to change if a dull or confused introduction is later followed by brilliant writing in other sections. When I once served on the NSF panel, reading several hundred proposals a year, I compared notes with other panelists, all of whom agreed that we had made pretty solid “fund,” “no fund” decisions from reading page 1, which rarely were altered by finishing the proposal.

So if you don’t capture interest in the problem section, you’ve probably lost the game before the first inning starts. Your challenge is to present the problem, the big picture context of what your work is and why, briefly in a manner that teases the reader into wanting to know the details that come later. This is very hard to do, but its success is so critical that this should be your most careful prose, word for word getting more attention than anything else you write.

A sure fire way to lose reader interest is to begin by writing about the literature. “The literature” is a boring (but necessary) part of scientific writing. But you don’t want to lead with boredom. And how many times do we need to read an author expressing amazement or—with the dishonesty of a mortician pretending grief—expressing misfortune that his or her particular topic has not received attention in the literature. If your justification for your work is a gap in the literature, what is to follow is certain to be tedious and trivial.

One of Mike MacKuen’s former colleagues (I don’t remember for proper citation) once put it perfectly, “This paper fills a much needed gap in the literature.” That’s what I think whenever I see an author berating a gap, that there is probably an excellent reason why all previous scholars have decided that this is a problem that deserves to be ignored.

And a matter of attitude: In real science we build on what came before. So a review that asserts that all previous work is trash, the work of scholars of below normal intelligence, puts me in the frame of mind of thinking that what is likely to follow is so bad that it can only be justified against a literature that is terrible. If your contribution is good, it ought to improve on understanding that is already strong. Compare “I have a better mousetrap” to “No other mousetraps are any good.”

Or, just follow the kosher principle: The problem section is for introducing the problem—and nothing else.

2.2 Literature

Graduate students are usually pretty good at reviewing the literature, which probably explains why they nearly always overdo it. The point of a lit review is not to prove how much you know—this is not an exam. It is to lay the foundation of what is known so that you can move on to what is new. As such it should be directed to that minimum necessary for the foundation, the focus being ideas and issues, not lists of authors, articles, and books.

Since excessive length is usually an issue in scientific writing, the lit review is an excellent place to achieve economy. When you review too much literature, you not only lengthen your work but probably also undermine the real goal of building the foundation for your own innovation.

And the kosher principle—nearly always violated: Once you are done reviewing the literature, stop. It doesn’t belong anywhere else in the paper. When it appears elsewhere, in the middle of theory, design, or analysis, it usually causes confusion. The problem is that the literature is a crutch graduate student authors turn to when they want to avoid writing about those other, more difficult, issues.

2.3 Theory and Model

A suggestion: Begin the theory section with the words, “I have no theory.” which serve as a useful reminder that social research has no other purpose and the present piece should not be written so long as the statement is true.




I have said that writing is hard. Writing theory is the hardest writing there is—and the most important. It is no wonder that theory sections are usually a mishmash of literature review and design, something, anything, to cover up the embarrassment of no theory.

Theory is usually written in the subjunctive mood, statements of abstract logical relationships. “Given condition x, then pattern y should follow.” The “should” is a logical statement, not an empirical one.

2.3.1 Censoring

Two kinds of self-censoring are common in writing social theory. Authors sometimes censor the theory itself, to tailor it to predict what will be observed in the study and nothing else. Second is operationism, a common disease of political science writing, which defines concepts in terms of the indicators which measure them.

Censoring I: Fitting Theory to the Study
To restrict a theory by limiting it to only that which will be observed in the present study is harmful, robbing the theory of most of its richness. To censor a theory to predict only what will be observed usually will make it so specific as to deprive it of the logic which drives it. Such a theory, if it really remains a theory at all, is so limited that we should care little whether or not it is true. It is a hallmark of bad social science to have theories which predict exactly what will be observed in the study. All who have done social research understand that there is probably dishonesty at work when things work too well.

Any decent theory will have empirical implications vastly beyond what any study can observe. Readers understand that. It isn’t a problem. So one develops a theory in its full richness and then asserts that some small fraction of empirical implications can and should be observed. All that is needed is a brief transition statement at the end which specifies that a small set of empirical implications is observable and will reflect, if only partially, on the truth of the explanation.

Censoring II: Operationism
The building blocks—the nouns as it were—of theory are concepts. Concepts are theoretical and abstract ideas, as general as the words which form them. In a more convenient world they would match one to one with a wonderful set of indicators. In the real world concepts imply a great deal more than can be measured with even the best possible indicator. In an old usage, the “epistemic” correlation is the idea that the match is imperfect and partial, r smaller than 1.0. Part of the research task is to optimize the fit of indicator to concept, going from totally invalid to, at best, very partially valid. Part of inference is to recognize the role that low epistemic correlation plays in findings. Concepts must be presented as ideas. To do the reverse, to assert that they are what the indicators measure, is a failed strategy of science from which no number of studies can ever lead to a theory. Keeping kosher implies simply no reference whatsoever to indicators in a theory section. The issue of whether the indicators fit the concepts needs explicit treatment in the design section.

2.4 Design

The problem to which a section on design is the solution is this: there must be a connection between what theories imply and what can be observed. If a theory is general enough to be worth proposing and worth testing, then it will have sweeping implications across studies of many types and for numerous indicators. The section on design is where the censoring that was inappropriate in developing the theory becomes appropriate. The reader needs to understand how the general theory comes to ground in a specific test.

Hence what is required is delimiting the portion of the theory that is subject to testing in the current work and then detailing how theory leads to empirical implications. This can be seen as two tasks, (1) fitting theory to the design of the study, and (2) fitting theoretical concepts to observable indicators. Both are creative choices made by the author and both are subject, like any assumption, to error.

Bad writing tends to treat design decisions as if they had somehow been dictated by necessity. The honest approach is to admit that they are your own decisions and that each is subject to skepticism from reasonable readers. The author’s task to explain the logic that lead him or her to those choice sin order to bring the reader along. Readers are reasonable on average. They will accept difficult decisions about how to do things when the author lays out his or her logic. But the logic must be there.

It may be easier to say what a failed design section looks like. It is usually a list of variables, then followed by a regression. If the reader asks, as any reader should, what about those regression coefficients impinges on the truth of the theory, the usual answer is nothing. That is, what a regression implies is often only that the conditions necessary for software estimation were met, but the coefficients in the table imply nothing for the theory. The “logic” is something like, “I can do a regression and therefore the theory is true.”

2.4.1 Hypotheses

Hypotheses are the means by which the implications of the theory become translated into empirically observable facts. Good hypotheses will always have the attribute that failure implies that the theory is not true. They are worth testing for that reason only. Empirical expectations, what you know from knowledge of the data, should never be presented as hypotheses. If they are not logically linked to the theory, they are not worth testing.

Bad hypotheses usually test the author’s intuition. It needs to always be remembered that the quality of your intuition is of no interest to anyone but yourself. It just doesn’t matter if what you “think” is likely to be seen in the data ends up being seen unless that expectation is linked to theory.

Should you state formal hypotheses? I don’t have a hard-line position on this issue, but find that formal hypotheses, like unnecessary equations, often convey an attitude of pseudo-science instead of the real thing.

2.5 Analysis

Good analysis is hard writing. It needs to conquer the problem of planting expectations in the reader’s mind before he or she sees data and then working through the data presentation with some care. Authors always overestimate readers’ ability to comprehend results. Readers aren’t dumb; they just haven’t spent the thousands of hours the author spent on every detail of complex analysis. They need to be brought along.

If reviews of the literature are almost always too long, analysis is almost always too short. There are many steps, often skipped. For theoretically relevant variables, we need first to set up expectations for the size (if possible),sign, and significance of estimated coefficients. Then we need commentary on each, measuring what was observed against what was expected. Here untrained authors almost always overemphasize significance and underemphasize size. Significance is often not interesting. In large N studies coefficients tapping relatively trivial effects will usually be significant—measuring the power of much data, not the importance of the phenomenon. For crucial effects we need more. It is often extremely useful to go beyond coefficients and talk about the size of effects in the units of the dependent variable.

In another sense amateur analysts often have the reverse problem, not taking significance seriously. When you can’t reasonably exclude the possibility that the true parameter is zero, it doesn’t make much sense to go on and on about a variable’s sign and size. Fundamentally, non significance tells us that we have no reliable information about sign or size.

The rule for tables (below) is that both text commentary and tables must stand on their own. Thus prose like “Table x shows that the theory is true.” miserably fails. The statement passes all of the hard work of analysis to the reader. And it can’t be evaluated except by discontinuing reading and studying the table.

All coefficients are not equal. Often the key test of the theory will hang on one or two coefficients, with everything else included just to get the specification right. Emphasis should reflect that. Key coefficients deserve much more attention than they usually get and the others less.

Fit vs. Coefficients: Amateur analysts usually emphasize model fit, for-getting that how well the data fit a statistical model has almost no bearing on whether or not a theory is true. It is useful to remember that analysis is testing theory. What matters is what did the theory predict and did it happen or not. A similar issue arises with discussions of the relative explanatory power of variables. This question almost never impinges on the truth or falsehood of theory. It just isn’t relevant and attention given to it can only detract from what analysis ought to do, test theory.

2.5.1 Tables: Presenting Linear Model Findings

Table design is important, and often done badly. It requires you to think about what the reader knows and wants to know from your work and then very carefully lay out the table to tell the story.

A beginning point is this: APSA and the journals we write for have official rules of table styles. You need to know them and it is wise to use them when you create the table (not sometime later). Violating the official table and figure styles is a good way to advertise your amateur standing. If you want readers to think, “This was written by a graduate student,” then by all means proceed with your (or Microsoft’s) favorite table design. If you want to be treated as a serious professional, don’t.

A Rule: Tables should always be composed so that a reader can pick one up and understand its content, without having read the text. That means it must be fully self-contained, depending on nothing that is explained only in the text. The opposite is also true; a reader should be able to skip the table and understand the analysis completely from the text.

Professional type-setting practice in recent years has moved toward simplicity and away from extensive use of highlighting, i.e., all the things that Microsoft likes to do. So minimize or eliminate entirely the use of bold and italic type for various table features. Forget the pretty tables Microsoft Word will design for you; they all violate professional standards of table formatting. Also, never use vertical rules.

Table Editors: Composing a good table is a very demanding task, one that exceeds the capabilities of ordinary word processors. That’s why we have table editors. They make it possible to do the difficult layout tasks that ordinary word-processing tools cannot handle. Don’t know how to use one? You are a professional author. Learn to use the tools of authorship or choose a profession for which you are better suited.

Title: The title should convey something to the reader about the logical role and meaning of the presentation, what is being tested and how. The reader is asking, why am I looking at these numbers? and the title should answer that question. Titles tend to err on the side of being too short, of not saying enough so that readers can figure out what the numbers mean.

Do not name tables for the statistical estimator employed, another sure sign of amateur standing. A title like “Negative Binomial Estimates of ...” tells the reader that you are mighty impressed that you know about the negative binomial and have kind of forgotten what substantive purpose the table serves.

The Stub
The stub is the leftmost column in which you name the indicators for which coefficients will be presented. The usual problem is that the names are too brief to convey what the indicator is. (And remember the rule about being self-contained: if the reader needs to page back to find out what some ambiguous name stands for, you have violated the rule and caused reader impatience.) Abbreviate nothing. And never ever ever use computer variable names to stand for concepts. These are personal code words that convey no meaning to readers.

Since interpreting an unstandardized coefficient requires us to know about the measurement of the indicators, then more information is better than less. So instead of “Income,” which can be measured in several ways, use something more descriptive, for example, “Income (in $thousands)” or “Income, (ANES categories).” For dummy variables it is useful to tell us which category is coded 1. So “Gender: Female” or “Concern for Election Outcome: Medium or High.” Good descriptive stubs are usually impossible to create without a table editor. Otherwise you just can’t force sufficient content into available spaces.

Notes: There will usually be material that the reader needs to know, which is not in the body of a table, and not important enough to go in the title. So you need notes, for example, “Estimates from a negative binomial regression model.” or “* p2.5.2 Figures

Figures are called “figures” (not graphs and not charts) and have captions beneath the picture.

Useful Advice for Excel Users: DO NOT CREATE FIGURES IN COLOR. Professional publication is in black and white only. It is very important to see what your figure is going to look like when you are creating it. If you use color, you will produce a perfectly sensible picture in its original color, which then becomes unreadable, for lack of ability to discern which lines or shapes are which, in black and white. This problem is the source of many, maybe even most, of the worst published figures. It takes a lot more work to recreate a B&W figure than it does to start from scratch with one.

How? Create a master graph, changing all elements to black and white, then save it as your default. From the figure worksheet, use Chart-Chart Type, select User-defined, click Add, then name it something like B&W line graph. Then you select that chart type as the first step when you are creating graphs, so everything is in black and white from the beginning. Then you use line styles to distinguish different lines, a combination of thickness and dashing.

Defining Lines: Graphic software will produce legends (but in color, why bother, all the lines will look the same—see above). Usually they are tacky looking, another sign of amateur standing. I employ text boxes and arrows to put the explanatory content right into the picture instead. It is a fair amount of work, but so is doing an R&R or a new submission because readers thought your product looked amateurish.

2.6 Conclusions?

The first question, not asked as often as it should be, is do you need a conclusion section at all. Most of the time I think the answer should be no.

A question is raised in theory, refined in design, and answered in analysis. To answer it again is to add excess length and to insult the reader’s intelligence by the implicit assumption that he or she wasn’t swift enough to catch the point the first time. Authors who repeat themselves are likely to have angry readers.

A conclusion is appropriate mainly, I think, when it is useful to make general observations that do not follow directly from the analysis. It might a pattern not captured by any single analysis, but seen repeatedly. It might be some emergent conclusion when posterior beliefs differ from priors.

In any case, the conclusion is the second most important piece of an article for reader impact—after the problem statement. So it should never be a summary of things already written.

3. Other Issues

The usual view about perfection in all the details of a manuscript is that it is necessary for final publication only, that drafts can be imperfect in style, illustrations, and so forth. I think it is bad strategy. Although you might suffer mild embarrassment from flaws in print, it is the copy sent out for review on which success or failure as a professional will depend. Journal review is a difficult process for all concerned, the result often deeply dissatisfying. The implication is this: perfection in all its details must precede submission, not follow it. Referee judgment is unavoidably affected by small writing problems having nothing to do with the merit of the research. It is just human nature to assume that sloppiness or lack of professional knowledge anywhere is probably indicative of sloppiness and lack of professional knowledge everywhere.

Never use journal submission as a means to clean up an imperfect manuscript. The process is way too costly for that—to the profession and more importantly to you. That’s what friends are for.

I am reluctant to advise how to write, because different strategies work for different people. But unless it fundamentally violates how you work, a corollary point is that the achievement of perfection should begin with very early drafts. That way the small problems that are present are likely to get caught and fixed in revisions. If you write ugly in early drafts and then hope to achieve perfection all in one final revision, you are likely to fail. Small problems stand out against a clean background. If the draft is messy, you are likely to miss many of them.

Original article: www.unc.edu/~jstimson/Writing.pdf

Careers in political science

A degree in political science can lead to exciting careers in federal, state and local governments; law; business; international organizations; nonprofit associations and organizations; campaign management and polling; journalism; precollegiate education; electoral politics; research and university and college teaching.

Political science students gain analytical skills, administrative competence and communication abilities that are valued in a wide spectrum of potential career areas.

Examples of careers for political scientists:

• Activist, Advocate/Organizer

• Administration, Corporate, Government, Non-Profit, etc.

• Archivist, Online Political Data

• Budget Examiner or Analyst

• Attorney

• Banking Analyst or Executive

• Campaign Operative

• Career Counselor

• CIA Analyst or Agent

• City Planner

• City Housing Administrator

• Congressional Office/Committee Staffer

• Coordinator of Federal or State Aid

• Communications Director

• Corporate Analyst

• Corporate Public Affairs Advisor

• Corporate Economist

• Corporate Manager

• Corporate Information Analyst

• Corporate Adviser for Govt'l. Relations

• Corporate Executive

• Corporation Legislative Issues Manager

• Customs Officer

• Editor, Online Political Journal

• Entrepreneur

• Federal Government Analyst

• Financial Consultant

• Foreign Service Officer

• Foundation President

• Free-lance writer

• High School Government Teacher

• Immigration Officer

• Information Manager

• Intelligence Officer

• International Agency Officer

• International Research Specialist

• Issues Analyst, Corporate Social Policy Div.

• Journalist

• Juvenile Justice Specialist

• Labor Relations Specialist

• Legislative Analyst / Coordinator

• Lobbyist

• Management Analyst

• Mediator

• Plans and Review Officer, USIA

• Policy Analyst

• Political Commentator

• Pollster

• Public Affairs Research Analyst




• Public Opinion Analyst

• Publisher

• Research Analyst

• State Legislator

• Survey Analyst

• Systems Analyst

• Teacher

• University Administrator

• University Professor

• Urban Policy Planner

• Web Content Editor

Writing political science papers (part 4)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Writing in Political Theory

Political Theory differs from other subfields in Political Science in that it deals primarily with historical and normative, rather than empirical, analysis. In other words, political theorists are less concerned with the scientific measurement of political phenomena than with understanding how important political ideas develop over time. And they are less concerned with evaluating how things are than in debating how they should be. A return to our democracy example will make these distinctions more clear and give you some clues about how to write well in Political Theory.

Earlier, we talked about how to define democracy empirically so that it can be measured and tested in accordance with scientific principles. Political theorists also define democracy, but they use a different standard of measurement. Their definitions of democracy reflect their interest in political ideals--for example, liberty, equality, and citizenship--rather than scientific measurement. So, when writing about democracy from the perspective of a political theorist, you may be asked to make an argument about the proper way to define citizenship in a democratic society. Should citizens of a democratic society be expected to engage in decision-making and administration of government or should they be satisfied with casting votes every couple of years?

In order to substantiate your position on such questions, you will need to pay special attention to two interrelated components of your writing: (1) the logical consistency of your ideas and (2) and the manner in which you use the arguments of other theorists to support your own. First, you need to make sure that your conclusion and all points leading up to it follow from your original premises. If, for example, you argue that democracy is a system of government through which citizens develop their full capacities as human beings, then your notion of citizenship will somehow need to support this broad definition of democracy. A narrow view of citizenship based exclusively or primarily on voting probably will not do. Whatever you argue, however, you will need to be sure to demonstrate in your analysis that you have considered the arguments of other theorists who have written about these issues. In some cases, their arguments will provide support for your own; in others, they will raise criticisms and concerns that you will need to address if you are going to make a convincing case for your point of view.

Drafting Your Paper

If you have used material from outside sources in your paper, be sure to cite them appropriately in your paper. In political science, writers most often use APA or Turabian (a version of the Chicago Manual of Style) style guides when formatting references. Check with your instructor if he or she has not specified a citation style in the assignment.

Source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Writing political science papers (part 3)

Part One
Part Two

Writing Political Science Research Papers

Your instructors use this type of assignment as a means of assessing your ability to understand a complex problem in the field, to develop a perspective on this problem, and to make a persuasive argument in favor of your perspective. In order for you to successfully meet this challenge, your research paper should include the following components: (1) an introduction; (2) a problem statement; (3) a discussion of methodology; (4) a literature review; (5) a description and evaluation of your research findings; and (6) a summary of your findings. Here's a brief description of each component.

In the introduction of your research paper, you need to give the reader some basic background information on your topic that suggests why the question you are investigating is interesting and important. You will also need to provide the reader with a statement of the research problem you are attempting to address and a basic outline of your paper as a whole. The problem statement presents not only the general research problem you will address but also the hypotheses that you will consider. In the methodology section, you will explain to the reader the research methods you used to investigate your research topic and to test the hypotheses that you have formulated. For example, did you conduct interviews, use statistical analysis, rely upon previous research studies, or some combination of all of these methodological approaches?

Before you can develop each of the above components of your research paper, you will need to conduct a literature review. A literature review involves reading and analyzing what other researchers have written on your topic before going on to do research of your own. There are some very pragmatic reasons for doing this work. First, as insightful as your ideas may be, someone else may have had similar ideas and have already done research to test them. By reading what they have written on your topic, you can ensure that you don't repeat, but rather learn from, work that has already been done. Second, to demonstrate the soundness of your hypotheses and methodology, you will need to indicate how you have borrowed from and/or improved upon the ideas of others.

By referring to what other researchers have found on your topic, you will have established a frame of reference that enables the reader to understand the full significance of your research results. Thus, once you have conducted your literature review, you will be in a position to present your research findings. In presenting these findings, you will need to refer back to your original hypotheses and explain the manner and degree to which your results fit with what you anticipated you would find. If you see strong support for your argument or perhaps some unexpected results that your original hypotheses cannot account for, this section is the place to convey such important information to your reader. At this point, you should also suggest further lines of research that will help refine, clarify inconsistencies with, or provide additional support for your hypotheses. Finally, in the summary section of your paper, you should reiterate the significance of your research and your research findings and speculate upon the path that future research efforts should take.

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Writing political science papers (part 2)

Part One

However, research in political science seldom yields immediately conclusive results. In this case, for example, although in most recent presidential elections our hypothesis holds true, President Franklin Roosevelt was reelected in 1936 despite the fact that the national unemployment rate was 17%. To explain this important exception and to make certain that other factors besides high unemployment rates were not primarily responsible for the defeat of incumbent presidents in other election years, you would need to do further research. So you can see how political scientists use the scientific method to build ever more precise and persuasive theories and how you might begin to think about and analyze the topics that interest you as your write your paper.

Since political scientists construct and assess theories in accordance with the principles of the scientific method, writing in the field conveys the rigor, objectivity, and logical consistency that characterize this method. Thus, in contrast to scholars in such fields as literature, art history or classics, political scientists avoid the use of impressionistic or metaphorical language, or language which appeals primarily to our senses, emotions, or moral beliefs. In other words, rather than persuade you with the elegance of their prose or the moral virtue of their beliefs, political scientists persuade through their command of the facts and their ability to relate those facts to theories that can withstand the test of empirical investigation. In writing of this sort, clarity and concision are at a premium. To achieve such clarity and concision, political scientists precisely define any terms or concepts that are important to the arguments that they make. This precision often requires that they "operationalize" key terms or concepts, which simply means that they define them so that they can be measured or tested through scientific investigation.

Fortunately, you will generally not be expected to devise or operationalize key concepts entirely on your own. In most cases, your professor or the authors of assigned readings will already have defined and/or operationalized concepts that are important to your research. And in the event that someone hasn't already come up with precisely the definition you need, other political scientists will in all likelihood have written enough on the topic that you're investigating to give you some clear guidance on how to proceed. For this reason, it is always a good idea to explore what research has already been done on your topic before you begin to construct your own argument.

To give you an example of the kind of "rigor" and "objectivity" political scientists aim for in their writing, let's examine how someone might operationalize a term. Reading through this example should clarify the level of analysis and precision that you will be expected to employ in your writing. Here's how you might define key concepts in a way that allows us to measure them.

We are all familiar with the term "democracy." If you were asked to define the term, you might make a statement like the following: "Democracy is government by the people." You would, of course, be correct--democracy is government by the people. But, in order to evaluate whether or not a particular government is fully democratic or is more or less democratic when compared with other governments, we would need to have more precise criteria with which to measure or assess democracy. Most political scientists agree that these criteria should include the following rights and freedoms for citizens:

1. Freedom to form and join organizations

2. Freedom of expression

3. Right to vote

4. Eligibility for public office

5. Right of political leaders to compete for support

6. Right of political leaders to compete for votes

7. Alternative sources of information

8. Free and fair elections

9. Institutions for making government policies depend on votes and other expressions of preference

By adopting these nine criteria, we now have a definition that will allow us to measure democracy. Thus, if you want to determine whether or not Brazil is more democratic than Sweden, you can evaluate each country in terms of the degree to which they fulfill the above criteria.

What Counts as Good Writing in Political Science?

While rigor, clarity, and concision will be valued in any piece of writing in political science, knowing the kind of writing task you've been assigned will help you to write a good paper. Two of the most common kinds of writing assignments in political science are the research paper and the theory paper.

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British degree abbreviations

Degree abbreviations are used as an alternative way to specify an academic degree instead of spelling out the title in full, such as in reference books like Who's Who and on business cards. Many degrees have more than one abbreviation.

Note that usage in some Scottish universities, particularly the ancient universities, differs from that in England and Wales in that MAs are given out in place of BAs as first degrees, where the course of study is four years rather than the three years typical in England.

The usage in the two ancient English universities of Oxford and Cambridge also differs slightly from that in other UK universities - the MA degree is not a substantive qualification, but reflects the ancient practice of these universities of raising BAs to MAs (and thus full membership of the University) a few years after graduating. Conversely, some bachelor's degrees in the higher faculties (i.e. those other than arts) at those universities are postgraduate qualifications (e.g. the BCL and BMus at Oxford). Many have been changed to the corresponding masters degree (e.g. BSc is now MSc), but only within the last generation. The BD remains a higher degree at a some older universities (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews and Durham) but is an undergraduate degree at most (e.g. London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow). Oxford and Cambridge grant BAs after three years to students on undergraduate courses lasting longer than this (the undergraduate masters degrees and the MB, ChB in medicine).

Undergraduate degrees may be awarded "with Honours" or may be "Ordinary" or "Pass" degrees. The meaning of non-Honours degrees changed in the course of the twentieth century, and varies somewhat between England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland and Northern Ireland on the other, and also between institutions. In some places to be awarded an Ordinary or Pass degree is nowadays a euphemism for failure, however, in the Open University and some of the newer universities with a strong commitment to broadening access to higher education, the Pass degree remains a valuable qualification though of a lower standard (or indicating a shorter period of study) than an Honours degree. Honours degrees are usually awarded with first, upper-second, lower-second or third class honours.

Usage of titles of masters degrees (in particular the undergraduate masters degrees) is in continuing flux, not least because of discussions of harmonisation of qualifications within the European Union as part of the Bologna process.

Bachelor's degrees

In England and Wales, almost all bachelor's degrees are awarded as honours degrees, sometimes indicated by '(Hons)' after the degree abbreviation without a space, for example 'BA(Hons)'.
At the Ancient universities of Scotland (St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee), a BSc(Hons) indicates a four year course, being the equivalent of the Scottish MA for science degrees. A Scottish BSc without honours indicates a three year course with less specialisation (a General Degree).

Some of the following are postgraduate degrees in a few universities, but generally bachelors are undergraduate degrees.

So, here goes the list:

• BA - Bachelor of Arts

• BAE - Bachelor of Arts and Economics

• BASc/BAS - Bachelor of Applied Science

• BCL - Bachelor of Civil Law

• BD - Bachelor of Divinity

• BDes - Bachelor of Design

• BDS or BChD - Bachelor of Dental Surgery

• BEcon - Bachelor of Economics

• BEcon&Fin - Bachelor of Economics and Finance

• BEd or EdB - Bachelor of Education

• BEng or BE - Bachelor of Engineering

• BFA - Bachelor of Fine Art

• BFin - Bachelor of Finance

• BHSc - Bachelor of Health Science

• BLitt or LittB - Bachelor of Literature or Bachelor of Letters

• BMedSc or BMSc - Bachelor of Biomedical science

• BMid - Bachelor of Midwifery

• BMin - Bachelor of Ministry

• BMus or MusB - Bachelor of Music

• BNurs or BN - Bachelor of Nursing

• BPhil - Bachelor of Philosophy

• BSc - Bachelor of Science

• BScEcon - Bachelor of Economic and Social Science

• BScEng - Bachelor of Science in Engineering

• BSocSc - Bachelor of Social Science

• BTech - Bachelor of Technology (not to be confused with BTEC)

• BTh, ThB or BTheol - Bachelor of Theology

• LLB - Bachelor of Laws

• MB or BM - Bachelor of Medicine

• BS, ChB, BChir or BCh - Bachelor of Surgery

• GCGI The Graduateship (post-nominal GCGI) awarded by the City & Guilds of London Institute is mapped to a British Honours degree

• ACGI The Associateship is conferred by the Council of the City & Guilds of London Institute on the recommendation of the Dean of the City and Guilds College in recognition of the ability to demonstrate, to the level equivalent to that of a degree of Bachelor of Science (Engineering), or Bachelor of Engineering, or Master of Engineering, the understanding and application of the principles of a branch of Engineering or of Computing Science approved by the Institute

Master's degrees

Undergraduate

These, like most bachelors degrees, are honours degrees, indicated by putting '(Hons)' after the degree abbreviation. The majority of undergraduate master's degrees are within science and engineering subjects. The undergraduate MAs of the ancient universities of Scotland are also honours degrees and may also add '(Hons)'. MEng used to be offered by some universities as a postgraduate degree, but is now an undergraduate degree.

• MA - with or without honours in Scotland or from Oxbridge

• MBiochem - Master of Biochemistry

• MBiol - Master of Biology

• MChem - Master of Chemistry

• MDiv - Master of Divinity

• MEcon - Master of Economics

• MEng - Master of Engineering

• MEnvSci - Master of Environmental Science

• MESci - Master of Earth Science

• MGeog - Master of Geography

• MGeol - Master of Geology

• MGeophys - Master of Geophysics

• MInf- Master of Informatics

• MMath - Master of Mathematics

• MNatSc - Master of Natural Science

• MNursSci - Master of Nursing Science

• MOcean - Master of Oceanography

• MPharm - Master of Pharmacy

• MPhys - Master of Physics

• MSci - Master in Science (Master of Natural Science at Cambridge University)

• MStat - Master of Statistics

• MTheol - Master of Theology

• MCGI - awarded by the City & Guilds of London Institute is mapped to a British Master's degree

Postgraduate

Postgraduate degrees are not honours degrees, and do not add '(Hons)' to indicate this. MA (Hons) is only used for the undergraduate degree of the ancient Scottish universities: as there are no examinations for the MAs in Oxford and Cambridge there are consequently no honours to be awarded. The Oxbridge MA may be differentiated by putting the name of the institution after the degree, thus 'MA (Oxon)' or 'MA (Cantab)'. The MPhil is normally reserved for longer (often two year) research-based masters degrees (as at Oxford), although at Cambridge the MPhil is generally a nine-month, mostly taught, degree. The MUniv is only ever an honorary degree. Postgraduate masters degrees are considered higher status than undergraduate masters. Postgraduate masters degrees are generally classfied as pass, pass with merit and pass with distinction. The percentage bandings for these award levels are 50%-59% (pass), 60%-69% (merit) and 70%+ (distinction). It is more difficult to obtain a postgraduate masters degree with distinction than a bachelors with first class honours.

• LLM - Master of Laws

• MA - Master of Arts

• MBA - Master of Business Administration

• MBiolSci - Master of Biological Science

• MClinDent - Master of Clinical Dentistry

• MDrama - Master of Drama

• MeB - Master of Electronic Business (eBusiness)

• MEd - Master of Education

• MFA - Master of Fine Art

• MJur - Master of Jurisprudence (Law) (Magister Juris at Oxford)

• MLib - Master of Librarianship

• MLitt - Master of Letters

• MMus or MusM - Master of Music

• MPH - Master of Public Health

• MPhil - Master of Philosophy

• MRes - Master of Research

• MSc - Master of Science

• MSSc/MSocSc - Master of Social Science

• MSt - Master of Studies

• MTh or MTheol - Master of Theology

• MUniv - Master of the University

British undergraduate degree classification

The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees (bachelor's degrees and some master's degrees) in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variations) in other countries, such as India, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, Malta and Canada. The Latin honors system used in the United States is different but has some similarities.

Degree classification

A degree may be awarded with or without honours, with the class of an honours degree based on the average mark of the assessed work a candidate has completed. Below is a list of the possible classifications with common abbreviations. Honours degrees are in bold:

• First-Class Honours (First or 1st)

• Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1)

• Lower Second-Class Honours (2:2)

• Third-Class Honours (Third or 3rd)

• Ordinary degree (Pass)

• Fail (no degree is awarded)

The system does allow for a small amount of discretion and candidates may be elevated up to the next degree class if their average mark is close or the median of their weighted marks achieves the higher class, and they have submitted many pieces of work worthy of the higher class. However, they may be demoted a class if they fail to pass all parts of the course even if they have a high average.

There are also variations between universities (especially in Scotland, where honours are usually reserved only for courses lasting four years or more) and requirements other than the correct average are often needed to be awarded honours. (In Scotland it is possible to start University a year younger than is normal in the rest of the United Kingdom as the Scottish Highers exams are taken at age seventeen, not eighteen, thus four year courses end at the same chronological age as a rest of UK three year course, assuming no 'gap years'.)

When a candidate is awarded a degree with honours, '(Hons)' may be suffixed to their type of degree, such as BA(Hons) or BSc(Hons).

At Oxford and Cambridge, honours classes apply to examinations, not to degrees. Thus, in Cambridge, where undergraduates are examined at the end of each Part of the Tripos, a student may receive different classifications for different Parts. The degree itself does not formally have a class. Most Cambridge graduates use the class of the final Part as the class of the degree, but this is an informal usage. At Oxford, the Final Honour School results are generally applied to the degree.

In some universities, candidates who successfully complete one or more years of degree-level study, but choose not to or fail to complete a full degree, may be awarded a lower qualification — a Certificate of Higher Education or Higher National Certificate for one year, or a Diploma of Higher Education or Higher National Diploma for two years.

First-Class Honours

In most universities, First-Class Honours is the highest honours which can be achieved, with about 10% of candidates achieving a First nationally.

A minority of universities award First-Class Honours with Distinction, informally known as a "Starred First" (Cambridge) or a "Congratulatory First" (Oxford). These are seldom awarded. In Oxford, the Congratulatory First involves a ceremony where examiners give a standing ovation.

A "Double First" can refer to First-Class Honours in two separate subjects, e.g., Classics and Mathematics, or alternatively to First-Class Honours in the same subject in subsequent examinations, such as subsequent Parts of the Tripos at the University of Cambridge.

A Cambridge "Double First" originally referred to a first in two different Triposes. The phrase "Double First" originally referred to people who got firsts in both the classical and mathematical Triposes ("double men"). The two-Tripos criterion for a "double first", even in vaguely related subjects as English and History, constitutes a far higher hurdle than simply repeating the same performance in competition with the same students in a Part II of the same Tripos; it is harder because the subject matter is different, and the candidate has to reach a mark of excellence in competition with people who would have been studying the subject for longer at university level.
At Cambridge it is possible to obtain a Double Starred First (noted recipients being Quentin Skinner, Alain de Botton, Enoch Powell, Lee Kuan Yew and Orlando Figes), or, in extremely rare cases such as Maurice Zinkin and Abba Eban, a Triple-Starred First.

The Graduateship (post-nominal GCGI) awarded by the City & Guilds of London Institute is mapped to a British Honours degree.

The Associateship (post-nominal ACGI) is conferred by the Council of the City & Guilds of London Institute on the recommendation of the Dean of the City and Guilds College in recognition of the ability to demonstrate, to the level equivalent to that of a degree of Bachelor of Science (Engineering), or Bachelor of Engineering, or Master of Engineering, the understanding and application of the principles of a branch of Engineering or of Computing Science approved by the Institute.

Second-Class Honours

The bulk of university graduates fall into Second-Class Honours, which is usually divided into Upper Second-Class Honours and Lower Second-Class Honours. These divisions are commonly abbreviated to 2:1 (pronounced two-one) and 2:2 (pronounced two-two) respectively.

Third-Class Honours

Third-Class Honours is the lowest honours classification in most modern universities. (Until the 1970s, Oxford used to award Fourth-class Honours degrees, although they did not divide Second-Class Honours and so still had four classes like everyone else.) Roughly 20% of students achieving an honours degree receive a Third.

Third Class degree graduates can have very successful careers. Carol Vorderman, who received a Third Class degree, is well known for her skill at mental arithmetic and now co-hosts Countdown with Des O'Connor. Hugh Laurie also achieved a Third Class degree, and has become a very famous actor. Christopher Hitchens and David Dimbleby received Third Class degrees in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

Ordinary Degree

An Ordinary degree is a pass degree without honours. A number of universities offer Ordinary degree courses to students, but most students enrol in Honours degree courses. Ordinary degrees are sometimes awarded to students who do not complete an Honours degree course.

Aegrotat degrees

A candidate who is unable to take his or her exams because of illness can sometimes be awarded an aegrotat degree; this is an honours degree without classification, awarded on the understanding that had the candidate not been unwell, he or she would have passed.

Political science topics

Political science is the field concerning the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. Basic topics in political science include:

• Political theory and philosophy
• Political systems
• Policy analysis/Policy studies
• Public policy
• Public administration
• Ideology
• Game theory
• Psephology (voting systems and electoral behaviour)
• Political economy
• Geopolitics and political geography
• Policy studies and public policy analysis
• Comparative politics
• National systems
• Cross-national political analysis
• Supranational and intergovernmental politics
• Globalization studies
• Political development
• International relations theory
• Foreign policy analysis
• Peace studies, conflict analysis, international law and politics, public administration and local government studies
• Political psychology, bureaucratic, administrative and judicial behaviour
• Legislative processes and public law
• Power in international relations and the theory of great powers and superpowers.

This may be useful if you are interested in political science, but have no idea which specific topic to choose.

Writing political science papers (part 1)

This pamphlet will help you to recognize and to follow writing practices and standards in political science. The first step toward accomplishing this goal is to develop a basic understanding of political science and the kind of work political scientists do.

Defining Politics and Political Science

At its most basic level, politics is the struggle of "who gets what, when, how." This struggle may be as modest as competing interest groups fighting over control of a municipal budget in Small Town, U.S.A., or as overwhelming as a military stand-off between international superpowers. Political scientists study such struggles, both small and large, in an effort to develop general principles or theories about the way the world of politics works. Think about the title of your course or re-read the course description in your syllabus. You'll find that your course covers a particular sector of the large world of "politics" and brings with it a set of topics, issues, and approaches to information that may be helpful to consider as you approach a writing assignment. The diverse structure of political science reflects the diverse kinds of problems the discipline attempts to analyze and explain. In fact, political science includes at least eight major sub-fields:

• American Politics examines political behavior and institutions in the United States.
• Comparative Politics analyzes and compares political systems within and across different geographic regions.
• International Relations investigates relations among nation states and the activities of international. organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and NATO as well as international actors such as terrorists, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Multi-National Corporations (MNCs).
• Political Theory analyzes fundamental political concepts such as power and democracy and fundamental questions such as, "How should the individual and the state relate?".
• Political Methodology deals with the ways that political scientists ask and investigate political science questions.
• Public Policy examines the process by which governments make public decisions.
• Public Administration studies the ways that government polices are implemented.
• Public Law focuses on the role of law and courts in the political process.

What is Scientific about Political Science?

In order to write a good paper, it's helpful to know what constitutes good practice of political science. Although political scientists are prone to debate and disagreement, the majority view the discipline as a genuine science. As a result, political scientists generally strive to emulate the objectivity as well as the conceptual and methodological rigor typically associated with the so-called "hard" sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics). They see themselves engaged in revealing the relationships underlying political events and conditions. And from these revelations they attempt to construct general principles about the way the world of politics works. Given these aims, it is important for political scientists' writing to be conceptually precise, free from bias, and well-substantiated by empirical evidence. They want to build and refine ever more precise and persuasive theories. Knowing that political scientists value objectivity may help you in making decisions about how to write your paper and what to put in it. Political theory is an important exception to this empirical approach.

Since theory-building serves as the cornerstone of the discipline, it may be useful to see how it works. You too may be wrestling with theories or proposing your own as you write your paper. Consider how political scientists have arrived at the theories you are reading and discussing in your course. Most political scientists adhere to a simple model of scientific inquiry when building theories. The key to building precise and persuasive theories is to develop and test hypotheses. Hypotheses are statements that researchers construct for the purpose of testing whether or not a certain relationship exists between two phenomena. To see how political scientists use hypotheses, and to imagine how you might use a hypothesis to develop a thesis for your paper, consider the following example. Suppose that we want to know if presidential elections are affected by economic conditions. We could formulate this question into the following hypothesis: "When the national unemployment rate is greater than 7 percent at the time of the election, presidential incumbents are not reelected."

In the research model designed to test this hypothesis, the dependent variable, or the phenomenon that is affected by other variables, would be the reelection of incumbent presidents; the independent variable, or the phenomenon that may have some effect on the dependent variable, would be the national unemployment rate. You could test the relationship between the independent and dependent variables by collecting data on unemployment rates and the reelection of incumbent presidents and comparing the two sets of information. If you found that in every instance that the national unemployment rate was greater than 7 percent at the time of a presidential election the incumbent lost, you would have significant support for our hypothesis.

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University ratings

The first thing that students should be aware of concerning higher education in the UK is that unlike most other education systems, the UK system is subjected to strict quality control exercises carried out by government appointed independent bodies. This ensures that there are no poor quality institutions and so no matter where you study you will receive a first class education. The quality control exercises cover both the teaching standards and the quality of the research being done at postgraduate level. The quality control exercises are carried out at a departmental level rather than at an institutional level. Therefore there is no "official" government ranking for universities in the UK.

The Quality Assessment Exercise (QAE) takes place every four years and every department at every university in the country is subjected to it. At postgraduate level the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) checks the level of research being done in every department. Departments are rated from 1 to 5* with 5* being the highest rating. This is the most reliable way to choose an institution to undertake research. In the Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA?) departments are rated out of a maximum score of 24, 24/24 being the best possible score. The ratings indicate the quality of teaching, the standard of facilities and the quality of the courses being taught by the department. This is the most reliable way for a student to choose a taught course.

Students should be aware that there is no official government league table of universities in the UK. The only official government ratings are the "Research Ratings" and the "Teaching Assessment Ratings".
The Research Ratings take place every four years and, as their name suggests, they look at research undertaken in individual departments. Departments are ranked on a scale of 1 to 5*, with 5* being the highest ranking. The Research Rankings are more useful to students wanting to undertake research in the UK. Undergraduate students should pay more attention to the Teaching Assessment Ratings.

In addition to the above government ratings, there are also the unofficial newspaper rankings published every year by the Times Newspaper, The Telegraph and The Guardian. These league tables are often source of controversy with academics arguing about the way that they are compiled. Students should use the newspaper rankings as a general guide only.

NB. Students should not use ratings as the only factor when choosing a course. As stated above, due to strict quality control there are no poor institutions. Students would therefore be wise to make decisions, which also take into account the course content, and location in order to choose the most appropriate course and to ensure a suitable living environment. They should also take into account the government rankings above as well as how suitable a particular course is to their own needs and the location of the university. Students should aim to get into the university that is most suitable for them and not simply aim for the highest possible university based on the newspaper rankings.

Top 20 political science universities in United Kingdom (source: Times, 2005)

Rating. Name, Teaching, Research (4/5, A/B), Tariff, Destinations, Overall score.

1. Oxford, 24, 5*, B, 500, 80, 100.0
2. Warwick, 24, 5, B, 432, 75, 95.2
3. King's, College, London, 24, 5*, A, 395, 55, 95.1
4. Bath, 24, 5, A, 335, 80, 95.0
5. Sheffield, 24, 5*, A, 418, 50, 94.9
6. York, 24, 5, A, 427, 60, 94.3
7. St, Andrews, 5, A, 455, 60, 93.8
8. Essex, 24, 5*, A, 309, 55, 92.9
9. Birmingham, 24, 5, B, 367, 70, 92.7
10. Aberystwyth, E, 5*, A, 313, 55, 92.3
11. Nottingham, 24, 4, A, 404, 65, 92.0
12. Cambridge, 23, 4, A, 456, 85, 90.7
13. Bradford, 24, 5, B, 260, 70, 89.9
14. Bristol, 23, 5, A, 407, 70, 89.5
15. Manchester, 24, 5, B, 376, 45, 89.0
16. Salford, 24, 5, A, 253, 55, 88.9
17 Keele, 24, 5, A, 282, 40, 87.3
=18. Newcastle, 23, 5, B, 345, 75, 87.1
=18. London, School, of, Economics, 22, 5, A, 473, 80, 87.1
20. Strathclyde, E, 5, B, 326, 40, 86.1

Universities are ranked by the overall combined score from four indicators: assessments of teaching quality and research, average A-level scores of entrants and destinations. The destinations figure is the percentage of graduates who go on to graduate-type jobs or further study. Scores are weighted to ensure fairness when data is missing from one of the columns.

Source: http://www.thegooduniversityguide.co.uk/subject_tables_2006.php?selected_table=poli

List of universities providing political science degrees

Here goes the list of universities and their departments:

Aberdeen: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/pir)
Aberystwyth: Department of International Politics (http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol)
Aston: School of Languages and European Studies (http://www.les.aston.ac.uk/)
Bath: European Studies and Modern Languages (http://www.bath.ac.uk/esml/politics/)
Birmingham: Department of Political Science and International Studies (http://www.bham.ac.uk/POLSIS/)
Brimingham: European Research Institute (http://www.eri.bham.ac.uk/)
Birmingham: Institute of Local Government Studies (http://www.bham.ac.uk/inlogov)
Bradford: Department of Peace Studies (http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/peace/)
Bradford: Centre for European Studies (http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/ssis/research/CES/)
Bristol: Department of Politics (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Politics)
Brunel: Division of Politics, International Relations and History (http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/bbs/)
Cambridge: Department of Politics (http://www.sps.cam.ac.uk/pol/index.html)
Cambridge: Centre for International Studies (http://www.intstudies.cam.ac.uk/)
Cardiff: Politics Section, School of European Studies (http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/euros)
Central England: School of Public Policy (http://www.lhss.uce.ac.uk/assets/social_sciences.html)
Central Lancashire: Department of Education and Social Science (http://www.uclan.ac.uk/facs/class/edustud/index.htm)
Cork: Department of Government (http://www.ucc.ie/acad/govt)
Coventry: Faculty of Business, Environment and Society (http://www.coventry.ac.uk/cms/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=128)
De Montfort: School of Historical and International Studies (http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/his/histext.jsp)
De Montfort: Department of Public Policy (http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/business_and_law/business/public_policy.jsp)
Dundee: Department of Politics (http://www.dundee.ac.uk/politics/)
Durham: School of Government and International Affairs, Department of Politics (http://www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/)
East Anglia: School of Political, Social and International Studies (http://www.uea.ac.uk/psi/)
Edinburgh: Department of Politics (http://www.pol.ed.ac.uk/)
Essex: Department of Government (http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/)
Exeter: Department of Politics (http://www.ex.ac.uk/shipss/politics/index.php)
Glamorgan: School of Humanities, Law and Social Science (http://www.glam.ac.uk/hass/)
Glasgow: Department of Politics (http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/politics/)
Glasgow Caledonian: Politics Subject Area, Division of Social Sciences (http://www.gcal.ac.uk/)
Glasgow Caledonian: Globalization and Public Policy Subject Group (http://www.gcal.ac.uk/)
Greenwich: School of Humanities, Division of Politics (http://www.gre.ac.uk/schools/humanities/politics.htm)
Huddersfield: Division of Politics (http://www.hud.ac.uk/hhs/dbs/politics/index.htm)
Hull: Department of Politics and International Studies (http://www.hull.ac.uk/pas)
Keele: SPIRE: Politics, International Relations and Philosophy (http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/spire/)
Kent: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.kent.ac.uk/politics/)
Kingston: School of Social Sciences (http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/faculty/schools/social_sciences/index.php)
Lancaster: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/politics/)
Leeds: School of Politics and International Studies (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/polis)
Leeds Metropolitan: School of Social Sciences (http://www.lmu.ac.uk/as/ass/)
Leeds Metropolitan: School of Cultural Studies (http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/as/cs/)
Leicester: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.le.ac.uk/politics/)
Limerick: Department of Politics and Public Admistration (http://www.politics.ul.ie/)
Lincolnshire: Department of Policy Studies (http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/policystudies)
Liverpool: Department of Politics and Communication Studies (http://www.liv.ac.uk/polcomm/)
Liverpool John Moores: School of Social Science (http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/learning/dc/media/default.asp)
London Metropolitan: Department of Law, Governance and International Relations, City Campus (http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/depts/lgir/gir/city-campus/welcome-note-city.cfm)
London Metropolitan: Department of Law, Governance and International Relations, North Campus (http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/depts/lgir/gir/north-campus/welcome-note-city.cfm)
London South Bank: Department of Social and Policy Studies (http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/ahssps/)
London: Birkbeck College: School of Politics and Sociology (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/polsoc/index.php)
London: Goldsmiths College: Department of Politics (http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/politics/)
London: Institute for the Study of the Americas (http://americas.sas.ac.uk/)
London: Institute of Commonwealth Studies: Politics Staff (http://www.sas.ac.uk/commonwealthstudies)
London: King's Collefe: International Policy Institute and Centre for Defence Studies (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/)
London: Kings College: Department of War Studies (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/wsg/)
London: King's College: Defence Studies Department JSCSC (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/wsg/dsd/)
London: Queen Mary : Department of Politics (http://www.politics.qmul.ac.uk/)
London: Royal Holloway: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.rhul.ac.uk/politics-and-IR/)
London: School of Economics and Political Science: Department of Government (http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/government/)
London: School of Economics and Political Science: Department of International Relations (http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/intrel/)
London: School of Oriental and African Studies: Department of Political Studies, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences (http://www.soas.ac.uk/departments/departmentinfo.cfm?navid=17)
London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies: Department of Social Sciences (http://www.ssees.ac.uk/social.htm)
London: University College: Political Science/School of Public Policy (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/spp/)
London: University College: Constitution Unit (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/)
Loughborough: Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/eu/)
Manchester: Government and International Politics (http://www.les1.man.ac.uk/government)
Manchester Metropolitan: Department of Politics (http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/pap/)
Middlesex: Political and International Studies, School of Health and Social Sciences (http://www.mdx.ac.uk/hssc/index.htm)
Newcastle: School of Geography, Politics and Sociology (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/geps/about/politics.htm)
Northampton: Department of Sociology and Politics (http://www.northampton.ac.uk/)
Northumbria: Division of Politics (http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sass/pol/)
Nottingham: School of Politics (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/)
Nottingham Trent: Division of Politics and Sociology (http://www.ntu.ac.uk/)
Nottingham Trent: School of Arts, Communication and Culture (http://www.ntu.ac.uk/)
Open: Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) (http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/gov_politics/index.html)
Oxford: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/)
Oxford Brookes: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://ssl.brookes.ac.uk/Departments/Politics.html)
Paisley: Politics Division, School of Social Sciences (http://www.paisley.ac.uk/socialsciences/subject-groups.asp)
Plymouth: School of Sociology: Politics and International Relations Subject Group (http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=7308)
Portsmouth: Politics Division, School of Social and Historical Studies (http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/sshls/)
Queen's University Belfast: School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy (http://www.qub.ac.uk/pisp)
Reading: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/lp/PolIR/PolisLink1a.html)
Robert Gordon: Department of Economics and Public Policy, Aberdeen Business School (http://www.rgu.ac.uk/abs/)
Salford: Politics and Contemporary History Subject Group (http://www.espach.salford.ac.uk/politics/welcome.php)
Sheffield: Department of Politics (http://www.shef.ac.uk/politics/)
Sheffield: Political Economy Research Centre (http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/perc/)
Sheffield Hallam: Faculty of Organisation and Management (http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/sbf/)
Southampton: Division of Politics and International Relations (http://www.politics.soton.ac.uk/?NavContext=Discipline)
Southampton (Solent): Faculty of Media, Arts and Society (http://www.southampton-institute.ac.uk/fmas/)
St Andrews: School of International Relations (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/intrel/)
Staffordshire: Politics (http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/humanities_and_soc_sciences/irp/welcome.html)
Stirling: Department of Politics (http://www.politics.stir.ac.uk/)
Strathclyde: Department of Government (http://www.strath.ac.uk/government/)
Sunderland: School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture (http://my.sunderland.ac.uk/web/schools/adm/ahome)
Surrey: Department of Political, International and Policy Studies (http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics)
Sussex: Department of International Relations (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/irp/)
Sussex: Sussex European Institute (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sei/index.php)
Swansea: Department of Politics and International Relations (http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/politics_html.htm)
Teesside: School of Social Sciences (http://www.tees.ac.uk/schools/SSSL/index.cfm)
Trinity College, Dublin: Department of Political Science (http://www.tcd.ie/political_science)
Ulster: School of History and International Affairs (http://www.ulst.ac.uk/faculty/humanities/politics.html)
Ulster: School of Policy Studies, Public Policy Group (http://www.socsci.ulster.ac.uk/policy)
Ulster: School of Economics and Politics (http://www.socsci.ulster.ac.uk/econpolitics/)
University College, Dublin: School of Poltiics and International Relations (http://www.ucd.ie/politics)
University of Wales Institute: School of Lifelong Learning, Centre for Humanities (http://www.uwic.ac.uk/sll/sll_courses/about_humanities.asp)
Warwick: Department of Politics and International Studies (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/)
West of England: School of Politics (http://www.uwe.ac.uk/)
Westminster: Department of Social and Political Studies (http://www.wmin.ac.uk/sshl/page-671)
Westminster: Centre for the Study of Democracy (http://www.wmin.ac.uk/sshl/page-1)
Wolverhampton: Politics and International Studies Subject Area (http://www.wlv.ac.uk/)
York: Department of Politics (http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/poli/)

Most of them provide all kinds of degrees - BA, MA, PhD, research degrees etc. However, different rules and procedures may apply.