For every subject the way that essays are written is different. There are different expectations and different norms that you’ve got to incorporate into your writing. For that reason, it’s always a good idea that you have a basic idea what you’re supposed to be doing in the subject you’re about to write for, before you sit down and begin to write.

Here we’ll look at the writing of a political science paper. This is a subject where the norm is data-driven analyses of real world events. For that reason, it’s important that you actually take the time to plan your essay, so as to actually have done the correct research before you put pen to paper.

Find the right questions

To write a political science essay the very first step you’ve got to take is to know what your question is. Don’t just flub this either. For with a good question your essay will almost write itself, while without a good one it’s going to be very difficult indeed to write anything worthwhile.

So, you don’t want to write an essay about what other experts have said about the subject. Why not? Because that will just end up being a report where you’ll have almost no space for any form of creativity.

Another thing that often happens when students write a political science essay is that they confuse the topic for the question. They are not in any way the same thing. You begin by choosing a topic then you move on to the question.

A topic alone is simply not enough. It will often be too big and it will be very hard indeed to make it gel and work as a cohesive topic. To avoid that, take your topic and within it look for something that you want to answer. If you can do that, then the essay will almost write itself, with one part naturally flowing into the next.

Flawed understanding

The best kinds of questions are, in fact, where you analyze a flaw in the thinking of political science. These are areas where you can actually make a difference. This is because when you’re starting out to write political essays you’re probably not going to solve any serious problems.

What you might do instead is point out flaws in thinking. This can have a far more profound effect than you might realize, as it can be the first domino in reimagining an entire part of the field, if done correctly. So don’t disparage this way of thinking.

Do the research

The next part of the process is getting the right information. After all, as I’ve already said, political science is data driven. That means that you’ve got to actually have the data. You thought it basically is a field of armchair philosophy?

You’d be wrong.

Yes, there are certain political scientists who can indeed come up with fantastic insights without looking in a textbook and considering the numbers, but this is because they’ve already got the information in their heads. It will take you quite some time of detailed research before you’re going to get there.

How to get the data

As a student, you might struggle to get original data sets. After all, you’ve got other classes, you don’t have that much research experience, and you don’t have the connections to actually get these kinds of data sets.

That’s alright.

Political science can be done quite well with a library and older data sets. This is because a lot of political science is about understanding old numbers in new ways. The trick is to make sure that you’ve actually got access to the right data sets as the more information you have access to the better you’ll be able to support your arguments.

And that’s something that your professors will appreciate.

So, ask your university library what online resources you can use as well as what other libraries you might be able to get into around the state. You see, many universities have all sorts of arrangements with other universities and other educational institutions – far too many for them to tell every uninterested student about each and every one. That means you’ll only actually get to hear about them by showing an interest and by doing some digging.

Check your sources

One thing that I’ve really got to impress upon you is that you don’t just use whoever agrees with you. An argument in science is only as good as the sources it uses. So make sure you’ve actually got good sources.

There are many things that you can do to see how qualified they are. For example, do other people quote this same source and is it in a reputable journal? The biggest one of all, however, is to check their sources in turn.

The shorthand is pretty straightforward. The more sources they’ve got, the better the support is for what they’re claiming. Just to be safe, if you’ve got a key article that supports a great deal of what you’re trying to say, go back and check a few of the source’s source as well. Again, ask yourself are they quoted by other people and are they in reputable journals.

If your source’s sources are dubious, then it might be a good idea to find additional material to defend your position.

Last words

The most important thing to note is that learning how to do these things isn’t something that you’re just going to get one, two, three. These things take time to learn. If you don’t get it right off the bat, you may check reviews of companies which can help you with that task. Also, you will find that there’s much more useful information on the web than you probably expected.

You see, when you do something like that it will give you one or two good grades, but it also deprives you of the opportunity to learn an important skill. And that will mean that you’ll get ever further behind, which will mean it’s likely that you’ll end up becoming ever more dependent on means like this to fight your way through school.

And that can get expensive fast.