You have 2 options on your paper.
1. Write a paper on what factors influence our evaluation of President Obama
2. Write a paper on what factors influence vote choice between President Obama and Governor Romney.
For each paper, you will have to choose a total of 5 independent variables. Two of them, party identification and race, you have to choose. The other three will be variables you pick at your discretion. They can be gender, opinion on the economy, social class, etc. I am not concerned with you picking the “right” variables. I am only concerned with your ability to write the paper and interpret the results you get.
Your paper should consist of:
An introduction
A literature review that looks at the variables you have chosen and the impact they have had on vote choice in previous elections
A statement of your hypotheses and your data and methods
A presentation of your results
Your conclusions
Charts should be included at the end of the paper. You also need to include a works cited page which is not part of the page length requirement. The paper needs to be at least 12 pages long, double spaced Times New Roman font. The dataset will be provided for you, but so you can get a start on your literature review, the potential IV’s will be:
Party ID
Race
Gender
Social Class
Opinion on the Economy
Opinion on personal finances
Region of the Country
Age Group
Religiosity (i.e. how often one goes to church)
Education
Paper Template for PS 501
Title Page
Title
Name
Should be a stand alone page and does not count toward the overall length of the paper
Introduction
Your introduction should be at least two solid paragraphs; your second should be a lead-in to the rest of the paper
Lit Review
In this paper you will be analyzing the effect of four variables (Party ID and three of your choosing) so you should address each of those in your literature review
This section should be cited
Hypotheses
You should write a clear hypothesis for each variable you choose (including Party ID). I would suggest presenting them in the following manner:
H1: blah blah blah
H2: blah blah blah, and so on
Data and Methods
In this section you will describe the variables you are using, how they are coded, note that you are using regression , etc.
I will provide everyone with a paragraph that provide demographic details about the survey, etc., that can be placed in this section. Everyone should use that paragraph.
Results
This is where you analyze your regression results
Do not put your table here. Your table should be attached in an appendix following the results and should be formatted like the table attached at the bottom of this document. What you should do is lead into the table, center a statement saying “place Table 1 here”, then discuss your results
In your results make sure to address the overall explanatory power of your model (Adj. R Squared) as well as each individual variable
Conclusion
Discuss what your results all mean? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your model?
Paper Template for PS 501
Title Page
Title
Name
Should be a stand alone page and does not count toward the overall length of the paper
Introduction
Your introduction should be at least two solid paragraphs; your second should be a lead-in to the rest of the paper
Lit Review
In this paper you will be analyzing the effect of four variables (Party ID and three of your choosing) so you should address each of those in your literature review
This section should be cited
Hypotheses
You should write a clear hypothesis for each variable you choose (including Party ID). I would suggest presenting them in the following manner:
H1: blah blah blah
H2: blah blah blah, and so on
Data and Methods
In this section you will describe the variables you are using, how they are coded, note that you are using regression , etc.
I will provide everyone with a paragraph that provide demographic details about the survey, etc., that can be placed in this section. Everyone should use that paragraph.
Results
This is where you analyze your regression results
Do not put your table here. Your table should be attached in an appendix following the results and should be formatted like the table attached at the bottom of this document. What you should do is lead into the table, center a statement saying “place Table 1 here”, then discuss your results
In your results make sure to address the overall explanatory power of your model (Adj. R Squared) as well as each individual variable
Conclusion
Discuss what your results all mean? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your model?
