Research guides: Political Science Research Guide: Your writing

Writing political science essays

Good Writing in Political Science
An Undergraduate Student’s Short Illustrated Primer. By Henry Farrell, Political Science Dep't, George Washington University.
Nelson Guide to Research and Writing in Political Science, 2013

Writing a Research Paper in Political Science by Lisa A. Baglione
Publication Date: 2020

How to Edit Your Own Writing
New York Times article by Harry Guinness. Published April 7, 2020, Updated April 10, 2020. NOTE: you may need to set up a free account to view this version. You can also access NYT articles for free via Factiva. Check the News sources tab in this guide for the link.

Be an organized writer

Strategies for Organizing your Information for your Literature Review
UWLibrary's infographic (1 page)

Avoid Plagiarism, or How to Successfully use the Works of Others
Tips on paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, using data, and using images.
Assignment planners
Advice on writing and submitting on time:

Annotated bibliographies
Research essays
Policy briefs
Literature reviews
Critical reflections
Article reviews

Conducting reviews

"What type of review could you write?"
The flow chart from Yale's Medical Library can help you choose a method of knowledge (evidence) synthesis that fits your project.

Below: details about three review types that scholars might conduct.

Literature review (also known as Narrative review)
Video (9 minutes)
Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students
What is a literature review? What purpose does it serve in research? What should you expect when writing one?
Courtesy North Carolina State University Libraries
Scoping review
What is a scoping review? Via Brock University Library
Systematic review
See this comprehensive guide from Duke University Library on what is involved in conducting this comprehensive, team-based work.

Writing and Communication Centre

UWaterloo's Writing and Communication Centre.

Meet with teaching associates about any writing project. Work with them on:

writing anything from a memo to a major research paper
learning how to revise, edit, and proofread
organizing your thoughts and ideas
incorporating your research and citing sources

Style guides

Establish yourself as an author

1. Create your open researcher identification

Consider creating an Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCiD provides you with a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher.

ORCiD enables you to obtain a unique 16 digit identification number that can be used to tie you to your work.

2. Know your author rights

Author Rights (UWaterloo Library guide)
Your Rights, and Keeping Them; Publishing Considerations; Theses Concerns

3. Submit your work for publication

These 2 tools can help you choose where to submit articles
- Edanz journal selector
- Cofactor journal selector
Consider submitting to a UWaterloo Library-hosted journal

For example: "The Sankofa Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies is a peer-reviewed journal that supports the amplification of subaltern and marginalized voices at the University of Waterloo. The journal encourages submissions from all University of Waterloo communities (staff, faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students) from across all faculties and disciplines. Sankofa encourages us to 'look back' to 'move forward' by challenging traditional and eurocentric ideals of scholarship. We seek interdisciplinary works (original content that is rooted with-in and with-out the academe) that are rooted in praxis."