1. The Fundamentals of Political Science Research, 2nd Edition
Chapter 12: Putting it all Together to Produce Effective Research

2. Chapter 12 Outline Two routes toward a new scientific project
Using the literature without getting buried in it
Writing effectively about your research
Making effective use of tables and figures

3. Two routes toward a new scientific project
Project Type 1: A new Y (and some X)
Project Type 2: An existing Y and a new X
A variant: Examine a previously examined X-Y relationship in a new context

4. Using the literature without getting buried in it
Identifying the important work on a subject--using citation counts
Oh no! Someone else has already done what I was planning to do. What do I do now?
Dissecting the research by other scholars
What was the research question/puzzle?
What was their theory?
What was their research design?
How did they do with the four hurdles?
What did they conclude?
Can their theory be applied elsewhere in an interesting fashion?

5. Read effectively to write effectively
One of the best ways to learn strategies for effectively communicating your research ideas is examine the ways in which other researchers communicate their ideas.
Pay attention to how others write: you can learn a lot from both good and bad writing.
When you are reading, be particularly conscious of the way in which causal arguments are presented.
Make notes about those arguments that you find immediately persuasive and those arguments that you are less so.
What did the authors do to enhance or hurt their arguments?

6. Example--Robert Franzese
As an example of effective writing, consider Robert Franzese's 1999 article “Partially Independent Central Banks, Politically Responsive Governments, and Inflation.” Franzese's opening paragraph begins:
“Political scientists and economists generally agree that central bank in- dependence lowers inflation. Both also define central bank independence as the degree of autonomy of the conservative central bank from the political authority in making monetary policy. From the political scientist's view, central banks are bureaucratic institutions, populated by financial experts who are usually hawkish on inflation, whether socialized to that view or coming from population-groups with those interests.”

7. Writing effectively about your research
``Writing is thinking.''
-- Diedre McCloskey
Write early, write often because writing is thinking
Document your code—writing and thinking while you compute
Divide and conquer—a section-by-section strategy for building your project:
Introduction
Literature Review
Theory
Research Design and Data
Findings/Results
Implications and Conclusions

8. Proof read, proof read, and then proof read again
Spell checking is necessary but insufficient
micro-level to macro-level proofreading
Listen to your work being read

9. Making effective use of tables and figures
We strongly recommend that you spend a lot of time constructing the tables and figures that you include in your projects.
When they first pick up your written work (or open it electronically), many readers will take a quick look at the title and introduction and then go directly to your tables and figures.
We recommend that you construct your tables and figures so they stand on their own and draw readers in.
We also recommend that you tell readers in the text of your project what they should see in your tables and figures.
Take time to analyze what works and what doesn't work in terms of other scholars' use of tables and figures.