Seminar in Research Design

1 Credit

This is designed to extend and deepen graduate students understanding of research design in empirical political science. Focus is placed on major issues in planning a research project: developing strong theories, formulating clear hypotheses, and crafting strategies to test theories and rule out rival, alternative explanations. Also, issues of effective communication of research will be considered. To get beyond abstractions, examples of research in American politics will be considered and evaluated. Technical issues of statistical analysis or broader epistemological questions in social science will not be covered.