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A note on Academic sources:

There are basically two kinds of sources you might use for a paper, which for simplicity I term

academic sources andjournalistic sources. There are some key differences between them that

make academic sources superior for our purposes.

Academic sources: These are works that have been "peer-reviewed" which means that before

they are published other researchers in the particular subject field have read them, commented on

them, suggested improvements, checked the data, and determined whether the research is

rigorous enough to be published. This is important. It means that when you read academicsources you can have a level of trust in the data on which they are based. It doesn't mean that

academic sources are always "right" since there can be multiple interpretations of the same data.

It does mean, however, that the works meet a certain standard of expectations, and you can citethem with confidence that they represent generally well-done research and analysis. Examples of

academic sources include academicjournals such as theJournal of Politics, theAmerican

Political Science Review, theAmerican Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, and soon. A good way to be sure of an academic source in our areas of study is to see if it is indexed in

the Social Science Index available at the library (and online). For our purposes we will consider

books available at the library as academic sources as well, though strictly speaking some books(published usually be commercial publishers) really are not, while those published by academic

presses (like the University of Iowa Press, or Cambridge University Press, etc.) are usually

academic sources.

Journalistic sources: These are works which have NOT been reviewed by other academic

researchers and which may or may not represent good research. The problem is you just don'tknow. There are times, especially when writing about current events, when journalistic sources

are useful. You might also find them useful if you are trying to fill in a history of something. But

they do not carry as much weight in academic writing as do academic sources. Examples includenewspaper articles, newsmagazines, "popular press" books, and most definitely internet-based

materials. While such sources may be acceptable for your papers, you must use them in

moderation and rely more fully on academic sources to support your points. In particular, unlessyou are certain that an Internet site is linked to good academic research you need to be careful.

Some sites such as government sites (like www.census.gov) contain useful and valid data. You

will also find a number of university based sites (like www.umich.edu/~nes/) which containusable materials. These are perfectly acceptable Internet sites and count as academic sources for

our purposes. In the end, if you are unsure of the validity of a source, please see me.

A brief note about internet citations: Internet sources can be good ones, though not always. Becareful that the site is more than mere opinion. Any internet sites that you cite must include the

name of the publisher of the web site, or the person quoted on the site, the full URL so I can go

directly to the material being used as a source, and the date you accessed the site.

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CITATIONS

My preference is that you use the citation method seen in most of the papers we read, where the

author is listed in the text by last name and year of publication, and the full reference is includedat the end of the paper in an alphabetized list of references. So in the paper your citations should

look like: According to Redlawsk (2005), the sky is blue. or like The sky is blue (Redlawsk,2005.) or Redlawsk (2005) argues that You then include in your references the entirecitation:

For a book:

Redlawsk, David P. 2005. What is the color of the sky? New York: Cambridge Press.

For an article in a journal:

Redlawsk, David P. 2005 Why is the sky not green? The American Sky Report54(3): 215-225.

The journal listing includes article title, journal name (in italics), the volume and number of the

journal, and the page numbers in which the article is found.

Use articles we read from political science journals (like theAmerican Journal of PoliticalScience) as examples for how to do citations.