Tools and skill-building for writing in Government
A resource for concentrators.
What is GovWrites?
GovWrites is a joint venture of the Department of Government, the Harvard College Writing Program, and the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. The site, an extension of HarvardWrites, is designed to assist Government concentrators with their transition to the study of political science, and to acquaint them with the norms, expectations, and best practices of the discipline.
How do I use GovWrites?
GovWrites is divided into four sections.
For those that are writing in political science for the first time, Writing in Government offers a sequenced curriculum that will teach you about the building-blocks of political science writing like research questions, falsifiable arguments, paragraph structure, and use of evidence.
Those who already have experience writing in political science may still be asked to write new and unfamiliar types of work. Advanced Writing covers how to approach different genres of political science writing, from policy memos to literature reviews to research proposals.
One subfield of political science - political theory, or political philosophy - is guided by some different principles and conventions. Writing for political theory requires, in part, a different set of building blocks - these are taught here under Writing Political Theory.
Thesis-writers can find relevant materials and guides under the section Writing a Thesis. Here you can find the Gov department’s PDF Guide to Writing a Senior Thesis in Government as well as supporting materials for writing up qualitative empirical chapters, quantitative empirical chapters, and literature reviews.
I’m new to writing in Government
Welcome to the department! We’re thrilled to have you.
Writing in Political Science is based on many of the foundational principles that you were taught in Expos or in high school. However, it also builds on those principles in a number of important ways. In political science, we write with the goal of making arguments and supporting those arguments with empirical evidence or careful logical explanation. The argument-driven, evidence-supported, and logical character of writing is part of what puts the “science” in political science. Political science writers value clarity, conciseness, and coherence as qualities that make arguments and their supporting evidence or logic persuasive and easy to evaluate on its merits.
I’m writing for an advanced course
Great! You’re already a political science veteran, but now you may be asked to do some new and different kinds of writing .
Gov 10, 20, 30, and 40, alongside the “New to Writing in Government” curriculum on this site, have familiarized you with the building blocks of writing argument-driven papers in political science. However, as you spend more time in the discipline, you will have to adapt these building blocks to different formats, purposes, and audiences. Literature and book reviews ask you to build and argument not from empirical observation, but from existing research. Research proposals require that you speculate on the ideal and most practical ways to test hypotheses and develop an argument. Grant applications require some of both, often in a very small space. Understanding how to adapt to these different “genres” of writing is important for growing as a successful political scientist..
I’m writing political theory
Political theory (or political philosophy) is organized around different foundational principles and purposes than the other subfields of political science. In the same way, writing for political theory requires a different set of building blocks. Students writing for political theory need to understand how to make normative arguments, perform close reading, interpret or critique a text, and at times, put an author in conversation or in historical context. “Writing Political Theory,” like “Writing in Government,” is a sequenced curriculum that teaches these building blocks.
