How do I approach other kinds of writing?
Once you are familiar with the basic building-blocks of writing in political science, you may find yourself facing different types of writing tasks other than the basic argument-driven essay. Every writing task poses a different overall objective, set of expectations and conventions, and audience. Understanding what and who those objectives, conventions, and audiences are, and then adapting your writing appropriately, is critical for writing successful literature reviews, grant applications, research proposals, and op-eds. At the same time, while weighing these different demands, you should keep the basic building-blocks of argument-driven political science writing in hand.
How do I learn about genres of political science writing?
This section of GovWrites teachings different genres of writing in political science. Each module walks through how to balance the demands of a genre with the fundamentals of political science writing that you have already learned. You can learn about writing for each genre by selecting a module from the list below.
Literature Reviews
How do I summarize existing literature while maintaining my own voice? What can my literature or book review do that goes above and beyond summarizing the literature? How do I gauge appropriate breadth and depth in my literature or book review?
Research Proposals
What should a research proposal do? How to I discuss research that I have not conducted yet? Who is the audience for my research proposal, and how can I write a proposal that works to help my further my broader research?
Op-eds & Policy Briefs
How should I think about writing when my audience is not consumers of political science? How do I balance the need to retain social science principles while making my work relevant to policymakers? How should I change my writing style to make my opinion or argument persuasive and impactful?
Grant Applications
What should I write about when applying for research funding? How do I communicate the importance of my research in a very short space? How do I convince a reviewer that my research is worth funding?
Collaboration
Should you approach writing differently when collaborating or coauthoring work? How do I collaborate with others while maintaining academic integrity?
