Sample of Quantitative Political Science Papers

Interpreting and presenting research findings is not an easy business. On the one hand, as researchers we need to be methodologically accurate when discussing the substantive implications of our findings. On the other hand, we should also aim for a not-too-technical tone so we can reach a larger audience. Then, what is the “right” way to do it?

There isn’t probably a “right" answer to this question. However, we can learn from how researchers who recently published in top journals do it. The file papers.csv in this repository contains a list of all the articles published in APSR (American Political Science Review), AJPS (American Journal of Political Science), and IO (International Organization) in 2015 and beginning of 2016.

1. Fork and Clone the repository papers.
2. Open the papers.csv file and choose 3 papers of your interest. These should be quantitative. It may be useful for them to use linear models (OLS, panel data), but not necessary.
3. Open an issue to the main repository papers and list the 3 papers you chose. Do not choose papers that other people have chosen.

We will not be replicating these. But we will look at these papers to understand how to communicate quantitative results in political science academic writing: Future assignment(s) will ask you to answer questions such as:

• What statistical methods/tests are the authors using to test their hypotheses?
• Do they present their findings and the results of statistical tests using tables?
• And using plots?
• What type of plots? (e.g. Treatment Effects, First Difference or other Standardized Coefficients, Predicted Values-Probabilities, etc.).
• How do they describe their findings? How do they interpret the coefficients of their models and the substantive effect that their covariates of interest have on the dependent variable? Copy & Paste specific sentences.