The Pennsylvania State University Research Fellowship in Political Science/Sociology SOC/PLSC 497B, Spring 2003 Tuesdays: 4:15-5:45pm, 333 Beam Bus. Admin. Building Professor Frank R. Baumgartner Professor John McCarthy Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Phone: 863-1449, 107 Burrowes Phone: 863-8260, 912 Oswald Office Hours: Tue 3-4 and by appt. Office Hours: TBA T.A.: Erik Johnson Email: [email protected] This is a continuation of our two-semester course. See last semester’s syllabus for a full course description, assignments, grading, etc. This semester, we continue coding as before and we focus on the preparation and presentation of your draft term papers. Note that your project should eventually lead to a finished term paper that you can use as a writing sample for graduate school or for other purposes: it will be an original and complete piece of research based on newly collected data. By the end of the semester you should have both a term paper and a PowerPoint or poster presentation based on the same project. Below, we lay out the class schedule. Note that we focus on a repeated series of class presentations, with four presentations from each of you throughout the semester. Each of you is responsible for steady progress on your project so that each time you present the class can react to and provide feedback on your project. You are responsible not only for your own presentations, but also to give feedback, suggestions, and reactions to the presentations of the other students. Note that each class session will have some time devoted to discussing coding issues. Make sure you come to class with questions and problems to discuss. For complicated problems, bring a copy of the entry or email us before class so we can look up the problem. In any case, make sure that when you see a problem or a coding question, you bring the material to class so we can discuss the specifics of it. Weekly class presentations should be on the order of 15-20 minutes each. This will likely be shorter for the first presentation, laying out the topic, the question, and the approach, and perhaps longer for the later ones. This should allow time for questions for each of you, however, as well as for the other coding material and questions to be discussed in class. We will also periodically make presentations or give advice on such matters as data handling, statistical presentations, making charts and presenting data graphically, etc. The goal here is to help each of you create a professional-quality presentation of your original project by the end of the semester, so we will spend some time in class discussing presentation issues. This may be in general, or in reaction to one or another of your projects. In any case, the goal will be to push each of you to the most straightforward and convincing presentation of your evidence possible.PLSC/SOC 497B Baumgartner and McCarthy 2Date Activities January 14 Introduction, coding issues. Erik Johnson’s paper draft for next week. Random assignments of each student into groups A, B, and C. January 21 Erik Johnson’s draft paper. Johnson will present; students read and discuss. Come to class with questions; note the work-in-progress status of the project. Use this as a model for your own work. January 28 First cycle of presentations: Group A presents their topic, ideas, research design, planned data sources, biggest expected problems. February 4 Group B, first presentation. February 11 Group C, first presentation. February 18 Group A, second presentation. Dataset progress, literature review, initial findings, problems. February 25 Group B, second presentation March 4 Group C, second presentation. March 11 SPRING BREAK March 18 Group A, third presentation. Full drafts expected now for peer feedback. March 25 Group B, third presentation. April 1 Group C, third presentation. April 8 No presentations; office hours held in class to discuss your final projects April 15 Group A, final presentations. Full PowerPoint presentations and written term papers due in class. April 22 Group B, final presentations. April 29 Group C, final presentations. Last class day. May 6 (Exam day) Dinner or lunch to be decided on in class. Groups (as determined by random draw, with volunteers, on the first day of spring semester): A: James M., Ryan A., Megan P., Jason R. B: Mike B., Erin M., Krista P. C: Carolyn F., Jason