COMPARATIVE

POLITICS AND
POLICY
A SS E SS M E N T
 COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY
This module will be assessed by a 2500-word written assignment
worth 80 per cent of the total grade and a weekly task worth 20 per
cent of the total grade.

Written assignment to be submitted via Turn-it-in by 4 p.m. on

Wednesday, 8 May 2019.
Essay titles are to be developed by students as part of the module
curriculum.

All essay titles must be agreed by the seminar tutor by the

end of February.
COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY
Stage One. Choose one week of the module
—between week 19 and week 28— as the
theme for your essay.

If you want to choose a theme from a week

that we have not yet covered in class, feel
free. If that is the case, then do the assessed
reading for that week now. (This will save you
time later in the term).
COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY

Stage Two. Drawing on the cases in the

reading and discussed in class, think about
which countries (or perhaps international
groupings) interest you in regard to the
essay’s theme.
 COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY

Stage Three. Draft your own essay question

based on Stages One and Two above.

As a student of politics, you should be able to

think of a question that cannot be answered
by mere description, but instead requires an
analytical and comparative approach.
 COMPARATVE POLITICS AND POLICY
You might want to consider constucting your question in
such terms as:

‘assess the effectiveness of …’

‘compare the outcomes from …’
‘to what extent does …’.

These are just suggestions to get you thinking — feel free to

use these or develop your own. To ensure that your essay
topic is manageable, it will usually be a good idea to identify
in the title the countries about which you are going to write.
COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY
Stage Four. Send your draft question, by email, to
your seminar tutor by the end of February.

Stage Five. Your seminar tutor will

EITHER give approval for you to write your module
assignment on the title that you have suggested,
OR suggest some amendments.
If the latter, then you should respond with an
amended title before your next seminar, and again
seek the approval of your seminar tutor for the title.
COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY

Stage Six. The process of planning your essay

title is only concluded once you have the
approval of your seminar tutor for your essay
title.

Stage Seven. Write the thing ..!

 COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY
ADVICE ON WRITING A POLITICS ESSAY

Organise your essay around its argument.

• in the introduction, state what you are arguing
• then paragraph by paragraph build up that argument
• in the conclusion, sum up what you have argued

(Don’t write a chronological narrative. Don’t just state

facts with no argument. Don’t write a descriptive
account. Don’t save any surprises for the conclusion.)
 COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY
ADVICE ON WRITING A POLITICS ESSAY
Critically engage with literature.
• use academic sources (journal articles, books).
[We will look more deeply at this in the final week of the
module]
• be careful about using ‘soft’ sources like newspaper articles,
blogs, BBC reports --- these sometimes have their place, but for
specific reasons, acknowledging what they are
• use primary sources (speeches, constitutions, government
documents)
• feel free to critique authors --- you are building your own
argument
 COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY
ADVICE ON WRITING A POLITICS ESSAY
Write in academic, social science style
• use sub-headings, and ‘sign-post’ your arguments as your essay develops
• if appropriate, feel free to present data in table form, or graphs, or figures
• reference clearly (including page numbers) and organise your bibliography
clearly (alphabetical order by author’s surname)
• don’t put any publication in the bibliography that you don’t mention in the
text
• don’t omit any publication from the bibliography that you do mention in
the text

If you want to know what academic style is, look at an academic article in
an academic journal.
 COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND POLICY
ADVICE ON WRITING A POLITICS ESSAY
Take care that what you write is all your
own work
• always be clear when you are using the
words of someone else (‘speech marks’,
clear referencing including page numbers)
• never get someone else to write your
essay for you