Political Science 104 Spring 2010-11

Introduction to American Politics Prof. J. Coleman and TAs Biava, Judge, Lamson,
Lassen, Sieja, Egar, Wagner

PAPER ASSIGNMENT

This paper counts for 15 of the 25 points you are assigned in your discussion section. It is due
Thursday, April 28. Your TA will indicate how he or she wants it submitted.

Overview

The goal of this project is for you to use your imagination and analytical skills to explore interesting
questions that can be addressed with public opinion survey data. You will use the General Social Survey
1972-2010 Cumulative Datafile Quicktables for your analysis.

Your first task is to find something you think would be interesting to explore. The Quicktables cover:
politics and voting; religion; race issues; gender issues; free speech issues; and other policy issues. Pick
one of these categories and find an item or two that interests you. (If a topic sounds “old fashioned,” it is
probably because it was being asked on the survey back in 1972.) Then you will need to think of a group
characteristic that might be associated with different responses to that item or items. The group
characteristics available in the Quicktables are gender; age; education; race; political party
identification; ideology; marital status; labor force status; family income; and region.

The idea is to decide what you want to look at, and then test out a series of what seem to you to be
possible connections that might help explain patterns in opinions on that matter. In the terms we
discussed at the very beginning of this course, you need to identify a dependent variable (this is what
you want to explain) and independent or explanatory variables (you believe these explain the variations
in the dependent variable). You will construct hypotheses to link these independent and dependent
variables.

Papers will be 5-6 pages, not including tables. Double-space and use one-inch margins, with fonts of 11
or 12 point. Please simply staple the pages together—no covers are necessary. Make sure your TA’s
name is indicated on the first page. If you wish, you may work with one other student in this class who
has the same TA as you. The two of you would submit one paper. The paper will report what items you
investigated, what hypotheses you tested and why, and what you found. No research outside of the
survey data is necessary.

Create tables or graphs of the data that you believe the reader will find useful. Group these tables at the
end of the paper. They will not be counted against your page limit. Each table should have a number and
title and the variables should be clearly labeled. You can check tables in the textbook to see how they
have a title and how the columns and rows are clearly indicated and labeled.
How to Analyze the Survey Data

The data are located at http://sda.berkeley.edu/archive.htm. Click on GSS Cumulative Datafile 1972-
2010 - Quick Tables. Now, pick one of the following:

 Politics and Voting by Background Variables

 Religion Variables by Background Variables
 Race Issues by Background Variables
 Gender Issues by Background Variables
 Free Speech Issues by Background Variables
 Other Policy Issues by Background Variables

As an example, pick Religion Variables by Background Variables. You will see the following:

From the “Select the religion variable…” dropdown menu, I selected “View on banning Bible/prayer in
public schools.” That’s my dependent variable. I think responses to that question might have something
to do with the region a person lives in, so I selected that in the “Select by breakdown…” dropdown
menu (that’s my independent variable). My hypothesis is that the South is the most traditional region
(see the Elazar reading in TED earlier this semester) and will support prayer in schools to a higher
degree than other regions. I also hypothesize that the West, because of a bit more of a frontier,
libertarian outlook, will be less supportive of the idea of organized prayer in a school, believing such

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prayer to be an imposition on others’ individual rights. I chose to look at all years of the survey
combined, both genders, and all races. I decided not to print out a chart. I click on Create the Table to
get the results:

If you scroll further down on the screen, you’ll see the text of the question. You should always do this to
be sure what the question is specifically asking:

119. A. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that no state
or local government may require the reading of the Lord's Prayer
or Bible verses in public schools. What are your views on
this--do you approve or disapprove of the court ruling?

What do we find? Note that the columns read DOWN. For example, the first column tells you that 49.4
percent of the respondents who live in New England approve of the Court’s decision, and 50.6 percent
disapprove. Turning to the results, most Americans (59.8 percent in the “Total” column) disapprove of
the ruling and believe that prayer and Bible verses should be allowed in public schools. In every region
but one (the Pacific), more people disapprove than approve of the ruling. Looking across the regions, my
hypotheses hold up pretty well. The southern states (South Atlantic, E. South Central, and W. South
Central) are the regional groups most likely to disapprove of the Court’s ruling. The western states
(Mountain, Pacific) were the most likely to support it

Now I can push my analysis a little further by any of the following: (a) look at a different religion-
oriented dependent variable to see if the regional differences still show up; (b) look at a different
independent variable such as age or party identification to see if it provides a stronger relationship to
differences of opinion on school prayer; (c) compare answers by gender or limit my analysis to one
gender; (d) compare answers by race or limit my analysis to one race; (e) compare the answers across
decades; (f) compare your answers across years (for example, you could compare answers in 2000 and
2010 if you have some reason to think public opinion might have changed across that time). Note that
unless you limit your analysis to a particular year or decades, the percentages you are seeing are based
on all responses from 1972 through 2010, assuming the question was asked on more than one survey.
Typically, you probably will want to limit your analysis to a particular decade or year.

All these are accomplished with the drop down menus that are shown above. Maybe I want to see how
the answers of women look across the regions and compare that to men. Maybe I want to see whether
the races differ in the regions with regard to their views on school prayer. Or maybe I want to see if the
regional differences are weaker today than they were many years ago. For example, I could hypothesize
that as America has grown increasingly diverse, support for the Court’s decision to ban prayer or Bible
verses would grow overall. However, I have no particular reason to think that the regional differences

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would have subsided, so I would hypothesize that we’d see the predicted regional pattern in both
periods.

To find out, I reran the tables separately for the 1970s and the 2000s and compared the results (I could
have done the same for gender or race using the drop-down boxes). My two hypotheses are supported:
(1) overall, there is somewhat more support now for the Court’s ruling—but still not a majority—than
there was in the 1970s; there has been change in public opinion, but not a great deal of change. And (2)
the regional differences from the 1970s are still there. The South is opposed, the western states less
opposed (Mountain) or supportive (Pacific). The upper Midwest has grown less opposed over time, but
still opposes the Court decision. The tables look like this:

2000s:

1970s:

You are doing detective work. After you get your initial results, think about how to expand the analysis
in one or more of the ways mentioned in the previous paragraphs. Make sure you provide hypotheses—
what do you expect to find and on what basis do you expect that? Let’s say you decided to look at the
results across time. Presumably, you have some hunch that there might have been some change. Let us
know what that hunch is and what makes you think that.

Wrapping up

 This may all seem daunting now, but once you begin you will see it is fairly straightforward and
even interesting. Do not leave obvious holes in the data gathering. If you say that “it would be
interesting to know xyz” and you have the data sitting right there that can help you find out, run
the table.
 The assignment requires no statistical or quantitative skills beyond being able to read tables with
percentages, like those above. If you have trouble, consult a TA.

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 You do not and should not report every single number that shows up in your tables. Part of your
job is to sift through the data to tell your reader what is important to know. You should also state
the numbers in different ways to prevent the mind numbing effects of reading 34.5, 65.4, 45.2,
77.3, 34.3, 12.2, 23.6 and so on over and over again. Rounding is fine: 35% instead of 34.5 is not
a problem. Rough estimating is also fine: “just under one third” instead of 31.8% or 32.3%. A
little variety in the presentation of the results usually makes it easier for readers to follow.
 Remember to focus on your hypotheses. Tell us why you think region, for example, is related to
answers on school prayer. What’s the logic/hunch/speculation that makes you think that?
 Check your grammar and spelling. Make sure your paper is not one gigantic paragraph or a
series of very long paragraphs. It is okay, preferable even, to use “I” (“I hypothesized that
bunnies are cute”).
 You can cut and paste the statistical results from the Web into a word processing document for
later review or printing, but make sure your tables are clean and neat and readable. You may
need to do some reformatting. Your operating system might also come with a screen snip or
snapshot feature you can use to copy part of the screen (in Windows 7, this is the Snipping Tool
found under Accessories in the program menu).
 If you see some odd results, take a look at the number of people who are in a category. For
example, if I limit the analysis above to 2004 and then to 2008, there are a fairly small number of
respondents in New England. Consequently, there is a huge shift in the answers they report: 38
percent of the respondents agreeing with the Court’s decision and 59 percent agreeing in 2008.
Did public opinion in New England really shift 20 points in 4 years on this question. I doubt it.
The problem is more likely that there are only 32 respondents in 2004 and 50 in 2008, and there
will be a large margin of error on such small sample sizes. If you see a problem like that, one
way to try to work around it is to use decades instead of individual years.
 I used the Region variable above. The states in each region are listed at
http://www.census.gov/econ/census07/www/geography/regions_and_divisions.html and you can
see a map at http://www.stats.indiana.edu/maptools/maps/boundary/census_regions.gif.
 When grading your papers, we will be looking for the following characteristics:

Definition of research question: The question you are investigating is clearly stated in the
opening paragraph. You identify at least one dependent variable that your paper will analyze.
You explain what the independent variables are, and your hypotheses (how you think the
independent and dependent variables are related). You can present the hypotheses all together at
the beginning of the paper or present them throughout the paper as you conduct the analysis.
Paper ends with an overview of the results. 15 points.

Analysis: You show ingenuity and persistence. The paper demonstrates effort and creativity. You
push yourself to test new hypotheses. One set of results prompts you to test another set. The
paper demonstrates that you are engaged with the project, using critical thinking and analytical
skills. 20 points.

Interpretation of data: Data are interpreted reasonably. Overstatements and understatements of

your findings are avoided. Data in tables are read correctly. You understand what the variable
(question) is asking the survey respondents. 20 points.

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 Organization and presentation of results: The results of your analysis are well organized. Points
lead sensibly from one to the other. Paragraphs are not unduly long or too short. Results are
presented in a reader-friendly fashion. Tables are well formatted and are labeled and numbered.
References in the text point readers to a specific numbered table (e.g., “Table 3 shows that . . .”;
“(see Table 2)”, etc.). 15 points.

Clarity of writing: Throughout the paper, ambiguity and vagueness are minimal. Your results
may be ambiguous (e.g., you come up with results that both seem to support and refute your
hypothesis), but the writing about them should be clear, precise, and direct. Avoid wordiness. 10
points.

Mechanics: Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are appropriate. Sentence fragments are
avoided. Tone is appropriate for a research paper. The paper is not about your opinion but about
what you are finding out about public opinion, so focus on that. Minimize the use of passive
voice. It is okay to say “I” in a paper rather than constructing sentences awkwardly to avoid it. 10
points.

Overall impression of the paper: This reflects the general quality of the paper, how well the
various parts fit together, and how effective the paper is at defining a research question and
describing the results. This criterion need not be the sum of the above criteria—the whole can be
greater or lesser than the sum of the parts. 10 points.

 Contact your TAs if you have any problems. We want you to have some fun with this
assignment and explore a bit and think like a social scientist. If you’d like, rereading chapter 1
of the text on social science research might be helpful.