Study Gauges Americans’ Views on Military Intervention

In this paper assignment you will be writing a double-spaced 5-to-6-page memo (12 pt. font, 1 in margins) to the reporter, Minerva Baumann, about her article.

The premise: you and Baumann (the author of the news article) are part of a guild of writers who are working to improve the accuracy and clarity of their social science reporting. As part of this project. you periodically review each other’s stories and you’ve been assigned to write a review of “Study Gauges Americans’ Views on Military Intervention” by Minerva Baumann.

Because other members of the Social Science Writing Guild will not have time to read the original research, your job is to evaluate the original research as well as Baumann’s newspaper article. You should define and/or explain any social science terms you use so that everyone in the guild can learn from your knowledge.

  • Download the following:
  • Original Research Article
  • Journalist’s Story

Submit your completed paper via Canvas before midnight on October 24th, 2022. Late papers will be penalized.

You will be evaluated on:

–The overall strength of your writing. Remember: clarity is key!

–Your ability to identify and explain the purpose, strengths, and weaknesses of the original research.

–Your accurate assessment of the quality of Baumann’s article, and ability to explain what was done right and wrong.

 

The Social Science Writing Guild generally uses the following structure in these memos:

A general introduction with a thesis about how well the newspaper article represents the original research.
A few pages in which you describe the original research and state your general opinion about the strength of the original research. What were the researchers trying to establish? How strong were their methods? What were their conclusions? Typical areas of focus: hypothesis, method, conceptualization, measurement quality, ethics, and sampling.
Then, you should evaluate (in a page or two) the quality of Baumann’s news article. Did Baumannaccurately portray the research? Was she critical of potential weaknesses and admiring of the strengths? And how well did she describe the fit between the paper and other related literature (HW3)?
Wrap up with a restatement of your overall opinion about the strength of the research and the news article and give some constructive advice about how reporters in the guild might deal with these kinds of stories in the future.
Some notes to help you on your way:

Although it is fine to use terms such as “I” and “you”, try to make sure that your writing is professional in tone.
You should use citations when referencing both the original research article and the newspaper write-up. Although we will not be grading you on the style of citations you use for this paper, we will be requiring APA-formatting in the final paper. For an example of APA formatting, see http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/Links to an external site..
Organize your paper into clear subsections (with labels).
You do NOT need to address every possible area of the research. In addition to identifying what the basic methods were, make sure that you focus on the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the research and writeup.

Questions to address in your write-up:

What was the researchers’ theory?
What were their hypotheses?
What was their sample? What does that mean in terms of whom they can generalize to?
What method(s) did they use? What does that mean in terms of limitations?
How did they conceptualize and operationalize their variables? Were those conceptualizations and operationalizations valid and/or reliable?
What were the strengths and weaknesses of the original research?
What kind of evidence does the study provide?
What do we still need to know from the study?

Did the news report capture the strengths and weaknesses of the original research?
Did the news report properly contextualize the original research in the literature?
Did Baumann run into typical problems of journalistic writing about science?
Is the language used in Baumann’s article appropriate given what was established in the original article?

How do we avoid any problems encountered in this case in future science journalism?
What was successful in the write-up that might be a good model for the future?