Reading & Writing
Handouts on writing and reading political science, proofreading, policy memos, op-eds, diplomatic cables, and press releases.
Writing for political science
- Guide for Writing in Political Science — PDF: Shannon Mariotti’s Southwestern University guide to the questions, evidence, and arguments of political science writing.
- Purdue Online Writing Lab — Purdue’s free writing resources, including citation style guides.
- Writing a Political Science Essay — Archived: Charles King, Georgetown University, 1997.
- Writing Tips: In-class Essay Exams — Archived: University of Illinois Center for Writing Studies.
Proofread, proofread, proofread
- Editing and Proofreading — Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Reading political science writing
- 10 Steps to Reading Political Science Writing — PDF · Archived: George Washington University.
- How to Read Political Science — From Gonzaga’s political science department.
Policy memos
- Writing a Policy Memo — Archived: USC Libraries guide.
- Tips on Writing a Policy Memo — Peter J Wilcoxen, Syracuse University.
- Policy Memo — Developed in collaboration with Dr. Dan Pomeroy, manager of MIT’s International Policy Lab.
Op-eds
- Writing Effective Op-Eds — Duke University Communicator Toolkit.
- How to Write an Impactful Op-Ed — University of Chicago.
- Links and Hypertext — How to write link text readers can follow, for op-eds published online.
Diplomatic telegrams and cables
- How do diplomats write? The contribution of the diplomatic cable to U.S. and EU foreign policy-making — Archived: OREMA, Jessica Stark.
- Diplomatic Cable Writing “A Bit Like Journalism” — Archived: Columbia Journalism Review, Liz Cox Barrett.
- FOI release: guidance on writing diplomatic telegrams — Archived: UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
- How to Write a Cable — Foreign Policy, Peter W. Galbraith.
Press releases
- Writing Press Releases — Archived: Liberal Democrats.
- How to write a press release — PDF · Archived: Amnesty International.