THE IMPACT OF [independent variable]

ON [dependent variable]

CONTROLLING FOR [control variable]

[Your First Name Middle Initial and Last Name]

Department of Public & International Affairs

University of North Carolina Wilmington

Submitted in partial fulfillment of

course requirements for

PLS 401, Senior Seminar in Political Science

24 April 2008

INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

[Replace this with a one paragraph introduction to the phenomenon examined and its substantive significance. A good format here is to start the paragraph with a broad perspective on how the problem you address fits into the larger scheme of human affairs before narrowing your focus at the end of the paragraph to a specific statement of the problem.]

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Univariate hypothesis. [Replace this with a one or two paragraph summary of published research relevant to your dependent variable. Here you tell the reader why not every respondent chooses the same response on the dependent variable. Give plausible arguments for predicting consensus, conflict, or unformed distributions on that variable.]

H1:	your univariate hypothesis predicting the distribution of values on your dependent variable.

Bivariate hypothesis. [Replace this with a one or two paragraph summary of published research relevant to the relationship that you predict between your dependent and independent variable. Here you tell the reader how the independent variable influences the distribution of responses on the dependent variable. Give plausible arguments for predicting a positive, negative, or null relationship between the independent and dependent variables.]

H2:	[one category of the independent variable] is more likely than [another category of the independent variable] to exhibit [a particular value of the dependent variable].

Multivariate hypothesis. [Replace this with a one or two paragraph summary of published research relevant to the impact on the bivariate relationship of controlling for the effects of a third variable. Here you tell the reader how the control variable influences the strength of the bivariate relationship. Give plausible arguments for predicting that the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable will be stronger within one category of the control variable than within another category of the control variable.]

H3:	the impact of [the independent variable] on [the dependent variable] will be stronger within [one category of the control variable] than within [another category of the control variable].

METHODS

Data Definition

[Replace this with at least one paragraph summarizing how the concepts identified in the statement of the problem and associated hypotheses are operationally defined in your study -- including any recoding or other data transformations.]

Data Selection

[Replace this with at least one paragraph summarizing the sampling technique used. Include a description of the target population, the sample size, and the sampling error margin and confidence level.]

Data Analysis

[Replace this with at least one paragraph identifying the analysis techniques used to test your hypotheses -- i.e., frequency table analysis and contingency table analysis using chi square as a test of statistical significance and Cramer's V as a measure of statistical association.]

FINDINGS

Test of the Univariate Hypothesis

[Replace this with at least one paragraph describing the simple frequency distribution of your dependent variable. The first sentence of this paragraph should tell whether the findings in Table 1 support, do not support, or contradict the univariate hypothesis.]

TABLE 1:

FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION FOR [dependent variable]

[insert frequency table here]

Test of the Bivariate Hypothesis

[Replace this with at least one paragraph interpreting the results of crosstabulating your dependent variable with your independent variable. The first sentence should tell whether the data in Table 2 support, do not support, or contradict the bivariate hypothesis.]

TABLE 2:

CROSSTABULATION OF [dependent variable]

BY [independent variable]

[insert bivariate crosstabs table here]

Test of Multivariate Hypothesis

[Replace this with at least a two or three paragraph interpretation of the effects of introducing your control variable on the bivariate relationship. The first sentence should tell whether the data in Table 3 support, do not support, or contradict the multivariate hypothesis.]

TABLE 3:

CROSSTABULATION OF [dependent variable]

BY [independent variable]

CONTROLLING FOR [control variable]

[insert multivariate crosstabs tables here]

IMPLICATIONS

Substantive Conclusions

[Replace this with at least one paragraph on the implications of your findings for political decision-
makers.]

Methodological Conclusions

[Replace this with at least one paragraph on the implications of your findings for other researchers interested in your problem.]

REFERENCES

Shively, W. Phillips. 2007. Power & Choice: An Introduction to Political Science. 10e. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Prysby, Charles, Carmine Scavo, American Political Science Association, and Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. 2005. SETUPS: Voting Behavior: The 2004 Election [http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/SETUPS/]. Greensboro, NC: Charles Prysby, University of North Carolina/Greenville, NC: Carmine Scavo, East Carolina University/Washington, DC: American Political Science Association/Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producers], 2005. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor].

[For additional entries,

1.	Search http://scholar.google.com/ using terms that represent your three variables.

2.	Narrow to recent articles.

3.	Then pick about a dozen relevant citations to include in your references.

4.	Make sure that you set a hanging-indent format for each entry.]