Research Seminar

2024/2025

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

2

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

Department of Political Science and International Affairs

Course type:

Compulsory course

When:

1 year, 4 module

Instructor

Borisenko, Maksim

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course is a freshmen introduction into the craft of academic research. During the course we will discuss what the research is and how working with academic literature contributes to producing original research. Moreover we will cover issues of modern technologies in academia and a career of political scientist.

Learning Objectives

• The main goal of this course is to introduce students to the basic steps of conducting and academic research.
• As a subgoal the course aims at developing the skill of navigating, reading and understanding the research literature.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Students explore what place does literature review take in a single research. Student learn what goals does literature review aims to reach.
• Students learn how to download, use and administrate citation manager systems.
• Students learn how to operate in the university library and how to use the electronic resources
• Students learn the different ways to organize and structure a literature review
• Students learn which parts does research include and how fo they compose in a single paper.
• Students explore the definitions of academic integrity and plagiarism. Students learn to differ the types of plagiarism. Students grasp how to avoid plagiarism in academic reserach the penalties for breaking the rules.
• Students learn what academic research is and what role does it play in political science
• Students learn the different functions and possible origins of political science researchers.
• Student learns to think critically about the sources

Course Contents

• DG1. Introductory session
• DG2. What is research?
• DG3. Who is a political science researcher?
• DG4. How to read a research paper
• DG5. Working in a library. Working with electronic resources
• DG6. Academic integrity
• DG7. Plagiarism
• DG8. Citation manager: Using the Zotero Software
• DG9. What is literature review?
• DG10. Workshop
• Years 2-4

Assessment Elements

• In-class Tests
  In-class tests represent a set of quizzes taking place at the beginning of some seminars. Each test includes from 1 to 5 open and multiple-choice questions. There is a 10-scale grade for each test. For each correct answer a student gets from 1 to 4 points depending on the question. The final grade for this assignment represents a mean value of all test results.
• Interim Assignment
  This assignment is designed to check both skills of using Zotero and identification of research questions. At certain point srudents have to divide in groups of 2-3 people and choose a topic. Then the topic have to be approved by the instructor. After that students will have to make list of 20 bibliographic references of books and academic papers in Chicago author-date style (this one: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html ) made in Zotero on the approved topic. The document also have to include a research question. Requirements: 1. Division into teams until DG5 Approval of the topic with the instructor until DG7 Deadline of submission: DG 10, before class Each day of overdue will result in subtraction of 1 point from the grade for this task 2. Requisites: a. amount of sources: 20 sources, at least 75% in English language b. types of sources: books and academic papers c. correspondence of sources to the topic of the Literature Review
• Final Assignment
  This test consists of two parts. The first part is a quiz with multiple-choice questions where each question has only one correct answer. The second consists of a set of open questions where students have to show that they have a profound knowledge of the matter. All questions are based on the mandatory readings and seminar discussions. The test lasts 1 hour 20 min. For each correct answer, a student gets 1 to 3 points depending on the question. Total sum of the points that a student has got for the test is converted into percentages (100% are given when all the answers are correct). To grade the test, the following scale for converting percentages into grades is used: 10: 100,00 – 95,00 % 9: 94,99 – 90,00 % 8: 89,99 – 85,00 % 7: 84,99 – 75,00 % 6: 74,99 – 70,00 % 5: 69,99 – 60,00 % 4: 59,99 – 50,00 % 3: 49,99 – 45,00 % 2: 44,99 – 35,00 % 1: 34,99 – 10,00 % 0: 10,00 – 00,00 %

Interim Assessment

• 2024/2025 4th module
  0.3 * Final Assignment + 0.35 * In-class Tests + 0.35 * Interim Assignment
• 2025/2026 2nd module
  1 * 2024/2025 4th module
• 2025/2026 4th module
  1 * 2024/2025 4th module
• 2026/2027 4th module
  1 * 2024/2025 4th module
• 2027/2028 2nd module
  1 * 2024/2025 4th module

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Political research: methods and practical skills, Halperin, S., 2012
• The craft of research, , 2016

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Wayne C. Booth et al. The Craft of Research (4th ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Authors

• BORISENKO MAKSIM SERGEEVICH