Project Assignment 2
Literature Review and Data Analysis Draft
Overview
For this assignment, you will build on your initial proposal by developing a more substantial draft of your research paper. This is where you deepen your engagement with the scholarly literature, refine your argument in conversation with that literature, and begin the work of data analysis that will provide empirical support for your thesis.
By now you should have a clearer sense of your research question and argument. You’ve read through your sources and identified the key debates and findings in the literature. You’ve also looked at your data and have a sense of what it can tell you. This assignment asks you to bring these pieces together into a coherent draft that demonstrates how your argument contributes to existing scholarship and how your data analysis will support your claims.
You’ll also need to do the practical work of preparing your data for analysis. This means downloading your dataset, cleaning it, and getting it into the proper format. For most data analysis tools, including Excel, R, and others we’ve used in class, the data need to be in long format so that each row contains values for one country or region per year and each column contains data for one variable. You’ll need to filter the data for the years that you want to use and select the variables that you want to work with. If you are working with more than one data set, then you may need to merge them. I show you how to do all of this using data from the World Bank and V-Dem in this video.
Steps
This assignment has both intellectual and practical components. You need to develop your argument through engagement with the literature while also doing the technical work of data preparation.
1. Expand and deepen your literature review
Go beyond the annotated bibliography you created for Assignment 1. Read your sources carefully and identify the main debates, theoretical frameworks, and empirical findings. How do different scholars approach your topic? Where do they agree and disagree? What gaps exist in the literature that your research might address?
As you write your literature review, don’t just summarize each source one by one. Instead, organize the literature thematically or by argument. Show how different scholars are in conversation with each other, and position your own argument in relation to these debates.
2. Refine your thesis and engage with counterarguments
Based on your deeper engagement with the literature and your preliminary look at the data, you may need to refine or adjust your thesis. That’s normal and good—it shows you’re thinking carefully about your topic.
Identify the main counterarguments or alternative explanations to your thesis. Who would disagree with you and why? What evidence might challenge your argument? You don’t need to fully resolve these tensions yet, but you should demonstrate awareness of them and begin thinking about how you’ll address them in your final paper.
3. Download and clean your data
Now it’s time to get your hands dirty with the actual data. Download the dataset you identified in Assignment 1 and open it in Excel’s Power Query Editor (or another tool if you prefer) to see what you’re working with.
Ask yourself these questions: - Are the data in long format or will you need to reshape them? - How many years are there in the data and what will you need to filter out? - Which variables are most relevant to your argument? - Are there missing values or data quality issues you need to address?
Follow the steps we discussed in class to clean the data and prepare it for analysis. If you’re working with more than one dataset, you’ll need to merge them—particularly if you want to examine relationships between variables from different sources.
I recommend working with just a handful of variables for this assignment. Focus on the 3-5 variables that are most essential to your argument. You can always add more later if needed, but it’s better to do a thorough job with a few key variables than to spread yourself too thin.
4. Create preliminary visualizations
Using the tools we’ve learned in class—Excel, Power BI, R, or whatever you’re most comfortable with—create 2-3 preliminary data visualizations. These don’t need to be polished or publication-ready yet, but they should be clear enough to give you (and me) a sense of what patterns exist in your data.
Think about what story each visualization tells and how it relates to your argument. Does it provide evidence for your thesis? Does it reveal complexities or exceptions you’ll need to address?
What to Submit
You will submit a draft of your research paper (6-8 pages, not including references or appendices) along with your cleaned dataset and preliminary visualizations. This draft should include the following sections:
1. Introduction (approximately 1-1.5 pages)
Your introduction should draw the reader in and establish why your research question matters. Present your research question clearly and state your thesis. This should be more polished and compelling than your initial proposal—you’ve done more reading and thinking by now, so your argument should be sharper and more sophisticated.
2. Literature Review (approximately 2-3 pages)
This is the heart of this assignment. Your literature review should synthesize existing scholarship on your topic, organizing it thematically or by argument rather than simply summarizing each source. Identify the main debates and theoretical frameworks scholars use to understand your topic. Where do scholars agree? Where do they disagree?
Crucially, your literature review should set up your own argument. Show where there are gaps in the literature, unresolved questions, or new contexts that merit further investigation. Position your thesis in relation to this existing scholarship. How does your argument build on, challenge, or refine what others have found?
3. Theoretical Framework and Counterarguments (approximately 1-1.5 pages)
Lay out the logic of your argument more fully. What is the causal mechanism or theoretical reasoning that supports your thesis? Why should we expect to see the pattern you predict?
This is also where you should engage seriously with counterarguments. What are the main alternative explanations for the patterns you’re studying? What evidence might challenge your thesis? Be honest about the limitations and complexities. Strong arguments acknowledge their weaknesses and explain how they’ll address them—they don’t pretend those weaknesses don’t exist.
4. Data and Methods (approximately 1.5-2 pages)
Describe your dataset in detail. Where does it come from? What time period and countries does it cover? How reliable is it? If there are known limitations or measurement issues, acknowledge them.
Describe the key variables you’re analyzing and explain how they’re measured. Then discuss your planned visualizations and analyses. You should plan to create at least four visualizations for your final paper. For this draft, describe what these will be and explain what each will demonstrate. Be specific: What will be on each axis? What countries or time periods will you focus on? How will each visualization provide evidence for your argument?
If you’ve already created 2-3 preliminary visualizations (as recommended), describe what they show and what you learned from creating them. Include these visualizations in an appendix.
Also use this section to be honest about any challenges you encountered in preparing the data. Did you discover data quality issues? Are there missing values that concern you? Are there limitations in the dataset that might affect your ability to test your argument? It’s much better to identify these issues now and think about how to address them than to discover them at the last minute.
5. Brief Conclusion (approximately 1/2 page)
Wrap up this draft by summarizing where you are in your research process. What are your next steps? What additional analysis do you need to do? What parts of your argument need further development?
6. References
Include a complete reference list using Zotero (or your chosen citation management system). You should have expanded your bibliography beyond Assignment 1—aim for at least 12-15 sources, with a good mix of course readings and additional scholarship. Use a consistent citation format throughout (APA, Chicago, or MLA).
7. Appendices
Include your cleaned dataset as a .csv or Excel file. Also include any preliminary visualizations you’ve created, with brief captions explaining what each shows.
A Note on Format
You can write this draft as an academic research paper, or if you prefer, you can frame it as a policy report or policy memo. If you choose the policy format, the tone may be somewhat different—more directed toward a specific policy audience and actionable recommendations—but the intellectual requirements are the same. You still need a clear thesis, engagement with evidence and scholarship, consideration of counterarguments, and data-driven analysis.
Final Thoughts
Don’t overdo it, but also don’t shortchange yourself. This draft should be approximately 6-8 pages of main text (not counting references and appendices). The goal is to do serious intellectual work while also being realistic about what you can accomplish. I’d rather see a thoughtful, well-argued draft that honestly engages with the complexity of your topic than a longer paper that’s superficial or overreaches.
Please upload your assignment as a .pdf document to Blackboard, along with your dataset file.