HSEP 301

POLI 367

Terrorism

Research Paper

 

This is big and has very important information in it.  For that reason, I’ve created a Table of Contents (linked to sections below) for you to use to find information you’re looking for.  You should read this entire assignment, however.  I guarantee you will wind up with a better grade if you do.

 

The Assignment

            The Executive Summary

Sample Executive Summaries

            The Terrorist Groups

            The Issue Areas

Requirements

Sources

Citations and Bibliography

Citing Specific Information

Page Numbers

Numbering Endnotes or Footnotes

Introductory Paragraph

Plagiarism

Nitpicks and Style Issue (or Helpful hints)

Late Papers

The Assignment

You will be writing a 1-2 page executive summary on an assigned issue related to a terrorist group, and creating five PPT slides that you will use in your five minute presentation scheduled for the end of the semester.  You will be required to hand in a rough draft of the summary (at a date indicated on the syllabus) and a final version (at a date indicated on the syllabus).  The rough draft is intended to give me an opportunity to help you out with the style of an executive summary, and give you an opportunity to rewrite the executive summary based on my comments.

 

The paper and presentations will be a group project, sort of.  Each group of five students (possible six) will choose a terrorist organization to analyze. I will help assign the terrorist organizations to be studied during the first three weeks of the class. There is an approved list of organizations (see below).  Each group will use a division of labor in which each individual student is responsible for examining one aspect/issue of the terrorist organization (see below). All the aspects/issues taken together will provide a comprehensive picture of the terrorist organization.

 

The Executive Summary

After you graduate, you will take a job, maybe in the government, maybe in the private sector.  Either way, you will probably not be the CEO.  You will be working for someone else, and your job will probably be based on your ability to help your boss do a good job.  There will be two key elements to that: information and communication.  Your ability to provide your boss with high-quality and high-reliability information will be one key challenge.  Your ability to communicate that information to your boss in an easy to digest form will be the other key.  Think of it this way: Assume that I am the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.  I have to report to the Undersecretary of Defense for Political Affairs on terrorist groups around the world.  I can’t read a book on every terrorist group out there.  Also, I have eight zillion other responsibilities.  I can devote about five minutes to each terrorist group, so I need for you (my chief deputy) to give me the information I need in a very short report that will tell me everything I need to know about the terrorist group in under five minutes.  That’s the life of a busy public or private sector executive.  You, as the deputy, have to provide your boss with what they need: one to two pages that tell them what they needs to know.  You’re the expert, and you need to provide that expertise in a format that is succinct, clear, and informative. 

 

The Elements of an Executive Summary

There are many ways to think about an executive summary, but here is what I think is the best way. How you break this down into paragraphs is up to you, but suggestions are made below.

 

Sample Executive Summaries

Here are examples of one to two page executive summaries for the terrorist/insurgent group al-Shabaab.  The summaries are annotated so you can see what I was trying to achieve in each paragraph, even in some sentences.  If you have trouble reading the comments, you may need to play around with the settings of your toolbars to reveal the icons for comments.  You’ll also notice that the bibliography is in a different file than the text.  That is not required of you, but it was simpler to do it that way.  Please notice endnote and bibliographic format.  You may use that style as a template for your paper if you like.  You can use any established style (Chicago, MLA, etc…)

 

The following are links to examples from Rand Corporation documents.  These are on line executive summaries of larger documents, which are also on line.  If you go to Rand’s main web site (www.rand.org) and look under publications, you will find summaries of almost all their documents included with the documents themselves.  Rand is funded mostly by the US government, so most of what they publish is available on line for free to the good taxpayers of the US. Most of these summaries are longer than yours has to be, but the papers they are summarizing are also longer than your hypothetical paper.  These links will take you to the document where you can click in the full document or the summary.

·         Jennifer D. P. Moroney and Joe Hogler, with Benjamin Bahney, Kim Cragin, David R. Howell, Charlotte Lynch, S. Rebecca Zimmerman, Building Partner Capacity to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2009), Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG783/

·         Brian A. Jackson, David R. Frelinger, Emerging Threats and Security Planning: How Should We Decide What Hypothetical Threats to Worry About? (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2009), Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP256/

·         Brian A. Jackson, David R. Frelinger, Understanding Why Terrorist Operations Succeed or Fail (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2009), Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP257/

·         Peter Chalk, The Malay-Muslim Insurgency in Southern Thailand -- Understanding the Conflict's Evolving Dynamic (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2008), Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP198/

·         Daniel Byman, Understanding Proto-Insurgencies (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2007), Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP178/

 

The Terrorist Groups

There are many terrorist organizations. The following is the list you may choose from for your research.  On the back of the map quiz there will be a list of these groups and you will be able to choose a first, second, and third favorite.  I will try to place everyone in the first or second choice.  Until the map quiz (about the third week or course), feel free to learn more about these groups or ask me questions, so you can pick one that will be the most interesting to you. These are groups I feel have been studied in depth.  You will find plenty of information on them. You’ll hear this again and again, but never enough: use books (if available) and journals, not just web sites!!!!

1.      Proud Boys: US based White supremacist group founded in 2016; helped organized Charlottesville “United the Right” rally in 2017; claims to be non-racist and non-anti-Semitic, yet preaches racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Islam rhetoric. Labeled a terrorist group in New Zealand and Canada. Deeply involved in January 6, 2021 attack on US Capitol building. Members have been indicted for their role.

2.      ALF: Animal Liberation Front: Animal Rights group allied with the Earth Liberation Front. Active in North America since 1979.  ALF has released lab animals, attacked whaling ships, and used arson attacks against labs and corporations that experiment or test on animals. It has a very strict code that no people or animals should be hurt by any of its activities, but its strategy of economic damage fits the US government’s definition of terrorist activity.

3.      Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC): Leftist and narco-terrorists responsible for destabilizing the nation.  Controlled a large amount of territory in Colombia.  Agreed to end its operations as part of a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016. 

4.      Aum Shinrikyo: Bizarre religious-based cult in Japan trying to bring about the end of the world.  It used chemical weapons in the Tokyo subway in 1995. Began as a yoga school and ultimately sought to bring about the end of the world by first overthrowing the Japanese government.

5.      Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA): a radical Christian group trying to seize power in Uganda. Led by Joseph Kony, it has used violent terrorist tactics against civilians.  It has operated in Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.

6.      Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) (usually juts called the IRA, but really there are several IRAs: Created to push the British out of Northern Ireland.  Though there may be peace in Northern Ireland, there are armed splinters of this that remain actively using or threatening acts of terrorist if the current settlements do not satisfy them.  Focus on the IRA as it evolved from the late 1960s on and then splintered into several factions.

7.      HAMAS: (Islamic Resistance Movement): A radical Islamic Palestinian organization responsible for most of the current attacks against Israel. Created in 1988 when the PLO under Yasr Arafat was moving toward negotiations with Israel.

 

 

Since this is a group project you will be working together to a certain extent.  This means that you can share sources with each other.  For example, there may be one copy of the best book on the organization at the library.  Don’t hog it.  Work out a schedule for each of you to take turns with the book.  Tell each other of good websites and good journal articles.  Don’t be afraid to share sources on this topic.  Your specific issues are different enough that you will be interested in different aspects of the same sources.  If anyone has any problem with this, let me know.

 

The Issue Areas

Each of you will be assigned one issue to research for the terrorist group you’ve been assigned.  For each terrorist organization examined, the assigned issues are listed below. I will give brief examples of what I mean using al-Qaeda, an organization we will discuss at length in class, but that will not be one of the terrorist groups that the research papers will focus upon.  Each member of the group assigned to research a specific terrorist organization will focus on one of these issues (1-5) unless I indicate that number 6 or 7 is also a choice.  You will be making the choice of issues as a group, and then submitting to me.  For example, let’s say that there are five people who have been assigned to study the terrorist organization “Whatever Liberation Organization.” Early on the semester you’ll give me a list that shows me which topics each member of the group will be researching.  Research and present only on the topic you are assigned.  The list would look like this:

 

“Whatever Liberation Organization.”

Issue One: Oscar Robertson

Issue Two: Michael Jordan

Issue Three: Larry Bird

Issue Four: LeBron James

Issue Five: Bill Russell

 

The issues in brief:

1.      Origins, objectives, and doctrines of the organization

2.      Leadership and leadership structure

3.      Support for the organization, in terms of both governmental and non-governmental, finances, and recruiting methods

4.      Strategy, targets, and method of operations

5.      The nature of counterterrorist efforts against the organization

6.      Non-violent political activities of the organization (ignore this unless I specifically assign it)

7.      Negotiations (ignore this unless I specifically assign it)

 

The issues in detail

 

Issue One Origins, Objectives, and Doctrines

Describe the creation of the organization, its reason for being and its political goals.  What doctrines does it use to guide its belief systems and activities?

 (Are these goals realistic given the politics of the situation? Are these goals negotiable as part of a settlement that will end political violence and lead to a partial achievement of these goals?) 

For al-Qaeda (AQ), the origins date back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when militants from all over the Middle East and Asia came to Afghanistan to fight the “infidel” invaders.  The organization flourished again after the Gulf War in opposition to US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia.  The goals are diverse: removal of US troops from the Middle East, destruction of Israel, removal of authoritarian rulers in the Middle East and democratic rulers in Southeast Asia, replacement of those rulers with AQ approved leaders.  The doctrines are a mixture of radical Islamic ideas (indeed in many ways very un-Islamic) and Arab nationalism.

(The goals don’t sound very realistic, or very negotiable.  AQ may achieve them, however, by sowing general chaos in these regions, a chaos that could lead to the rise of demagogues that might move in the most radical direction.  Remember, how economic and political turmoil in Germany, Italy, and Japan between WW I and WW II led to the victory of fascists in all three countries.)

Your paper structure might look like this:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Origins

·         Paragraph 3: Doctrines

·         Paragraph 4: Objectives

·         Paragraph Five: Conclusions: Will this organization achieve its goals? If the organization has already abandoned them or been defeated, tell me why these objectives were not achieved.

 

Issue Two Leadership and Leadership Structure

Who leads this organization and by what means? Is this leadership stable or in flux?  Are there rivalries within the leadership? Is it hierarchical or network-based?

(Is this leadership structured well or is it chaotic to the point where it inhibits the organizations ability to act? Are the organizations too dependent on single individuals or has the institutional structure been developed enough to survive the capture or death of the senior leaders?)

            For AQ the picture is mixed.  It had a strong leadership (Osama bin-Laden) and it has survived bin-Laden’s death and the transition to leadership under Ayman al-Zawahiri. That transition is aided by AQ’s structure. It was never firmly hierarchical. As a network-based group with a series of loosely connected cells, alliances with other groups, and even entrepreneurial groups that it funds, leadership is fluid whoever is in charge at the top. 

(The leadership seems to be in a state of flux since it was pushed out of Afghanistan, but it seems to have enough organizational staying power to continue to operate although in a weakened state, it is believed.  New people are promoted up the command structure and the entrepreneurial nature of AQ operations makes central command less important in any case. The transition from bin-Laden to Zawahiri did not seem to disrupt the organization.)

Your paper structure might look like this:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Who are the key leaders? Is it a committee or a person?

·         Paragraph 3: What is the leadership structure? Hierarchical? Network? Leaderless? Committees? Different wings for different functions? Decision making by command or consensus?

·         Paragraph 4: Is the leadership stable? Have there been factions, leadership disputes? Has leadership been changed or eliminated? If so, what happened?

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Is the leadership weak or strong?  How dependent was the organization on its leadership?  Can this leadership survive?

 

 

Issue Three Support and Recruitment

Support for the organization, in terms of both governmental and non-governmental, finances, and recruiting methods: Does the organization have ties to nation-states or is it independent of them and geographically dispersed?  What are the sources of its funding and its recruit base? 

(What could change, weaken, or strengthen that support?  Have there been changes in support for the organization?  If so, what are those changes and why did they occur?)

            For AQ the support structure dates back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the training facilities set up there, then reenergized after the victory of the Taliban in the Afghan civil war.  The support also comes from the religious schools throughout the Middle East and Asia that preach a militant version of Islam.  Most of them are funded by Saudi Arabia.  Other support comes from charitable organizations tolerated by many nations in those regions and overt support was given by the government of Afghanistan from 1996-2001.  Funding also came from organized crime activities, particularly the drug trade.

(Obviously, the aftermath of September 11 has changed that support.  Many more passive supporters -- providing funding but not involved in terrorist actions -- turned against the organization.  The overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the anti-terrorist measures from Pakistan have hurt AQ.  However, reportedly, the US intervention in Iraq has helped recruitment.)

Your paper structure might look like this:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Funding: What are the organizations sources of funds?  Where does it get its money?

·         Paragraph 3: Allies: Does the organization have allies inside or outside the nation where it operates?  What kind of assistance doe the allies provide?

·         Paragraph 4: Recruiting: Who does the organization recruit and how does it recruit?

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Are the sources of funding, allies, and recruiting operations successful? Sustainable? Changing? Failing?  What is the future for these operations?

 

 

 

Issue Four Strategy, Targets, and Method of Operations

How does the organization intend to achieve its goals, both in terms of long-term strategy and immediate activities?   Does it use mass targeting of civilians for maximum publicity or selective targeting of political figures or economic and infrastructure attacks?  Does it use kidnapping or attacks on military targets?  Does it operate internationally or only locally?  What are its expectations for those operations?  How does it achieve victory?

(Is this strategy likely to be successful?  How has the strategy played out?  Is the organization closer to its goals?)

            For AQ the strategy has been the use of violence in ever larger attacks on civilians. The main target has been the US and occasionally its allies. The method has been car bombs and attacks on planes or use of planes as means of attack.  It hopes to inspire a larger uprising among Muslims around the world.  Some argue it hopes to create chaos in a region, and use that chaos as a springboard to seizing power.

(The strategy has been unsuccessful so far.  Instead of causing the US to withdraw from the Middle East, the US is more deeply involved than ever.  AQ seems farther away from its goals.  Some argue, however, that in the long run AQ has manipulated the US into overreacting and overreaching. US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq has weakened the US to such an extent that AQ hopes it will have more freedom to act once the US grows tired of intervention. As the US loses support and sympathy around the world, AQ hopes to gain more recruits.)

Your paper structure might look like this:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Strategy: What kinds of strategy does the organization use to achieve its objectives?  Does it use violence, electoral participation, negotiations?  How does it expect these operations to achieve the goal (what does victory look like for them?)

·         Paragraph 3: Tactics: If they use violence, what kind of violence (bombings, assassinations, military-style attacks)? If non-violent of a mix of violence and non-violence, what is the relationship between the violent and non-violent activities?  Do they use violence to aid their negotiations or do they use negotiations to hide their preparations for violence?

·         Paragraph 4: Targets: Who and what does the organization attack or aim their propaganda toward?

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Has this worked?  If so, why? If not, why not?

 

Your paper structure could also be shaped around the evolution of the group’s strategy chronologically:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Strategy One: What was the group’s first strategy? What were their operations and what did they expect it to achieve? Did it work?

·         Paragraph 3: Strategy Two: What was the group’s second strategy? Why did they move toward this? What were their operations and what did they expect it to achieve? Did it work?

·         Paragraph 4: What was the group’s third strategy? Why did they move toward this? What were their operations and what did they expect it to achieve? Did it work?

·         Paragraph… (You might identify more than three strategies. You can have as many paragraphs as you need for this).

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Has this worked?  If so, why? If not, why not?

 

 

 

Issue Five Counterterrorism

What measures have been taken by local, regional, and global authorities to combat the organization and what have been the results of these actions?

(Have counterterrorist efforts against the organization achieved success or failure?)

            For AQ there have been numerous responses to September 11: US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; Pakistan turned against the Taliban and turned against militants at home, but has since supported the Taliban’s operations in Afghanistan; Saudi Arabia has begun to crack down on militants; US creation of a homeland security agenda and institutions to carry out that agenda; and international coalition against terrorism that supports multinational efforts to crack down on terrorist groups worldwide.

            (Whether these efforts have succeeded or not is still uncertain.  No major attacks have been made on the US since September 11 by AQ; however, numerous attacks have been attempted around the world.  The vast majority have been thwarted, yet some high profile ones have been carried out throughout the world.  The Iraq war opened up a new theater of attack, but it has been uncertain how much of the attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq are the work of AQ-allied organizations.)

      Your Paper Structure might look like this:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Identify a nation or nations have been using counterterrorism policies against the group.  What kinds of counterterrorism strategy does the nation use?  Has it used violence or negotiations or propaganda or law enforcement? 

·         Paragraph 3: Innovations: Has the nation written new laws? Created new organizations?  Adopted new military or law enforcement strategies?

·         Paragraph 4: Successes/Failures: Have there been major successes or major failures in this strategy?  For example, has the nation captured or killed a leader?  Has it been successful with a major military offensive? Has it arrested a leader and put him/her on trial? Or major failures of these operations?

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Has this worked?  If so, why? If not, why not?

 

Your Paper Structure could also be shaped around the evolution of a nation’s counterterrorism strategy chronologically:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Strategy One: What was the nation’s first counterterrorism strategy? Did it work?

·         Paragraph 3: Strategy Two: What was the nation’s second counterterrorism strategy? Why did they move toward this? Did it work?

·         Paragraph 4: What was the nation’s third counterterrorism strategy? Why did they move toward this? Did it work?

·         Paragraph… (You might identify more than three counterterrorism strategies. You can have as many paragraphs as you need for this).

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Has this worked?  If so, why? If not, why not?

 

Your Paper Structure could also look like this in cases where there are multiple nations or multilateral organizations fighting the group:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Identify the first nation that has been using counterterrorism policies against the group.  What kinds of counterterrorism strategy does the nation use?  Has it used violence or negotiations or propaganda or law enforcement? 

·         Paragraph 3: Identify the second nation that has been using counterterrorism policies against the group.  What kinds of counterterrorism strategy does the nation use?  Has it used violence or negotiations or propaganda or law enforcement? 

·         Paragraph 4: Identify the third nation or multilateral organization that has been using counterterrorism policies against the group.  What kinds of counterterrorism strategy does the nation use?  Has it used violence or negotiations or propaganda or law enforcement? 

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Has this worked?  If so, why? If not, why not?

 

 

 

Issue Six Non-Violent Activities (Some groups may have six students in them.  I will assign Issue Six if needed.)

Non-violent political activities of the organization: Is the organization involved in any kind of political activity that is non-violent in nature?  Does it have its own political wing/party that is involved in electoral politics or negotiations with a government?  Does it have a civil society component that provides social welfare or education or community outreach for the poor -- trash collection, soccer leagues, pre-school?  Has it set up a shadow government structure in areas that it controls, if it controls areas?  Is it engaged in criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, that may have started out as a way to fund terrorist activities, but have evolved into a profit-making mission? 

            (What is the effect of these activities?  Do they build a recruit base, provide funds, or legitimize their violent activities? Has it resulted in a negotiated settlement and possibly an end to violence?  Have they turned the organization away from its original mission or have they become a crucial part of that mission?)

            For AQ, this is less of an issue.  AQ is such a virtual organization at this point that deep ties to civil society are too geographically-binding.  AQ does have ties to religious schools throughout the world, charity organizations, and mosques, but these serve as conduits for recruits and financing to AQ.  When in Sudan and Afghanistan, however, AQ did provide schooling, scholarship money, charity for local organizations, and even ran legitimate business operations.  In Afghanistan, AQ provided huge amounts of funding to the Taliban-controlled government to help maintain government social welfare projects, religious education, and the religious police.  AQ does not have a wing that negotiates or engages in legitimate political activity.  It is fighting total war and has shown no real willingness to consider its terrorist activities as a prelude to a negotiated settlement, as is the case with many other organizations.

            (Again, AQ is unusual in that it has no geographic base, so its political activities can’t be linked closely to activities that might implicate people in AQ operations.  This is especially so in the current environment in which the world is trying to hunt down AQ.  AQ is fighting total war.  Its religious nature may preclude – at least for now – any negotiations or compromises with the “infidels.”  But if AQ had become involved in these types of activities (social welfare, political action, or negotiations with a government), the result of those activities would be the big question.  Has it resulted in a political settlement, a semi-legitimizing of the organization, or a full-fledged embrace of the organization as a political voice in the region?)

      Your paper structure might look like this:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Non-violent activity one: Describe one of the non-violent activities of the group and what it is intended to achieve. What is their relationship to the violent strategies?

·         Paragraph 3: Non-violent activity two: Describe one of the non-violent activities of the group and what it is intended to achieve. What is their relationship to the violent strategies?

·         Paragraph 4: Non-violent activity three: Describe one of the non-violent activities of the group and what it is intended to achieve. What is their relationship to the violent strategies?

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Have these activities achieved their goals? 

 

 

Issue Seven Negotiations (Some groups may have six students in them.  This will be one of the possible additional issues that I will assign. Ignore this issue unless I specifically assign it.)

            Negotiations.  Has the terrorist organization been willing to negotiate to end the conflict? Has it been willing to end its strategy of violence if the targeted government agrees to negotiations that, in theory, might lead to some political concessions? Why did the terrorist group agree to negotiate, and why did the targeted government agree to negotiate?  What were the results of the negotiations? Did they work out or did the negotiations collapse and lead to a new round of fighting? Was the terrorist organization sincere in its negotiated efforts or was this just a strategy to get the government to relax, allowing the terrorist organization some breathing space to rebuild its capabilities and launch a new round of violence?

            There is no example to use from the history of al-Qaeda. It is not willing to negotiate.  Ethno-nationalist groups, however, have shown a willingness to negotiate.  For example, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) have negotiated with their governmental opponents.  The PLO’s negotiations with Israel produced the Oslo Accords in 1993 that allowed for limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and what was believed to be an end to the cycle of violence.  Further negotiations that might lead to a Palestinian state and a lasting peace have failed due to the rise of Hamas (a violent and religious-based) rival to the Fatah movement (the successor political movement to the PLO) and a subsequent hardening of Israeli policy. Instead of peace, renewed violence has dominated the issue since the turn of the century.

Your paper structure might look like this:

·         Paragraph 1: Introduction (Summarize your paper: 1-2 sentences on each key issue and 1-2 sentences on your conclusion)

·         Paragraph 2: Negotiation Strategy one: Why did the group enter into negotiations and what was its strategy for them? What is their relationship to the violent strategies?  Why did the government enter into negotiations, and what was their strategy for them?

·         Paragraph 3: Negotiation Strategy two: Why did the group enter into negotiations and what was its strategy for them? What is their relationship to the violent strategies? Why did the government enter into negotiations, and what was their strategy for them?

·         Paragraph 4: Negotiation Strategy three: Why did the group enter into negotiations and what was its strategy for them? What is their relationship to the violent strategies? Why did the government enter into negotiations, and what was their strategy for them?

·         Paragraph 5: Conclusions: Have the negotiations succeeded? If so, why? If not, why not?

 

We will begin forming the groups and assigning topics early in the semester. 

 

 

Requirements

The paper will include:

·         The bibliography and end notes can be as long as you like.  The bibliography and end notes do not count as part of the 1-2 pages of the executive summary.  You can have a 2 page paper that has five pages of endnotes. One of the strategies for meeting the 2 page limit is to write the paper, see that it is over two pages and then move the less important information or some of the details to the endnotes.

Sources

            Ask me!  If you have a question on where to find sources or if you need a specific source and you can’t find it, ask me.  This is what I do for a living.  I have everything!

 

Library: The library is typically the best place to do research, but given the virus, your access to it may be limited.  This paper is designed so you can do all your research online. 

 

Peer Review Articles from Scholarly Journals: These are the best sources. They are written by scholars like myself and your other HSEP/POLI professors, then reviewed by other professors before they are accepted for publication (a horrible process similar to an intellectual colonoscopy).  But in spite of that, the result is an article that will be very helpful to you.  Most of the time they take a broad look at the issues which is helpful to you because it gives you the pros and cons for any issue the article examines. These articles also contain bibliographies and citations which you can use to find other articles on the subject.

 

How do you know what the scholarly articles are? Use scholar.google.com.  That is a specific search engine that only gets scholarly work. It eliminates websites and newspaper articles and magazines.  Remember that the web is very good for several things: information on what happened yesterday; instant opinion on what happened yesterday; instant disinformation (propaganda and outright lies about what happened yesterday); and databases on obscure things. How else would I know that in 1943 Washington quarterback Sammy Baugh led the NFL in touchdown passes, interceptions, and punting? On November 14, against the Lions, he threw four touchdown passes and intercepted four passes.  I know this from ProFootballreference.com. That’s fun. That’s the Internet. But scholarly research should start with scholar.google.com.

 

How do you find a good journal at the VCU Library? The VCU library web site is a good place to start if you want to find specific journals. Let’s say you’re interested in Asia or China. You might go to the VCU Library website. Near the top of the page, you’ll see a link for “Academics.” That will take you to a drop down menu. Click on “Libraries.” Then you’ll see a search box. Don’t search yet. Below that click on “journal finder” and you’ll get another search box.  Type in “Asia” or “China” or the “Middle East” or whatever.  You’ll get a list of the journals that have that keyword in the title.

 

How do you find a good article at the VCU Library? This aspect is similar to what I described above, but a more specific search. You might go to the VCU Library website. Near the top of the page, you’ll see a link for “Academics.” That will take you to a drop down menu. Click on Libraries. Then you’ll see a search box. Don’t search yet. Below that click on “Advanced.”  You’ll get a set of search boxes where you can specify what you’re looking for. So let’s say I’m looking for information on India’s nuclear weapons capability. I can set the search for subject in one field and type in “India.” The set the search for subject in another field and type in nuclear weapons. Then hit search.  That gives me 2300 sources. Too many. So on the left you’ll see “filter options.”  Click on that and you’ll get several ways to limit the search: just peer-reviewed articles is one of the options.

 

Some places or ways to look for sources

1.      Many journals are available through the VCU system and you can search through the VCU library, but you may also try Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/).  Use this instead of a regular search on any search engine. It will get you scholarly work, think tanks reports and journals rather than the Wikipedia entry.

2.      Keywords: For any kind of search keywords are important. You may have to do a few searches before you find the right keywords that get you all the good sources. Always try a few combinations to see what you get.  If you were looking for books or scholarly articles on Indian’s nuclear weapon strategy, you might use several combinations of these:  

a.       “India”

b.      “nuclear weapons”

c.       “nuclear strategy”

d.      “nuclear doctrine”

e.       “ICBM”  (intercontinental ballistic missile)

f.        “SLBM” (submarine launched ballistic missile)

Then you might learn a bit about India’s nuclear weapons while you do the search itself.  You’d learn that India’s ICBMs are called the Agni, so you might add that to the keyword search.  Then you might learn that India’s SLBMs are in a series called K (named after APJ Abdul Kalam, the scientist considered to be the father of India’s nuclear program). As of 2018, India is developing its K-4 and K-5 systems, so you might add “K-4” and “K-5” to the keywords.

3.       Citation Tracing: Don’t forget one of the best ways to find good sources. Say you found a great article on exactly the issue you’re researching.  That article will have footnotes, endnotes, parenthetical references, and a bibliography.  Find those articles and books.  Use them.  They are almost guaranteed to be useful because the author of the great article you just read must have found them useful.

4.      Journals specifically to terrorist-related issues:

a.       Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (available online through VCU Libraries);

b.      Terrorism and Political Violence (available online through VCU Libraries);

c.       Perspectives on Terrorism (available online through VCU libraries)

d.      The Long War Journal

e.       Small Wars Journal

5.      Journals on International Security issues that may also have excellent articles on Terrorism and counterterrorism issues

a.       Foreign Affairs (policy-oriented)

b.      Foreign Policy (policy-oriented)

c.       The National Interest (policy-oriented)

d.      The Washington Quarterly (policy-oriented)

e.       Survival (policy-oriented)

f.        Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (policy-oriented)

g.      The American Interest (policy-oriented)

h.      Parameters (journal of the US Army Strategic Studies Institute)

i.        Military Review (US Army Combined Arms Center)

j.        Joint Force Quarterly (journal of the Chairman of the JCS)

k.      Strategic Studies Quarterly (journal of the US Air Force Air University)

l.        The Naval War College Review (journal of the US Naval War College)

m.    Orbis (half policy; half academic)

n.      Journal of Strategic Studies (half academic; half policy)

o.      Foreign Policy Analysis (half academic; half policy)

p.      International Security (academic)

q.      Security Studies (academic)

r.        International Affairs (London-based academic)

s.       World Politics (academic)

t.        Journal of Conflict Resolution (academic)

u.      Armed Forces and Society (academic on civil-military relations)

v.      List of links of US and other national military journals; some think tank journals too

6.      Regionally-focused Journals: there are a few dozen journals out there that focus specifically on regional political issues and they will have articles on the terrorist organizations from that region.  To find those, you can simply search VCU libraries or Google Scholar using the name of the region as a keyword (such as Middle East or Asia) and then use a keyword like: Journal or Affairs or Studies.

7.      Think Tanks/Websites/Blogs: There are research organizations that produce articles and books on foreign policy issues. They are excellent resources, but slightly different from academic sources. Generally, they are specifically focused on policy and intended to make recommendations (very good for this assignment).  They might also have explicit political orientations. Unlike most academic work, these can lean liberal or conservative. That doesn’t mean their arguments should be discounted. It just means that you should be aware that something you’re reading comes from a specific point of view. There are more than these and I will add them as I find them. 

 

The Best Websites/Think Tanks/Blogs for Terrorism/Counterterrorism

·         The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)

·         Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism

·         Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (http://www.ctc.usma.edu/)

·         Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterrey, CA.

·         Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST): University of Chicago

·         Homeland Security Digital Library (US Naval Postgraduate School)

·         Long War Journal published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Washington, DC

·         International Center for Counter Terrorism (at the Hague, Netherlands)

·         International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore

·         International Center for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College, London.

·         International Institute for Counterterrorism, Herzliya, Israel

·         Just Security

·         Lawfare

·         Rand Corporation on Terrorism

·         Small Wars Journal

·         South Asia Terrorism Portal (Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi, India)

·         Southern Poverty Law Center

·         START: National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland

·         START Global Terrorism Database

·         START TEVUS Portal: Terrorism and Extremist Violence in the US

·         SITE Intelligence Group (Non-government)

·         War on the Rocks

 

General List of Think Tanks:

The best are:

 

Excellent Ones are

·         International Crisis Group: https://www.crisisgroup.org: This is the best thing that exists on current international crises.

·         American Enterprise Institute (AEI): leans conservative, but is not too ideological

·         Arms Control Association (ACA): Non-profit organization that watches over world military trends; it has a decidedly pro-arms control attitude

·         Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BSCIA): The Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) does some of the best analyses of international affairs and national security and publishes the best journal on international affairs, International Security, which can be accessed online through the VCU online journal systems.

·         Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs: Focuses on Human Rights issues.

·         Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: One of the biggest and best. It is a non-profit organization, which studies international affairs and has a huge number of programs. It sponsors scholarly research on everything from non-proliferation to building civil society. See the list of "Programs" on the home page.

·         Carter Center: Former President Carter established this Center to examine international issues, host conferences, and mediate international conflicts.

·         Cato Institute: Right of center think tank that conducts research on foreign policy, national security, and economic policy, as well as domestic political issues.

·         Center for American Progress (think tank with links to the Democratic Party)

·         Center for National Policy (non-partisan center which does some national security work)

·         Center for Non-proliferation Studies (CNS) at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies, which is one of the best sources on information on the spread of weapons of mass destruction

·         Center for Strategic and International Affairs (CSIS): attached to Georgetown University. It produces reports on national security, and is filled with ex-government officials

·         Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Danger: A center-left organization that focuses on US and international nuclear weapons policy.

·         Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO): Columbia University’s compilation of papers, journals, web sites, and other resources on international affairs. It’s no a think tank itself, but collects information from think tanks, government, and other academic circles on international affairs and national security. You may need to use your VCU password and login to get into this system. It has a specific link to Working Papers from various think tanks and scholarly institutes.

·         Council for a Livable World: Center-left in its ideology and focuses on ways to reduce the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reign in US defense expenditures and deployments.

·         Federation of American Scientists (FAS): Non-profit organization that watches over world military trends.

·         Global Security.Org (excellent resources for international diplomatic, military, and political issues)

·         Heritage Foundation: Right of center think tank that conducts research on foreign policy, national security, and economic policy, as well as domestic political issues.

·         Hudson Institute: Center-right think tank that conducts research on foreign policy, national security, and economic policy, as well as domestic political issues.

·         Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA): Non-profit think tank that does a lot of work for the US government on national security issues. Much of its research is available online.

·         Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA): A think tank that looks at many international security issues, particularly east and South Asia. It is an Indian institute based in New Delhi.

·         International Republican Institute (Republican Party-affiliated organization that analyzes world affairs and supports programs that help nations make the transition to democracy)

·         Institute for Security Studies: (Based in several nations in Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa)

·         National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (Democratic Party-affiliated organization that analyzes world affairs and supports programs that help nations make the transition to democracy)

·         National Endowment for Democracy: A private, non-profit organization that is funded by the US Congress.  Its goal is to foster democracy around the world through programs and research

·         National Security Archive: This is a non-profit organization that gets the US government to declassify documents relating to US foreign affairs (through Freedom of Information Act requests) then makes those documents available to the public. Some are available on line. All are available at the Archive itself (In George Washington University’s library. You can contact the Archive and make an appointment to go there.) Some are also available to purchase in sets.

·         Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC): Non-profit organization that watches over world military trends

·         New America Foundation (centrist think tank that looks at domestic and international issues)

·         Nixon Center: Non-Profit organization that studies foreign and national security policy, leans toward republican ideas

·         Nuclear Threat Initiative (non-profit, non-partisan group that analyzes and lobbies on nuclear proliferation issues)

·         Project for a New American Century: New think tank that espouses and develops neoconservative views.

·         Project on Defense Alternatives (center-left)

·         Henry L. Stimson Center: Non-profit organization that watches over world political and military trends, in particular United Nations peace operations

·         Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI): Non-profit organization that watches over world military trends

·          Western States Legal Foundation: A pro-arms control group watching over US defense expenditures and deployments and their impact on the public among other things.

·         Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: Supports scholarly research on a number of international topics. In particular, its Cold War International History Project provides support for scholars using declassified documents to understand what was really going on in Washington and Moscow during the Cold War.

·         Union of Concerned Scientists: Center-left in its ideology and focuses on ways to reduce the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reign in US defense expenditures and deployments.

·         United States Institute for Peace (USIP); Funded by the US Congress, it is a non-partisan organization that sponsors and published research concerning conflict prevention and conflict resolution

 

General Websites/Blogs (not just focused on terrorism, but may have terrorism work)

Arms Control Wonk

Blogs of War

Cipher Brief

Harvard Law School National Security Journal

Institute for the Study of War

Journal of National Security Law and Policy

Over the Horizon

Texas National Security Review

The Strategy Bridge

Unredacted

 

 

The Internet: You cannot do this type of research only from websites.  Do not expect to be able to sit in front of your computer without using scholar.google or the VCU library system and find all the information you need.  Remember that the primacy purpose of the Internet is advertising (even what passes for information is often really advertising its information). The web tells you that everything you need is on the web. That is not true.  It is especially not true when it comes to scholarship. 

 

A Warning about the Web: I don't think I need to tell you much about the web. In college I wrote papers on a manual typewriter and I took my SATs on stone tablets. But if you do have any questions about it let me know. An important note about Internet sites: what is crucial about any webpage is that you and I know what the source of the information is. All information on the web is not equal. Before you trust any information on the web you must know who runs the websites. Who is the source of the information? Nazi Parties from various countries have many websites. Their information is probably not a source you want to use for research on Israeli foreign policy, for example.  If I’m researching Russian foreign policy, I need to know if the source is from the Russian government or a scholarly source. Their views might be very different. There is a ton of propaganda on the web. Many governments in the world are not Democratic. They don’t have freedom of the press, but they do have a huge presence on the Internet where they disseminate propaganda that tries to influence the world’s judgment of their actions.  China, Russia, or North Korea are good examples of nations that use propaganda on the internet as part of their “influence operations” that try to make their governments look warm and fuzzy while they imprison government critics.

 

Even in Democracies you need to be careful of the sources. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party both have their own web presence that is designed to make them look good, and make their political opponents look bad.  Media often has a perspective as well (left, right, center, celebrity, sensationalist, scandal…whatever).  In short, always be mindful of where the information comes from.  The web is a smorgasbord of conspiracy theories. That’s one of the most difficult aspects of our information environment.  There are so many sources of information and many of them are just garbage. Remember that on the web you can find a lot of information on these topics, NONE OF THE FOLLOWING ARE TRUE!!!!!

·         How President George W. Bush launched the September 11 attacks so he could repeal the 2nd Amendment

·         How George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 to steal all Iraq’s oil and prevent Saddam Hussein from disclosing that the Bush family had been controlling global oil prices for decades in league with the Saudi Arabian royal family

·         How Barack Obama was born in Kenya and sneaked into the US at an early age so he could become President; he was doing this under the orders of al-Qaeda

·         How the Affordable Care Act (that created near universal health care in the US) had a section allowing a small government committee to decide who would live or die when they reached old age (the “death panels”)

·         Again: NONE OF THESE ARE TRUE, but there are sadly way too many people who believe this stuff because it is on the Internet.

·         Oh, and there was an Italian website about fifteen years ago that linked me to the Kennedy assassination. I am not kidding. I had just turned two when Kennedy was killed. If I was involved in the plot, I don’t remember. 

 

How do you tell what is good and what is bad? That’s difficult, but here are some keys to it:

·         Beware of “news” sites where all the articles are designed to frighten you about the dangers of this or that

·         Especially be wary of “news” sites which try to frighten you and tell you the sky is falling, then move to a commercial break and try to sell you something that will save your life when the sky does fall. These are essentially infomercials masquerading as news.

·         Beware of “news” sites where everything comes from one extreme perspective -- all the problems of the world are caused by a specific politician, or a specific political party, and there is never any middle ground or alternative perspective. Many legitimate news sites are accused of that by their competitors; if you actually read those news sites, you find that the accusation is false.

·         News organizations get things wrong from time to time. That doesn’t mean bias. That means that journalists are human. The difference between real news and “fake” news is simple. Fake news is propaganda designed to push a political agenda by making you believe something that is false.  Real news is an attempt to get to the truth. Sometimes that doesn’t always happen. Journalists can use a bad source or forget what they learned in journalism school because they are so excited to get a scoop. Journalists can make honest mistakes, and there are bad journalists who may make bad mistakes. The difference is this: when a good newspaper or website gets it wrong, they fix the mistake and they often fire or demote the reporter.  They also have multiple reporters working on any sensitive story because they want to make sure they have a lot of eyes on the subject.  Bad newspapers or websites tell a story, and when someone proves that it is wrong, they don’t care. They continue to push the story because they aren’t interested in getting it right; they are interested in selling the story to achieve a political goal.  That’s not news; it is propaganda.

 

Remember there is a ton of disinformation and misinformation from conspiracy theory folks and foreign governments trying to influence US politics, and sadly by politicians and activists in the US who are working hard to spread propaganda.  If you’re not sure ask me or go to a fact checking site:

·         Fact Check.Org From the Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania

·         PolitiFact.com From several newspapers

·         The Fact Checker From the Washington Post

·         Snopes.com (fact checking and debunking urban legends and internet hoaxes that are often about politics)

 

Citations and Bibliography

Read this. Pay attention to it or face everlasting doom! Failure to pay attention to this will likely result in a grade of D.

The following is not just because I want to annoy you or because I like to have things done my way.  The following is because this is a class where you will do social science research and the rules of social science research are different from the rules of English composition or journalism.  Learning how to write for different audiences and in different styles is part of the university experience.

You must use an established format for citations and your bibliography.  You need to learn how to reference information properly, and how to write a bibliography with the correct and complete information before you leave VCU. This is easy to do, but more important than you think. Whether you go into academia or business you will be judged on the quality of your information, and that means people will want to know where you found your information. They will judge you at first, before they read your text, on your bibliography and citations. If you do it wrong while at VCU, you’ll get a deduction from your grade.  If you do this in graduate school or government or the business world, you will be asked to go home and not come back (as in “you’re fired”).

The format for the assignment is an executive summary, only endnotes are allowed (see the requirements above).  Here are resources that will teach you to do this:

·         When in doubt, use this: Chicago Style Citation Format (not Chicago Style Pizza; no deep dish citations)

·         Or you can use one of the assigned books in the class as a template for citation style.

·         Or use these online resources:

o   Easy Bib

o   APA Style

o   MLA Style (Remember that for this assignment you need page numbers even f MLA says you don’t).

o   Bibme

o   Purdue OWL (Online Writing Workshop)

·         Or use scholar.google.com: Let’s say you found an article on this page (or even if you didn’t you can look it up on scholar.google.com anyway by typing in author and title). Once you get the article in the list of sources, you’ll see underneath the source a large quotation mark. Click that and you’ll get a list of different versions of the correct citation for the source. You can cut and paste. This doesn’t work for books; the citations they have for books are not quite correct.

 

The Evils of In-Text Citations

In the social sciences, particularly Political Science, do not use in-text citations. That may be good for English or journalism, but not for scholarly social science. What I mean is the following.  Let’s say you used a book by Gabriel Weimann called Terror on the Internet for your research and you want to cite some information from it.

·         Never write a sentence like this: Gabriel Weimann, a Professor of Communications at Haifa University, states in his book Terror on the Internet that the internet enhances terrorist power to organize and recruit.

·         Also avoid writing a sentence like this: According to Weimann, terrorists use the Internet to recruit.

·         Instead write a sentence like this: The Internet enhances terrorist power to organize and recruit (add endnote for Weimann there).  The citations are there so you don’t have to include the author’s info in the text.  That just takes up space, clutters up your writing, and is not scholarly.

 

Since I have instructed you to pay attention to notation and bibliographic style, and have provided you with a specific place to look for the proper styles, I will take points off of your paper if you do not do this in the correct manner. This is simple. If you do not do it correctly it means one or both of the following: 1) you are not taking the assignment seriously; and/or 2) you are doing the paper at the last minute. Both of these are good reasons why you will not get the grade you are able to earn.

 

Bibliography: The bibliography is all the sources you’ve used. List anything you found useful even if only confirmed information you found other places, even if you have not cited the source in the paper; you don’t realize how much you learned from sources even if you don’t reference specific information from them.  The bibliography is listed in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. There may be no author or you may bet info from a website. See the above resources for the rules on that.

Citing Information for Endnotes

What do I need to cite? That’s a question students ask all the time. This section describes why and when you cite information. In doing research there are three basic types of things you must cite: quotes, specific information, and other people’s ideas. 

·         Quotes: This is a tiny paper. Do not quote.  Some people think that you only need to cite quotes.  You would need to cite them if this was a larger paper where quotes might be appropriate, but you absolutely need to cite much more than quotes in social science.  

·         Specific Information: When I say specific information, what I refer to is any information which is not general knowledge.  For example, you would not need to use a citation if you state that Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser in Nixon’s first term (general knowledge).  But you would have to cite the fact that Kissinger met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on July 9, 1971 and any details of the meeting.

·         Other People’s Ideas: If you’re doing research and you’re thinking about the issue you’re researching, any idea that is not yours absolutely must be cited. Take the issue of Indian nuclear strategy mentioned above. If one author says that Indian nuclear doctrine has changed drastically since India’s decision to build a full-fledged arsenal in 1998, that idea has to be cited.

 

Page numbers

If you are referring to specific information that you found on a specific page in a source (if the source has page numbers, unlike some web sources), you must include the page number where you found the information.  Let’s say you found information in a book that is 450 pages long. Citing the book and not the page number is not very helpful for anyone who thought that the information was interesting and wanted to learn more about it.  You’re forcing that person to scan through 450 pages of text to find the info. Instead, cite the page number and then the reader can just turn to that page number.  This is the established method of citation. This is true even for parenthetical references.  If you are citing the main point of an article or book or something as background information, you don’t need the page number, but if it is specific material it does need a page number.

 

Numbering Endnotes

This paper only uses endnotes (but these rules are the same for footnotes if you use them for other classes). In the social sciences, endnotes are numbered consecutively.  The first note is number 1; the second is number 2, etc.  Microsoft Word will do this for you.  You can use a source more than once in your paper.  There are specific citation formats for the first citation and for the second citation.  You can also put more than one source in a specific note.  See my article for examples for all of this: Endnotes/Footnotes.  A short reference follows:

·         Footnotes and endnotes are numbered consecutively (1, 2, 3, 4…) (Unless you use the natural sciences-style that merges the bibliography and citations as explained above)

On Writing a Good Introductory Paragraph

This is the key to writing a good paper so I am providing detailed instruction on this. Political Science has a specific style of writing, especially when it comes to introductory paragraphs.  It mirrors the style of government memoranda.  In short, the introductory paragraph should summarize the paper and that includes giving the reader a summary of you conclusions.  If you don’t do this, even a great paper, becomes a grade of B. 

A good introductory paragraph should include the following:

In other words, the introduction should provide your reader with a "road map" that explains exactly what you will say during the paper. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Basically, what you need to do is write the outline you have for your paper in sentences in the first few paragraphs of the paper. Your opening paragraph (or couple of opening paragraphs) should also give the reader some reason to be interested in your topic and in your argument. Tell the reader why this subject is important. Here is an example of an opening paragraph: (I’ll use a topic that won’t overlap with anyone’s potential topic.)

 

This paper will analyze the origins, objectives, and doctrines of al-Qaeda (AQ).  AQ is currently the world’s largest and most active terrorist organization – global in activity, recruitment, and mission.  It is a curious mixture of 21st century technology and medieval ideology.  (That’s the topic.) Its origins date back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 when militants from all over the Middle East and Asia came to Afghanistan to fight the “infidel” invaders.  Its goals are diverse, but call for the alteration of the political landscape of the Middle East and an end to US influence in that region. The doctrines are a mixture of radical Islamic ideas (indeed in many ways very un-Islamic) and Arab nationalism. (That’s how you will explain your issue—by discussing three sub-topics:  1) initial origins; 2) its goals; and 3) doctrines.)  Overall, the goals don’t sound very realistic, or very negotiable.  While AQ can launch terrorist activities around the world, its ability to actually control territory or capture a nation state is limited.  However, it may have the ability to harass, damage, and attack the targets for decades to come.  (Those are your conclusions.) 

             

You can use lots of topic headings and subheadings to correspond to the points on your "road map" -- they'll help you organize your thoughts, and they'll help your reader clearly identify where he is on the "road map." The above paper might have five main sections:

  1. Introduction:
  2. Origins of AQ
  3. Objectives
  4. Doctrines
  5. Conclusions (Analysis)

 

 

Plagiarism and Avoiding It (Or “How to Use Other People’s Ideas Legitimately”)

First, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever cut and paste anything from a source into your document unless you place it in quotes and cite the source of the quote. And generally in a paper that is under a few dozen papers, there is never a need to quote anything that is not an official source.  Why quote anything unless the exact works are crucial.  So quoting a President or Foreign Minister or a witness to an event is useful, but quoting a scholar or journalist is not.  For the purposes of this paper, there is no reason to quote anyone. The paper is too short for quotes.

This is really not a fine line.  Did you write the sentence or not? Did you come up with the idea or not?  When in doubt, it’s relatively simple: never include something in your paper that you did not write unless it is quotes and then it also must be cited.  Anything that is not your idea must be cited. Plagiarism is a violation of the VCU Honor Code and I will not hesitate to charge someone with a violation if I catch plagiarism.  If you have questions about what is plagiarism, ask me or see VCU’s Writing Integrity Workshop. 

But just because someone else has already written an idea that you agree with 100% doesn't mean you can't discuss it in your paper. Just point out whose idea it is; paraphrase it in your own words, cite the source of the idea, and expand upon it. Generally, that is how Political Science works.

 

For example, one source may say that Hezbollah has ties to Syria and another may say it doesn’t.  You don’t need to decide who’s right.  State that there are differences of opinions.  Cite the sources. Who says there are ties? Who says there aren’t? Then you can, if you want, suggest what you think based on your research.  Or you can simply say that a dispute exists and leave it at that.

If paraphrasing an idea: make sure to change the verb you use so it is different from the verb used in the source.  Make sure you change everything but the proper nouns. So let’s say, you’ve read this in your source: “The President phoned the Prime Minister immediately after he received the news.”  That may be the point you want to make in your paper, but you shouldn’t quote that and can’t copy it (or you’d be plagiarizing).  The only words you really can use here would be “President” and “Prime Minister.”  These are the proper nouns. So put it into your own words.  How about: “Once the President had been informed, he contacted the Prime Minister.” And then cite the source of the information.  That would not be a quote problem or a suspicion of plagiarism

And never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever cut and paste anything from a source into your document unless you place it in quotes and cite the source of the quote.  (He said it again! And in italics! Must mean something!)

Nitpicks and Style Issues (Or Helpful Hints)

1.      Margins and Font Papers should be doubled-spaced with one-inch margins, and reasonable sized font (11 point). Shorter pages with wide margins and large print size font will be penalized.

2.      Subject and Verb Make sure you have a subject and verb in every sentence. (You would be surprised how many important journals and books allow non-sentence sentences). This is non-fiction, not fiction. So you need to observe the basic rules of grammar. A long sentence is not necessarily a better sentence -- each sentence should express only one thought. Don't be afraid to break up a long sentence into two or three shorter ones. It will usually flow better that way.

3.      Official Titles Provide someone’s title in the text the first time you mention them if they are an elected official (Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia) or an appointed official (Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Paul Nitze).  Thereafter, you can refer to them as Kaine or Nitze. So for the first mention, you’d say: “National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger told his assistant to.…”  From that point on, you can simply say “Kissinger told his assistant to…” When you mention a senator or representative, say: Senator John Warner (R-VA) to introduce and after than you can just say Warner or Senator Warner.

4.      Keep a Copy Make a copy of the paper for yourself before you hand it in to me. There are two reasons for this. If you have a copy, you don't have to worry about me losing a copy. I have never lost anyone's paper, but just in case you should always make sure that you have a copy of your paper with you, in any class, not just this one.

5.      Back up WHEN YOU TYPE YOUR PAPER ON A COMPUTER MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP DISK WITH THE PAPER ON IT. AS YOU TYPE THE PAPER SAVE THE FILE TO THE BACKUP DISK EVERY TEN MINUTES OR SO. Don’t just leave it on your hard drive and hope it will be safe.  A super safe way to deal with this is to use your own, already built-in cloud system.  Email the drafts of your paper to yourself and then you know it will be safe on the VCU system and you can access it from anywhere on the planet. Also, remember that if you type on the university computers be careful. Putting your paper on the hard drive in the computer lab is risky – they sweep the hard drives of files at night. Keep a backup copy for yourself. I have several backup copies of anything I write. You don't ever want to lose work because you didn't back it up.

6.      No Wikipedia Do not use Wikipedia or any other web-based encyclopedia.  It is unreliable and you should have stopped using encyclopedias for research in elementary school.

7.      Reliability of the Internet Be careful about internet sources.  Make sure the source is reliable.  Remember that anyone can post anything on the internet.  There aren’t necessarily any editors or fact checkers.  For example, there is a website that links me to the Kennedy assassination; I was two years old. Ask me if you have questions about this (internet sources, not if I was involved in the Kennedy assassination; I wasn’t).

8.      The use of “I”: Try to avoid using “I” in non-fiction.  Instead of “I will discuss three problems…” say “This essay addresses three problems…”

9.      The use of a semicolon: Semicolons connect two complete sentences that are related to each other.  For example: “I went to the pizzeria to get a pie; it was closed so I had Chinese food instead.”  You could also write them as two separate sentences if you wanted.  The following would be an incorrect use of a semicolon: “I had six very tasty pizzas last week; except for that crappy one from the big chain store.”  That should be a comma, not a semicolon.  The test is this:  If the two sentences you are connecting with a semicolon could stand alone as complete sentences then use a semicolon.  So it becomes obvious: “Except for that crappy one from the big chain store” is not a sentence.

10.  The use of “however”: It trips everyone up.  It’s a bit similar to semicolons.  “I went to the pizzeria; however, when I got there, it was closed.”  Notice the semicolon, not the comma.  That’s because “When I got there, it was closed” could be a complete sentence by itself.  Also, this sentence is like the use of a semicolon.  You are connecting two complete sentences.  In this case, you’re connecting two sentences that are related, but related in a very specific way.  The second sentence is adding the “however” to show a different expectation than the first sentence implies.  The first sentence implies you were going to eat pizza.  The second sentence says you didn’t.   On the other hand, look at this example: “I went to the pizzeria.  Upon arriving, however, I found out it was closed.”  The “however” is surrounded by commas.  That’s because “upon arriving” is not a sentence by itself.  Here’s another aspect of this.  “I went to the pizzeria, the one with the best pizza in the world.”  There is a comma there because “the one with the best pizza in the world” is not a sentence by itself. These are the non-fiction rules. In fiction, you can do anything you want.

11.  Some useful rules:

1.      Numbers under 100 should be written as out.  So you would not have this sentence.  “President Bush met with 3 advisers.”  It would be “President Bush met with three advisers.”

2.      When you have an acronym, such as NSDD-75 or UN.  First write out the name in full: National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 75, or United Nations (UN). After that first use of the term, use the acronym.

Late Papers

Papers are due at the beginning of class on the date indicated in the syllabus. After about 10 minutes of class has passed, your paper is one day late.  That is true for the rough draft and the final draft in cases where a rough draft is mandatory. I will mark late papers down ONE GRADE for each day late. That means that an almost perfect paper -- one that I would give 98 points to -- becomes an 88 if one day late, 78 if two days late, etc.,... all the way down to 8 points if nine days late, and zero points if ten days late.

            In classes where a rough draft is mandatory (if the rough draft is optional, ignore this): These deductions count for both the rough and final draft.  For example if you turn the rough draft in one day late and the final draft in one day late, you will have twenty points deducted from your paper grade.  For the rough draft the maximum penalty is 50 points for five days late that will be deducted from the final grade.  If you don’t turn in a rough draft that will be 50 points off.

            Talk to me if you are having some family or personal problems. If there is a serious need to get an extension on the paper, I will give you an extension.  I do realize that there are more important things in life than this class and this assignment.  So if you run into a problem, talk to me. Computer problems do not count as a problem that warrants an extension.  If you are writing your paper at the last minute and you have a problem, the moral of the story is that you should not have been writing your paper at the last minute.  If you have a printer problem, that doesn’t have to be a problem.  Give me your disk and I will print up the paper, or come to my office hours and we'll print up the paper at my office.  If you have some kind of computer problem, and you are not writing your paper at the last minute, let me know.  Maybe I can help.