1. General Tips

a. DO NOT FORGET: Your first goal is *clarity*.  What you write needs to: a) make sense;
b) be clear; and c) not be factually incorrect.

b. In each section, discuss support for the broad principles of democracy separately from
support for democracy in concrete instances.

In the intro and discussion, keep in mind that you are focusing on the concepts or ideas.  Most
of the time, you should not be focusing on specific questions.

In the method and results, you focus almost exclusively on the specific
questions you asked and the responses you received.
 

2. INTRO

Describe Prothro & Grigg in some detail.  It is the study your's is modeled after.  Describe
what they were interested in, how they examined it, what they found, and what they thought
it meant.

Briefly (1-3 sentences) describe the other studies you have found, unless they are killer killer
studies that are great and directly related to your study and make great points that Prothro &
Grigg did not make. [note: this previous sentence is a run-on -- you should not actually write
like that].  If you find a killer study like this, feel free to describe it, too, in detail.

Be sure to lead up to your hypotheses.  Do you think you will still find a consensus of
support for broad principles of democracy, but not consensus in concrete cases?  Why
or why not?  Do you think your college sample will produce similar or different
results than the other sample?  Why?  Whatever your hypotheses and
reasons for them, state them explicitly!

Use section headers and subheaders to organize your intro.  For example (you are not required
to use these structures):

ORGANIZATION I

introductory paragraphs

Early Research on Support for Democracy
     describe Prothro & Grigg here... blah blah...

Later Research on Support for Democracy
     describe the other studies you found

Hypotheses
 

ORGANIZATION II

introductory paragraphs

Research on Support for Democracy
     Prothro & Grigg.  describe P&G here blah blah...
     Other research.  describe the other studies here blah blah ...

Hypotheses
 
 

3. METHOD

You should have sections on:

Sample
Describe how many respondents you obtained and their demographic characteristics.  Indicate
how many refusals you had.

Questionnaire
Describe the questionnaire.  Do not print each question here.  Refer the reader
to a table or the appendix.

Procedures
Describe how you collected your data.
 

4. RESULTS

You should have at least two sections:
Preliminary Analyses
Main Analyses
 

Under Preliminary Analyses, you indicate that your first examined whether there were
substantial differences between your college sample and your other sample.

You must clearly and explicitly describe the criteria you used to determine what constituted a
"substantial difference."
-- 15% or consensus in one group but not the other.

If there were few substantial differences, proceed directly to the Main Analyses.  Report
results for the combined sample for all variables, except the ones on which a
substantial difference appeared.
 

If there were were substantial differences on more than 5 questions, report ALL results
separately for each sample.  In this case, you should have three sections:

Preliminary Analyses
Results for College Student Sample
Results for Other Adult Sample

In addition to reporting the numbers, also clearly state whether each result supported or failed
to support your hypotheses.
 

5. DISCUSSION

Start off by summarizing your results.  What were the main, broad pattern or patterns?

Discuss the limitations of your research.

Discuss some important implications of your research.

Suggest directions (note: this is plural) for future research.

Write a 1-2 paragraph conclusion, that emphasizes the one or two main take-home, key
messages of your research.