I recommend that you consult with me early and often on your choice of research design and paper topics. You must be careful that your topics are in the field of political psychology, not psychology or politics per se. Your definition of political, however, can be fairly broad as long as it is clearly spelled out. At the same time, you must be sure that your topic is not too narrowly political, i.e., you must spell out the psychological foundations of your argument. A second caution is that your paper must have a hypothesis.
Description is for journalism.
You must state your hypothesis early in the paper and the remainder of the paper must be devoted to establishing your argument . Note that there is a world of difference between an assertion and an argument. From time to time during the semester we will break up into smaller discussion groups during class. These discussion groups will focus on one of the assigned books. On some occasions one group will be assigned the task of defending the book, while the other group will point out its weaknesses.