Introduction: Writing IR Research Papers at UNT
My upper-division undergraduate International Relations courses generally require at least one advanced research paper. For my "International Conflict" course (PSCI 4821), this paper requirement involves in-depth research on a particular international crisis or war; for my "Geography, History, and International Relations" course (PSCI 4820), the paper requirement involves in-depth research on a particular territorial claim. The full details of each assignment can be found in the syllabus for the course in question, but this web page is meant to provide additional assistance for students trying to research their topics. Most of the resources discussed on this page will be relevant for either paper topic; many wars have been related to territorial claims, many territorial claims have been related to wars, and many history resources cover both topics equally well.
Number of Sources
It can be dangerous to list a specific number of sources that are expected for an advanced college research paper, as there is so much variation across topics and across sources. A good rule of thumb, though, is that I expect you to use at least five serious scholarly sources (particularly books but also including academic journal articles) as long as this many sources are available in the library. For cases that are more obscure or cases that are too recent to have generated many books/articles, obviously, I can't expect you to use sources that don't exist. If you don't plan on using at least five sources, though, I highly recommend talking to me about your topic; I can often point you in the direction of additional sources that you hadn't thought of.
Also note that this rule of thumb refers to using five different serious scholarly sources. This does not mean listing five sources in your bibliography, but only using one or two in the writeup of your paper. I expect to see evidence that you have used all five sources in researching this paper, including appropriate citations wherever each one was used.
Acceptable Sources
This web page lists a variety of sources that are acceptable for use in advanced college research papers such as those required in my courses. In particular, I strongly encourage the use of academic books and journal articles, as well as the use of new sources such as newspapers or news wires.
Please be aware that most Internet sources, CD-ROMs, and encyclopedias are not appropriate for an upper-division college research paper such as these, and as such may not be used without my explicit permission. If you plan to use electronic sources, you must read and follow the guidelines presented at http://www.paulhensel.org/teachnet.html; note in particular that you must fill out a one-page request (and receive my written permission) before the source can be used, and that even then you must add a paragraph in the bibliography evaluating each electronic source used in your paper.
With the exception of online newspapers and journal articles (see below), the use of other electronic sources without following this procedure will be penalized by a deduction of up to five letter grades, depending on the severity of the problem (with a higher penalty generally being assessed when more unapproved sources are used, when the unapproved sources constitute the majority of the student's research, and so on).
What about online newspapers or JSTOR?This requirement does not apply to online versions of traditional library sources such as journal articles (obtainable through JSTOR or similar online databases) or newspapers (obtainable through Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, the Historical New York Times Online, the newspapers' own web sites, or similar sources). Because these are the same stories that you would otherwise get by xeroxing from the printed journal or by printing from the newspaper's microfilm archive, these sources are fine and do not require either my permission or a paragraph justifying and evaluating the source.
What about Wikipedia?To many students, Wikipedia seems to be the ultimate research source -- it covers almost every topic imaginable, in many cases it provides lots of detail, it comes up at the top of nearly every Google search you run, and it has been edited by millions of users, maybe even including some of the foremost experts in the field. So why don't I allow Wikipedia to be used in my courses' research papers, except with my explicit written permission (as described above?
The reason is that nobody can be sure of the qualifications of those who have edited the particular Wikipedia entry you want to use. There have been several scandals where politicians (or their supporters), corporate employees, or other people with a specific interest in mind have created or edited Wikipedia articles with the goal of exaggerating their credentials or accomplishments or removing negative information (and these are only the few scandals that have made the headlines; there may well have been many more undiscovered efforts to do the same thing). This is a particular problem for many of the paper topics that are assigned for my courses. In any given semester, there are probably a dozen or more articles related to my students' papers that Wikipedia has flagged as controversial, often showing waves of repeated editing by partisans of each country's view. There is little way to be sure that at the exact moment you consult the article, it reflects a neutral and unbiased perspective rather than one or the other of the two sides' propaganda.
So while Wikipedia is perfectly fine as a starting point for discovering basic information about a topic to help you figure out where to look in more trustworthy scholarly sources, it is not an acceptable source for upper-division college research papers on controversial topics such as wars, territorial claims, or the like. This view is echoed in an interview with Andrew Lih, a Wikipedia editor/administrator and the author of the book Wikipedia Revolution:
Wikipedia should be the starting point of research, not the ending point.
To the prospective journalist [Note from Dr. Hensel: this is just as true for students]: there is no better place to start researching a story than Wikipedia, and probably no worse place to stop and use as a final word. In short, don't do it. Wikipedia has helped you get your research started faster; don't ruin your experience by using it incorrectly.
Citations and Plagiarism
Furthermore, you must properly footnote and cite all sources that you use. Guidelines are available at http://www.paulhensel.org/teachcite.html. Failure to follow these guidelines on citing one's sources properly will be penalized by a deduction of up to five letter grades.
Writing Help
Many students make the same writing mistakes over and over again, either because they do not know that they are making a mistake or because they do not know how to fix it. With these students in mind, I have created several web pages listing common mistakes and describing how to fix the problems. If you have any doubt, please check out these web pages! Even if an instructor does not explicitly grade papers based on spelling, style, grammar, and so on, it is quite common for a poorly written and poorly organized paper to be less successful simply because it could not make its point effectively and because all of the mistakes in the paper distract the reader.
Please note that while I generally do not directly penalize students for spelling or grammatical errors, I will indicate many such mistakes with a red pen when grading. For example, one semester I had a student who went to all the trouble to get his paper specially bound at Kinko's, yet I counted (and circled in red ink) more than ten spelling or grammatical errors on each of the first three pages of the paper. Furthermore, sloppy writing often indicates sloppy research, and I will not spend extra time trying to figure out what the student's point is if it's not clear; I see no reason to spend additional time and effort grading a paper when the paper's author did not put much time or effort into writing it in the first place.
Books and Journal Articles
The most useful reference source for papers such as these is the university library, which includes a wide variety of books with information on crises, wars, and territorial claims. This section of the web page discusses some of the most useful search strategies for information in Strozier.
Territorial Claims
For a great place to start, the Strozier library includes a number of sources that cover territorial claims around the world, at least several of which will cover most of your topics. The following sources are especially useful for topics that have been active in the later twentieth century (and for selected earlier topics), and most of these are useful for both territorial claims and crises/wars (even if they focus only on one or the other):
- Anderson, Global Geopolitical Flashpoints: An Atlas of Conflict: Eagle Commons Library (for in-library use only), JC319 .A52 2000 (a great book covering dozens of claims, with updated information as of 2000)
- Anderson, International Boundaries: A Geopolitical Atlas: Willis Library 1st floor reference (for in-library use only), JC 323 .A52 2003b (a 2003 volume with details on each current border, such as its length, current status and the treaties that created this status, and major events in its history)
- Biger, Encyclopedia of International Boundaries: Eagle Commons Library (for in-library use only), JC323 .E53 1995 (information on the history and status of every international border in the world today -- although there are more typos and small errors than in the other books on this list, which is at least partly understandable because of the large number of cases that are included.)
- Calvert, Border and Territorial Disputes of the World: Willis Library 1st floor reference (for in-library use only), D843 .B623 2004 (the 2004 edition of a very useful reference book -- previously known as Border and Territorial Disputes and edited by Day or Allcock in 1982, 1987, and 1992 editions before Calvert took over; includes entries on most ongoing territorial claims, some many pages long and others only a paragraph or so -- but note that each edition has removed some entries from earlier editions, so your topic may not be in the latest edition.)
- Munro and Day, A World Record of Major Conflict Areas: Willis Library 2nd floor, D 842 .M86 1990 (less focus on territorial claims specifically, since they include a number of other types of conflicts as well, but still useful for those cases that it covers)
- Huth and Allee, The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the 20th Century: Willis Library 2nd floor, D 443 .H854 2002 (the most important part for students is the appendix, which includes a basic summary of every territorial claim in their data set between 1919-1995)
- Ireland, Boundaries, Possessions, and Conflicts in South America: Willis Library Remote Storage, 327.8 Ir2 (a very useful reference for the first century or more of South America's independence; the best coverage of events up to the book's publication in 1938)
- Ireland, Boundaries, Possessions, and Conflicts in North and Central America and the Caribbean: Willis Library Remote Storage, 327.73 Ir2 (every bit as good as his South America volume; the best coverage of events up to the book's publication in 1941)
- Touval, The Boundary Politics of Independent Africa: Willis Library 2nd floor, DT 30 .T68 (a useful reference for the first few decades of African independence, published in 1972)
- Widstrand, African Boundary Problems: Willis Library 2nd floor, DT 23 .A43 (another useful reference for the first few decades of African independence, published in 1969)
Gazetteers
Gazetteers can be another useful source for most topics in these courses. Essentially geographic dictionaries, good gazetteers include hundreds of thousands of entries, describing the history and geography of different geographic features, territories, countries, cities, and so on. These sources generally are not good enough to be the main source for a paper of this type, but they can be quite useful as a starting point (often listing several sentences up to several paragraphs on the history of a disputed territory, giving alternative names or spellings of names for the territory, and so on). They can also be very useful when trying to identify the details of a claimed territory, such as its area, population, and any valuable resources or other benefits present in the territory.
- The all-time best gazetteer is the three-volume Columbia Gazetteer of the World,
located at G 103.5 .C645 1998 on the 3rd floor of the Willis Library.
- An earlier version of this is the (single-volume) Columbia-Lippincott Gazetteer of the World, located at G 103 .L7 1966 on the 2nd floor of the Willis Library.
- One other good (single-volume) gazetteer is Merriam-Webster's Geographic Dictionary, a 1997 gazetteer with some 48,000 entries; this is available at the Willis Library's Document Center service desk on the 3rd floor (G103.5 .W42 1997). It can also be found in most good bookstores (online or bricks-and-mortar) for $20-30 or so; I have copies of this both at home and in my office, and highly recommend it for any good reference library.
- While these are the most useful, you are also encouraged to look around the same section of the library's shelves, or to check the online library catalog. Plenty of other gazetteers have been published, which -- while not usually as useful overall as the ones I have listed above -- may still have very useful information on your specific topic.
Crises and Wars
The following sources offer at least a paragraph or two on most wars in the topic list (Kohn) and on most crises or wars since World War II (Bercovitch and Ciment). As with the general territorial claims sources described above, these are likely to be of use for researching both crises/wars (for PSCI 4821) and territorial claims (for PSCI 4820), since so many territorial claims have produced at least one militarized dispute, crisis, or war:
- Bercovitch, International Conflict: A Chronological Encyclopedia of Conflicts and Their Management, 1945-1995: available online through NetLibrary
- Ciment and Hill, Encyclopedia of Conflicts since World War II: Willis Library 3rd floor, D843 .E46 2007 (4 volumes)
- Kohn, Dictionary of Wars: Willis Library 3rd floor, D25.A2 D53 2007
- Phillips and Axelrod, Encyclopedia of Wars: Willis Library 3rd floor, D25.A2 P49 2005 (3 volumes)
War Fatalities Data
Information on the specific dates, participants, and fatalities for each war is also available online from the Correlates of War project, the leading data collection project for the study of world politics. Unfortunately, this information is only available (in a more or less easy-to-use format) for full-scale wars, and is not available for any of the sub-war crises in the topic list.
- COW war data
- You may also need to consult the COW project's official list of state names and abbreviations to make sense of these data sets.
For older wars, this information is available in a printed volume that was published in 1982:
- Meredith Sarkees and Frank Wayman (2010), Resort to war: a data guide to inter-state, extra-state, intra-state, and non-state wars, 1816-2007: Eagle Commons Library, JZ6385 .S27 2010. (this book is also available through the library web site in electronic format)
- An earlier version: Small and Singer, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980: Willis Library 4th floor, U21.2 .S6 1982
- Some of the reference books listed above may also provide information on fatalities.
UNT Libraries - Online Catalog
Beyond the general sources listed above, which include information on a number of territorial claims or conflicts from around the world, you also need to look up books and articles that deal with your claim specifically (or at least with the countries involved in your claim).
One of the first things you should do is search UNT's online catalog, using the online search interface.
- You should try searching for some keywords associated with your topic (such as the name of the territory -- remembering that the same territory may be called different things by different countries, as with the Kuril Islands claim between Russia and Japan, which is occasionally spelled "Kurile" instead of "Kuril" and is sometimes called the "Northern Territories"). The same is true for wars; thus the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 is variously known as the October War, Yom Kippur War, and less flattering names (much like the U.S. Civil War is sometimes called the War of Northern Aggression, War of States' Rights, War of the Southern Secession, and many other things).
It is essential to search for histories of each involved country as well, though; many of the topics covered in these classes may have generated few or no entire books in our library. Some important headings to search (using the fictitious example of a claim between Bolivia and Botswana) include:
- Bolivia--Boundaries (and Bolivia--Boundaries--Botswana)
- Bolivia--Foreign Relations (and Bolivia--Foreign Relations--Botswana)
- Bolivia--History (as well as the separate entries for each historical era during which the claim was active)
- And the same topics for the other side (Botswana--Boundaries, Botswana--Boundaries--Bolivia, Botswana--History, etc.)
Academic Journal Articles
Some territorial claims, crises, and wars will be covered better by journals than by books, so you should also be sure to check for articles about your claim that our library might have.
- The best source for journal articles is JSTOR, which contains the full text of numerous political science, history, and geography journals (among many other disciplines that are less likely to be of much use for these courses). As with the other sources listed on this page, it's usually best to search both under the various names of the territory/crisis/war and under joint searches for each country's name. Please note that this source is licensed by UNT for use by its faculty, staff, and students, and that access is blocked for all other users. If you do not use a UNT computer or Internet connection, you will probably need to login using your EUID.
News Sources
You should also expect to find a great deal of information in newspapers or other printed news sources, even for claims that haven't generated any/many books. Some of the sources that I have found most useful for studying territorial claims include:
Printed News Sources
- Facts on File: Strozier Reference D 410 .F3 (1941-1999), also available online through UNT's library. This is a very useful news source that features regular updates every few weeks, which are then collected and indexed in annual volumes. It can be very helpful to look through the annual indexes for stories related to your topic, whether for the few years when you know the topic was most active or for the entire 6-decade period covered by Facts on File.
- Keesing's Record of World Events / Keesing's Contemporary Archives / Keesing's World News Archive: available online through UNT's library, as well as in annual printed volumes. This is another source that works like Facts on File, as described above. It goes back another decade, though, and in many cases its coverage of important events is even better than Facts on File's. Please note that this source is licensed by UNT for use by its faculty, staff, and students, and that access is blocked for all other users. If you do not use a UNT computer or Internet connection, you will probably need to login using your EUID.
Online News Archives - Historical
- Historical New York Times Online (free electronic access to the full text of every New York Times story since 1851, with a convenient searchable index and the ability to print the articles from your own computer; this is much more convenient than going to the microfilm room. This is available through the ProQuest service, and you will need to log in with your EUID if you are not accessing it from a campus computer.)
- Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe (an incredible source that includes the full text of news stories from hundreds of US and world newspapers, including coverage back to the late 1960s for some and the early-mid 1980s for most. If you have a territorial claim that was ongoing for at least part of this time period, this is likely to give you plenty of coverage of events involving your territory. For best results, I usually use the default Easy Search settings from this main search page, with the box checked to "Major U.S. and World Publications." The one change I usually make is to set it to search "All Available Dates" to search the full database -- including some coverage dating to the 1960s -- although some prominent claims have had too many news stories for a single search, since the database won't return more than 1000 stories. If you get at least 1000 search results, you should narrow it down by searching a few years at a time using the "Date is Between" setting (or a few months or weeks at a time if there are still too many news stories). When running a Lexis-Nexis search, you should search for keywords related to your topic, such as the name of the territory or the war -- remembering to try alternative spellings or names, as I noted above -- as well as for stories including each of the involved countries, such as a search for stories including Bolivia, Botswana, and the word border, boundary, territorial, or similar words.) Please note that this source is licensed by UNT for use by its faculty, staff, and students, and that access is blocked for all other users. If you do not use a UNT computer or Internet connection, you will probably need to login using your EUID.
- UNT's library includes a list of online database related to Political Science, some of which might prove to be useful.
Online News Sources - Current
There are many useful sources for current world news; these are a few of the more useful mainstream sources:
Newspapers and Global News Sites
- Al Jazeera America (the American affiliate of the network based in Doha, Qatar)
- BBC News (the UK's public broadcast service, which in my opinion is the best single online source of world news)
- Christian Science Monitor
- Deutsche Welle (English-language news from Germany)
- The Economist (their web site includes some very useful news and analysis, although they charge for access to most of the site; if you are truly interested in international relations, you may want to consider subscribing to their print edition -- it's expensive, but they offer academic discounts, and I don't think there is a better printed news magazine for coverage and analysis of international relations.)
- New York Times (they charge for access to most of their site, but they offer academic discounts, and they offer the best U.S.-based coverage of world events)
- Washington Post (now a pay site, but free access is provided for users accessing their site from academic addresses like UNT's campus)
- Xinhua (English-language news from China)
News Agencies
- Agence France-Presse/AFP (this feed of AFP news provided by France24)
- Associated Press/AP (this feed of AP news provided by the New York Times)
- Reuters
- United Press International/UPI
Other News-Related Links on My Web Site
- Online News Sources
- U.S. and Canadian Newspapers
- Latin American Newspapers
- European Newspapers
- African and Middle Eastern Newspapers
- Asian and Oceanian Newspapers
Web Sources
I am aware that with today's technology -- Ethernet or WiFi in every dorm room, inexpensive computers that are more powerful than top-of-the-line commercial computers from a few years ago, etc. -- there is a temptation to research papers entirely from one's bedroom without setting foot in the library. Unfortunately, though, this is a very dangerous research strategy that almost always produces poor results (and that is guaranteed to do so in my courses). For example, I have had several past students write horrible papers based exclusively on Internet sources. One of them wrote an entire upper-division college paper on the Cuban Missile Crisis based on a single web page (from the U.S. government, no less!), and another wrote an entire paper on one of the Arab-Israeli wars using only two web pages (one from the Israeli government and one from the Israeli military). I would hope that I do not need to explain the ridiculous nature of these papers -- whether this means the number of sources used, the one-sided and official nature of these sources, or the utter laziness that led the students in question to skip the dozens of books in our library that would be relevant for either of these topics.
You shouldn't even bother wasting your time with Internet resources until after you have finished taking advantage of the books, journals, and newspapers available in our library. You are very unlikely to be able to find the amount of detail that you need for a paper like this on the Web (and much of the detail that you are likely to find may be of questionable validity, owing to the non-refereed nature of Internet publication). As a result, a paper that relies on Internet sources rather than appropriate printed materials such as books and journals will not receive a very good grade. (and if you plan to submit such a paper, be aware that I will most certainly look through LUIS and other resources to verify your complaint that "there is nothing on this claim in the library"; if I can find useful resources using the online catalog and the other resources listed on this page, then I will not be likely to reward your sloppy and halfhearted research effort with a good grade on the paper) Bearing this in mind, the following on-line resources can be useful for limited purposes, even if not for the bulk of one's research. Remember, though, that on-line sources (as well as CD-ROM encyclopedias and similar electronic resources) can only be used as a supplement to more conventional library resources, and only if specifically approved by me in writing after you make a written request. Reliance on Internet sources where appropriate library sources exist, overreliance on Internet sources in any situation, or use of Internet sources without my approval will be penalized by up to five letter grades.
There are very few situations for which I will approve the use of Internet sources. One is the use of a government's official web site to identify that government's official position on an ongoing (or recent) territorial claim -- although in this case you must be very careful to point out the likely one-sided nature of the source. Another is the use of reports from international organizations or institutions such as the United Nations or the World Court. A third is the use of general reference sources to produce maps of the involved countries and the claimed territory; a variety of historical maps may be found online. Outside of these three situations, though, it will probably be quite difficult to convince me to approve an Internet source for your paper. Also note that before approving any requested Internet sources, I will ask you which legitimate library sources you have consulted, and which specific information you found on the Internet that you could not find in any more legitimate source; I will probably attempt to verify these claims before deciding whether or not to approve your request, so don't even try to request Web sources before you've tried serious scholarly research.
Pages on My Web Site
- Maps and Interactive Geography Tools (useful for maps, including both blank maps that you can draw on, and historical maps showing the world very differently than today's current atlases)
- On-Line News Sources (useful for finding coverage of recent news, particularly from non-American perspectives; most online newspapers have search engines that allow you to search their news archives, although these archives generally only go back a few years, and there is often a fee)
- Foreign Governments and Politics (useful for finding access to other governments' official web sites and other international sources of policy positions for ongoing or recent cases)
Other Web Sites
- CIA World Factbook (useful for general background information on countries' area, population, and economies, although not recommended for historical background)
- CountryWatch (similar to the CIA Factbook)
- U.S. Army Country Studies / Area Handbooks (useful for general background on countries' histories, which might help you figure out references in other sources to individual leaders or to important historical events, but not detailed enough to serve as a main sources for these papers)
- U.S. State Department Country Background Notes (also useful for general background, but again, not detailed enough to serve as your main sources for these papers)
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ, or "World Court") has been involved in a number of territorial claims, including many that are being covered in student research papers for this class. The ICJ offers pages listing all ICJ cases and decisions, which you may find very helpful if your claim has been submitted to the Court. You may also find my International Law page to be useful.)
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Last updated: 30 July 2018
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