Welcome

Notes on political science research

 

A Strong History

Back in grad school, we used to exchange 1- or 2-page summaries of journal articles with my peers. All of us read the articles (at least I did), but we shared the task of writing notes about them. We would collect summaries from fellow grad students at UCSD and post them to wikisum.com. You’ll find lots of summaries of classic books and articles there, although the summaries vary widely in quality depending on who wrote them.

Now that grad school’s over, we still read books and journal articles. And I still take notes on them. We post the notes here mainly for my own benefit–storing them in this format makes it easier for me to search through them. If these summaries are useful to you, great. If you’d like to discuss my reviews, please post a comment. If you’d like to start blogging here with me, please do, as long as you’re a professor or doctoral candidate in political science.

Political Reviews

7 Best Activities for Retired Politicians

7 Best Activities for Retired Politicians  The vast majority of politicians don't want to retire. That's because they fear the inactivity that comes with retirement. Perhaps you've been a politician for decades. However, you shouldn't see retirement as the "end...

Timing Is Everything

In recent years, political scientists have run a variety of field experiments to show exactly which methods of voter mobilization are most effective. However, those experiments have focused mostly on method, not on timing. In a recent article, Costas Panagopoulos used...

Our main goal is just to help others remember what we’ve read.