Methodical approaches of political issues

This course introduces students to the fundamental methodological tools needed to complete an academic program in the social sciences, and more specifically in political science. During our sessions, we will address

- the active practice of reading necessary for a good understanding of texts of a high level of complexity or technicality, notably through their contextualization,

- the best methods for synthesizing and summarizing academic works or political texts,

- the rules to follow in structuring and writing a coherent and plagiarism-free academic work,

- the production of a relevant bibliography on a given subject and its referencing according to the discipline’s canon

- the general principles that establish the scientific nature of a research in social science

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

There are no prerequisite skills or knowledge for this course.

This teaching seminar is divided into two distinct parts.

The professor will give a series of theoretical lectures to all students. These lectures will present the basic methodological tools of political science, as well as their functioning.

For the practical work, students will be divided into small seminar groups, supervised by a teaching assistant.

Attendance and participation in these seminars will be mandatory. Within the framework of these seminars, the students must submit 4 distinct assignments, each of which will be the subject of an evaluation.

Contribution to the teaching profile

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain orally, in his/her own words, a social science text after an initial reading
• Summarize a scientific text in a short written format using appropriate social science terms
• Reference a bibliographic source according to the discipline's standards
• Distinguish between plagiarism and acknowledged borrowing of an idea from an author
• Identify and obtain access to bibliographic resources relevant to a social science research project
• situate a social science text in its broader socio-historical context
• Write in a rigorous and accurate style consistent with academic expectations
• Provide a reasoned interpretation of a social science text

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

The slides presented during the lectures and of the texts discussed during the seminar sessions are available on the course's webpage on the UV.

Course notes

• Université virtuelle

Additional information

The course will be divided into two types of sessions:

• lectures with the professor
• and practical work with the teaching assistants.

Contacts

Professor

Martin DELEIXHE - martin.deleixhe@ulb.be

Teaching assistants

Simone BENAZZO (4 groups) – simone.benazzo@ulb.be

Emilia SALMINEN (2 groups) – to be determined

Martin DELEIXHE (1 group) - martin.deleixhe@ulb.be

Campus

Solbosch

Method(s) of evaluation

• Personal work
• Written report

Personal work

Written report

The final grade (out of 20) will aggregate the results of 5 partial grades :

1. Participation grade (10%)
2. A summary of a political speech or argument (20%)
3. A relevant bibliography to study the issue addressed in the political speech or argument (10%)
4. A contextualization of the same political speech or argument, with bibliographical references (30%)
5. A critical analysis of the content of the political speech or argument, with bibliographical references (30%)

No written assignment will be accepted after the scheduled deadline.

To pass this class, students must have submitted all their assignments and have a final grade of 10/20 or above.

The students who failed the class in June can submit an updated version of their failed assignment(s) in August for a new evaluation. The participation grade from June is final.

Any case of plagiarism in one of the written assignments will be sanctioned with a 0/20 for the whole class.

Since this class is meant to teach students how to perform fundamental intellectual tasks, the use of any content generated by a content-producing artificial intelligence (such as ChatGPT, Bard, etc.) is strictly prohibited. The assignments must be written by the students themselves. Any attested copy/paste of content produced by an artificial intelligence would be regarded as a fraud and sanctioned by a 0/20 for the whole class.

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

Submission of the assignments : 20% + 10% + 30% + 30% = 90%

Participation to the seminars : 10%

Language(s) of evaluation

• english
• (if applicable french )