SHORT ESSAY

• THE TOPIC
• Presentation of Essays
• Essay Structure

Write an essay on the trade war between the US and China by using hegemonic stability theory as your main framework of analysis.  If needed, you can refer to Lowy Institute’s Power Index:

https://power.lowyinstitute.org/

You are supposed to read and form your essay around these at least 2 of the 3 articles listed below and also YOUR TEXTBOOK. If you wish (not a requirement), you can do further research and bring more scholarly works to the debate:

Milner, H. V. (1998). International political economy: beyond hegemonic stability. Foreign Policy, 112-123.

Khong, Y. F. (2019). Power as prestige in world politics. International Affairs, 95(1), 119-142.

Allan, B. B., Vucetic, S., & Hopf, T. (2018). The distribution of identity and the future of international order: China's hegemonic prospects. International Organization, 72(4), 839-869.

1. Number the pages.
2. Write the title of the essay and your name once on the first page (should not be on a  separate page though).
3. Spell-check your essays.
4. Not more than 4 pages, double space, 12 font with enough margins.

Essays, like life, should have a beginning, a middle and an end. You are not writing all you know about a subject, rather you are answering a specific question. A well structured essay will certainly earn you a high mark, particularly of course when allied to solid content. In the beginning of every essay you should one main question and an answer to that in your head.

• Introduction In the introduction you should outline your argument; what are the main points you are going to make and why? You should also tell the reader how this will affect the structure of your essay. By doing these two things you will signpost the reader through your essay and give yourself a reminder of your intentions. As an example, here is a specimen introduction to answer to the question "Was Suez the beginning of the end of Britain as a world power?".
• The middle of the essay Essays are not an excuse for you to write everything you know about a given topic. You must avoid being too descriptive, irrelevant, polemical or tangential. Unfortunately, people still believe that the more you write the better. More it isn’t necessarily, or even usually, better. The object of the exercise in essay writing is to demonstrate that you can think clearly on a given topic, that you can pick out the important from the unimportant points and that you can present a reasoned, plausible, argument. Always remember that an essay is a means of communication, what you are saying, but the reader also needs to understand.
• Conclusions By the time you get to the end of an essay, there is an overwhelming desire to see the back of it, to finish and forget it. This desire, like many others at University, must be suppressed. There are few things more frustrating than reading an essay which is good, but is let down by its conclusion. You must learn to go back to the beginning of the essay and remind yourself of what you have just done; then you should clearly and concisely re-state your argument, pulling the whole thing together. The conclusion is not the place to introduce new arguments; it is not the place to slip in all those things you had forgotten to say earlier. The conclusion only emphasizes your argument.

4)     REFERENCES

A reference (or citation) is an acknowledgement of sources of ideas, arguments or factual information. When you employ an idea that is not your own, summarize someone else’s argument or report information which you did not collect yourself, you must identify the source. Everybody depends on the ideas of others. To fail to admit that you do as well is a sign of intellectual immaturity. Deliberate failure to refer to sources is a form of theft called plagiarism (SEE FACULTY POLICY)

How to handle quoted material?

• Short quotations (fewer than 40 words) are incorporated into the text and enclosed by double quotations marks (“). For example: Heller argues, “an effective democracy has two interrelated characteristics—a robust civil society and a capable state” (2000:25).
• Long quotations of 40 more words are displayed in a double-space block of lines with no quotation marks. Indent five spaces from the left margin and type the entire quotation on the intended margin without the usual opening paragraph indentation. For example:

A free and lively civil society makes the state and its agents more accountable by guaranteeing that consultation takes place not just through electoral representation (periodic mandates) but also through constant feedback and negotiation. Civil society is critical to democratic performance because it extends the scope and style of claim making beyond the formal interest representation that defines political society. (Heller, 2000:25).

• When a period or comma occurs with closing quotation marks, place the period or comma within the closing quotation mark. Put any other punctuation mark outside the quotation marks unless that mark is part of the quoted material.
• If you are not using a direct quotation, but indirectly using the ideas or language of someone else (that is if you are rewriting an idea of someone else with your own words), you don’t have to use quotation marks. For example: A robust civil society is a necessary condition for democracy (Heller, 2000:25).

How to cite within your narrative?

• After you use direct or indirect quotations, you can refer your reader easily to that resource by giving references in parentheses at the end of the quoted (PLEASE SEE #1 AND # 2 ABOVE) or borrowed idea (SEE #4).

For example:

Heller argues, “an effective democracy has two interrelated characteristics—a robust civil society and a capable state” (2000:25).

OR

A robust civil society is a necessary condition for democracy (Heller, 2000:25).

In each case (and for every resource), the citation should look like this:

(Author, year: page number).

Page number should be provided if you are referring to a particular idea that appears on a particular page. If you are referring to a general idea (or to the main argument), than you don’t have to include page number. In that case it should look like this:

(Author, year).

For example:

According to Heller class based mobilization created conditions for the deepening of democracy in Kerela (2000).

How to ccreate a bibliography?

IMPORTANT NOTE: You should include books/articles/edited books etc. in your bibliography, only if you directly (please see # 1&2) or indirectly (# 4) cite them in your text. 

Single-Author Book

Lijphart, Arendt (1999) Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in 36 Countries New Haven &London: Yale University Press

Edited Book

Bermeo, Nancy (1999) “Myths of Moderation: Confrontation and Conflicts During Democratic Transitions” in Lisa Anderson (eds) Transitions to Democracy New York: Columbia University Press

Article

Heller, Patrick (2000) “Degrees of Democracy: Some Comparative Lessons from India” World Politics - Volume 52, Number 4, pp. 484-519

NOTES

The reference style that I tried to introduce to you above is the style that I am currently using in my own work. But by no means this is the only format.  As soon as you are consistent throughout the paper, you can use other styles as well.