Just a bit more on the final

Here's the simple version of the instructions for the final paper: write up the paper you proposed on your blog. The paper is due the last day of class, Monday, December 5th. It should be 7-10 pages long in 12 point Times New Roman font with 1 inch margins and contain 7+ sources.

To say a bit more to clarify some of the questions that I have received recently: The basic idea behind the paper is to produce a policy primer/policy analysis/position paper that, first of all, argues for a particular policy or a way of understanding existing policy. In addition to that, the paper should be informative, interesting, and analytically incisive: in a relatively short space, it should clarify the most important aspects of an issue, compares some of the different ideas out there on the topic, compare and contrast the merits and demerits of those policies, and most importantly, convincingly establish why we should lean toward a specific policy (or if the paper is less about advocating and more about analyzing, why we should lean toward a specific way of understanding a policy.)