“To speak with precision of public opinion,” said V.O. Key, “is a task not unlike coming to grips with the Holy Ghost.” In this assignment you must prepare a 10-page paper that identifies and discusses the qualities of public opinion on a topic of your choice.  Whether you select the environment, abortion, capital punishment, the war in Iraq, or sometime else altogether, the choice is yours.  I ask only that you abide by two limitations: 1) that the subject matter be of political interest; and 2) that your focus remains on U.S. (as opposed to international) opinion.

Consider these questions:

1. What is the direction of public opinion on your topic?  Do Americans favor or oppose the issue at hand?  Is there a healthy consensus, or instead disagreement?

2. How would you characterize the strength of public attitudes on your topic?  Remember, this was a crucial quality to early scholars such as James Bryce and A. Lawrence Lowell.

3. What about the stability of public opinion?  Is the trend in public attitudes on your issue constant and steady, or does it fluctuate over time?  If the latter, to what does it respond?

4. How broadly is opinion distributed on your issue?  If you are able to find poll results broken down into subgroups, do you see clear differences based on age, education, income, gender, and/or partisanship, etc.?   How might these be explained?

5.  Finally, how consistent is public opinion on your issue?  Have scholars found evidence of a logical, structured, and constrained belief system?  Or, are attitudes crude, disconnected, and narrowly focused instead?  Does there appear to be a connection between abstract principles and specific policy preferences?

Whatever subject you choose, be sure to explore it in depth using a variety of sources—books, journal articles, polling data, etc.  Please cite those sources carefully and completely at the end of your paper.

A Note on Data Sources

In preparing this paper, you should feel free to use “secondary” source materials (e.g, academic books and journal articles).  However, I encourage you to explore “primary” sources as well.  Here are some suggestions on where to start::

• The Gallup Organization
• The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
• The ANES Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior (provided by the University of Michigan
• PollingReport.com (an independent, nonpartisan resource on American public opinion, published in Washington, D.C.)
• Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (survey reports of a wide variety of topics)

Guidelines for Citation

Your finished paper should be roughly 10 double-spaced, typewritten pages in length.  It must include a bibliography. 

To cite any electronic databases you use, follow the parameters suggested by librarians at the University of Georgia.

About opinion polls: Look for the title and other bibliographic information in the database record, descriptive web page, or publications lists of the resource you are using to access the poll data.

Note: The date on which the poll was taken is commonly included in the title, especially when the rest of the wording does not uniquely identify the poll.

DEADLINE:  This assignment is due on a date to be determine by the Registrar's office. Late papers will be penalized and no file attachments will be accepted. Hard copies only, please.