1-Review of the Federal and State Judicial Systems
2-Popular Legal Consciousness and Legal Discourse
3-Legal Mobilization: The Role of Organized Interests
4-Solicitor General
5-Judicial Appointments
6-Supreme Court Agenda Setting
7-Decision Making in the Supreme Court
8-The Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and Legitimacy
9-The Supreme Court’s Approach to Constitutional Interpretation
10-Judicial Impact and Social Change
11-Judicial Politics in State Courts
12-The U.S. Legal System in Comparative Perspective
—————————————
The writer after he choose his topic from above I will upload documents to read about his chosen topic.
The writer must complete my research paper at the end so if the professor agree about the writer proposal we will complete to end up our research paper
Research Paper Assignment
Your assignment is to write an original research paper on a specific topic related to the themes of this course. You may select any topic on judicial politics, policy, or law you want provided that the issue poses a research question related to this course. Your paper should bring evidence to bear on your topic in the form of a literature review, although you may also incorporate other research material, such as survey research. To answer your question, you will conduct a thorough review of the relevant research literature to determine what kind of research has already been conducted on this issue, what are the results of that research, and what are your conclusions after having examined all the important documents on your topic.

Example research topics:
How did (name of case) get to the Supreme Court? What actors were influential? Why did the Supreme Court agree to put the case on its agenda?

What role has the Solicitor General played in the (specific area of law)? (example: abortion, death penalty, civil rights, etc.)

Which state approach to judicial selection results in better judges? How do you evaluate a system of judicial selection? How have different systems fared?

All papers need to do the following
• In the introduction of your paper, state an explicit research question and discuss why the topic is important.
• Present and analyze the relevant scholarly literature on your topic (a literature review). If appropriate, you can also include data and research organized to answer your question (for example, perhaps you will use secondary data to examine trends over time or to compare cases; perhaps you will use survey research data to answer your question).
• Include an introduction and conclusion.
• Include in-text citations and a list of references at the end (see below for more details on citations and references).
• Be virtually free of spelling and grammar errors.

Abstracts
In order to make sure everyone is working on an appropriate topic to the course, please turn in an abstract outlining your research paper in class by Wednesday, March 11. Your abstract need be only one paragraph describing your topic and the research question you hope to address. If you fail to turn in an abstract of your paper by March 11, I will deduct 10% from your research paper’s overall grade.

Instructions
• Your paper should be about 15-20 pages long, typed, double-spaced, with normal font and margins (Times New Roman, 12 point font, one inch margins on all sides, no extra spaces between paragraphs).
• Number your pages, but do not number the title page.
• Include a title page.
• Use headings for the different sections of your paper.
• At the end of your paper, you must include a reference list of all the sources that you cite in the text of your paper. You should use a minimum of 8-10 scholarly/academic/professional sources in your paper.
• Staple your paper together in the following order: title page, abstract, main text of paper, any endnotes, any tables and/or figures, any appendices, and a complete list of references. Do not put your paper into any type of folder or binder.
• Print your papers double-sided.
• Set your paragraphs to be double-spaced, except for references, which are single-spaced.
• Print the research paper grading rubric and staple it to the back of your paper.
• Your paper is due at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 6 in hard copy (not in any electronic version). I do not accept unexcused late papers.

Citations and References
Always give credit to sources that you use in your paper, including the course books and readings. The general rule is that you must cite all information and ideas you get from an outside source, including ideas that you put into your own words. You are not expected to cite common knowledge or your own thinking (for example, that the sky is blue).

Citations should appear in parenthesis in the text as: (author year, page number). You should put a citation at the end of the sentence that contains the information from your source. Do not just put citations at the end of a paragraph in an attempt to use a single citation for the whole paragraph.

Please follow the guidelines of the Style Manual for Political Science. Do not use a different citation style, such as APA. A pdf copy of the relevant sections of the Style Manual for Political Science is available on Blackboard. Use of a style other than that outlined in the Style Manual for Political Science can result in a lower grade.

Use only in-text citations for your paper. Do not use footnotes. Do not use Ibid or Id. If you have any questions about how to properly use in-text citations, please ask me.

You cannot include sources that you do not actually cite in your list of references.

Turnitin
You will be required to submit your research paper to Turnitin. I will give you more specific instructions closer to the due date.