Skip to main content

Special Topics in Political Science (390-0-21)

Topic

Political Data Visualization

Instructors

Sarah Elizabeth Moore

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-420: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

How do data savvy experts make quantitative research on political topics readable to the broader public? We'll focus on ways to accurately capture and convey complex topics while unpacking misleading, uninformative, and otherwise unsatisfactory graphs and statistics. This course will broadly focus on two primary components of meaningful research engagement with headline political topics: data literacy and honest, concise description. Over the quarter, students will be exposed to different theories of data science and visualization paired with applied examples of the portrayal of data in popular media. Particularly, we will hash out the dos and don'ts of writing about political or potentially controversial topics for broad audiences, as well as how to dispel misinformation with your own analyses. Students will then learn how to translate these skills into data-informed, public scholarship of their own. Using reputable public opinion data or broadly accessible political science datasets, students will engage with data journalism and author their own public-facing pieces that are in conversation with relevant political headlines—mindful of maintaining rigor while speaking to a diverse audience. An entry level empirical statistics course, such as POLISCI 210 or the statistics department equivalent, are required. Basic familiarity with statistical programming in R is encouraged.

Registration Requirements

Recommended prerequisite classes: POLI_SCI 210, SOCIOL 226, any statistics or data science related courses

Attendance at first class required

Learning Objectives

Students will gain an understanding of


  1. Applied management of data.

  2. Writing about quantitative data for public audiences.

  3. Critical engagement with concepts in political science.

  4. Project management and peer review

Teaching Method

Participatory seminar

Evaluation Method

Build a Blog—Process (60%) Over the course of the quarter, students will be required to build a GitHub site or Substack blog—the privacy of which is up to the student, so long as it is available to the class. The build of this site will be phased through the quarter. Students are highly encouraged to read how to make these sites accessible to individuals with different abilities.

Build a Blog—Completion (20%) At the end of the quarter, you will redesign, edit, and proofread all previous blog submissions based on your peer and instructor review, as necessary. As a final addition, you will also be required to translate a piece of already published political science work into a public-facing piece. This will be specifically interesting if you are able to nest it in historical news headlines—as if it were written when the headlines were relevant.

Participation (20%) Attendance in class is mandatory. The participation grade will be dependent on participation in class AND peer-review of other students' materials. Over the quarter, you will have a class peer that will be your peer-reviewer for all submitted assignments, except for the weekly visualization dumps. The participation grade will reflect your satisfactory completion of peer-review tasks.

Class Materials (Required)

None