Class Materials

Student Materials

• How to Write a Publishable (Class) Paper
• Advice to Junior Faculty (PDF)
• Wordprocessing:
• A Quick Introduction to LaTeX (PDF)
• Advanced LaTeX Commands for mathematics - Users's Guide for the amsmath Package (PDF)
• General LaTeX Help
• TeTex Documentation Guide, advanced commands and packages
• Automating bibliographies in LaTeX: use bibtex (PDF) with Natbib (PDF), natnotes (PDF), and bibentry (PDF)
• Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List (PDF)
• Concurrent Versions Systems
• Producing EPS files from Windows
• Presentations: PowerPoint-like presentations with LaTeX:
• Beamer, User's Guide (PDF)
• or: Ppower4, FoilTeX for making slides, HyperRef for hyperlinks
• The SPARC Author's Addendum (read this if you've had something accepted for publication)
• What to do if you want me to write you a letter of recommendation

Syllabi

• Future Course Offerings in Political Methodology and Formal Political Theory
• Our Math "Prefresher"' Course for entering graduate students
• Advanced Quantitative Research Methodology, One class which you can sign up for as Government 2001 (for Harvard graduate students), Government 1002 (for Harvard undergraduates), and Harvard extension school course E-2001 (offered via distance learning over the web for non-Harvard students); Spring 2008, Mondays 2-4; see also my detailed lecture notes and the class web site. This course introduces the theories of inference underlying most statistical methods. It covers how new approaches to research methods, data analysis, and statistical theory are developed. With this foundation, we introduce (and "reinvent") a wide variety of known statistical solutions to a wide range of social science data problems. We also show how it is easy to conceive original approaches and new statistical estimators when required. The specific models introduced will be chosen based on students research topics. In past years they have included models for event counts, ecological inference, time-series cross sectional analysis, compositional data, causal inference, case-control designs and others. Government 2000 or the equivalent is a prerequisite. (Undergraduates frequently take this course, and I offer all those who successfully complete it a summer job working on research with me.)
• Workshop in Applied Statistics, Alberto Abadie (KSG), Lee Fleming (HBS), Gary King (Government), Kevin Quinn (Government), Jamie Robins (HSPH), Don Rubin (Statistics), Guido Imbens (Economics), Chris Winship (Sociology). Gov 3009 meets all academic year, Wednesdays, 12-1:30, free lunch provided. This workshop is a forum for graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present and discuss methodological or empirical work in progress in an interdisciplinary setting. Features a tour of Harvard's statistical innovations and applications with weekly stops in different fields and disciplines. Includes occasional presentations by invited speakers chosen by participants. Meets following the regular class schedule in the IQSS conference room (1737 Cambridge Street, 3nd floor).
• Strategies of Political Inquiry, Government 2010 (PDF), Gary King, Robert Putnam, and Sidney Verba: not offered this academic year. If you could learn only one thing in graduate school, it should be how to do scholarly research. You should be able to assess the state of a scholarly literature, identify interesting questions, formulate strategies for answering them, have the methodological tools with which to conduct the research, and understand how to write up the results so they can be published. Although many graduate level courses address these issues of research design indirectly, we provide an explicit analysis of each. We take empirical evidence to be historical, quantitative, or anthropological and focus on the theory of descriptive and causal inference underlying both quantitative and qualitative research. Primarily for graduate students and undergraduates preparing for senior thesis research.
• Introduction to Quantitative Political Methodology, G1000: Not offered by me this year. Introduction to major quantitative technqiues used in political science. Covers exploratory data analysis, as well as descriptive and causal statistical inference of many types. The course emphasizes probability theory, regression analysis and other statistical techniques, and uses new techniques of stochastic simulation to get answers easily and to interpret statistical results in a manner very close to the political substance of the problem at hand. NOTE: Frequently taken by undergraduates needing quantitative techniques for thesis research and by graduate students satisfying department requirements. This course also serves as the first in a series of three quantitative courses offered by the department.
• Designing Political Inquiry, Government 1003 (for undergrads) Not offered this year.