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2006 King - Publication ( 1 ) PDF
2006 King - Publication ( 1 ) PDF
Introduction The broader scientific community Some students ask: “Why begin an
both collectively and in many other in- original research paper by replicating
I show herein how to write a publish- dividual fields is also moving strongly some old work?” A paper that is publish-
able paper by beginning with the replica- in the direction of participating in or able is one that by definition advances
tion of a published article. This strategy requiring some form of data sharing. knowledge. If you start by replicating an
seems to work well for class projects in Recipients of grants from the National existing work, then you are right at the
producing papers that ultimately get pub- Science Foundation and the National cutting edge of the field. If you can then
lished, helping to professionalize students Institutes of Health now are required to improve any one aspect of the research
into the discipline, and teaching the sci- make data available to other scholars that makes a substantive difference and
entific norms of the free exchange of upon publication or within a year of the is defensible, you have a publishable
academic information. I begin by briefly termination of their grant. Replicating, paper. If instead you begin a project
revisiting the prominent debate on repli- and thus collectively and publicly vali- from scratch without replication, you
cation our discipline had a decade ago dating, the integrity of our published need to defend every coding decision,
and some of the progress made in data work is often still more difficult than it every hypothesis, every data source,
sharing since. should be, and some still oppose the every method—everything. In contrast, if
A decade ago this journal published a whole idea, but our discipline has made you start with replication, you only need
symposium on replication policies in po- substantial progress.1 to defend the one area you are improv-
litical science. The symposium began The original replication debate in PS ing, and you can stipulate to the rest. If a
with an article I wrote entitled “Replica- included discussions about student in- critic doesn’t like something else in the
tion, Replication,” and was followed by volvement, and indeed some departments original article other than that which you
opposing and supporting comments by now require students writing disserta- are improving, you need not defend that
19 others ~King, 1995!. The debate over tions and senior theses to submit a repli- point since it is already part of the pub-
proper policies continued for a few years cation data set that, after an optional lished record and is the recognized state
in subsequent issues of the journal and a embargo period, gets made public and of the art. After all, this strategy was not
variety of other public fora. Since then, is permanently archived. In the decade originally designed for students; it is ex-
many journals in political science have since “Replication, Replication,” and actly the procedure followed by many
adopted some form of a data sharing or also in the decade leading up to it, I faculty in political science and most
replication policy. Some strongly recom- have tried other ways to help students other scientific fields. It is one of the
mend or expect data sharing and some benefit from this trend. Chief among reasons that the process of providing ac-
require it as a condition of publication. these has been an effort to professional- cess to the raw materials of research with
The editors of the major international ize my students by, among other things, sufficient precision necessary to repli-
relations journals have collectively writ- giving them first-hand experience repli- cate, and of accessing that from other
ten and committed themselves to a cating published work and publishing scholars, has become a deeply estab-
strong standard minimum replication pol- their own. In particular, I require my lished part of the scientific process.3
icy ~Gleditsch et al. 2003!. Most impor- students to write a “publishable” empiri- What follows is some of the advice I
tant, numerous individual scholars now cal paper for their class project based on give my students.
regularly share their data, produce repli- their replication of an existing published
cation data sets, put these data sets on article. Indeed, most of this paper is
their web sites, send them to the ICPSR Elements of the Paper
taken from a handout I have edited and
and other archives, or distribute them on re-edited over 20 years to maximize the 1. Your paper should address a sub-
request to other scholars. Scholars some- chance that students are able to publish stantive problem in your field of interest
times worry about being “scooped,” the paper they write for a methods class and contain one or a few clear points;
about maintaining the confidentiality of I teach.2 Students are told that successful one point with several supporting points
their respondents, or about being proven projects need not actually be published is better than a lot of unrelated points.
wrong, but since authors who make their or even submitted for publication. How- Your point should unambiguously answer
data available are more than twice as ever, although writing a publishable the question: Whose mind are you going
cited and influential as those who do not paper may sound hard at first, revised to change about what? If that question
~Gleditsch, Metelits, and Strand 2003!, versions of a large proportion of student isn’t answered, then you’re not making a
the strong trend toward data sharing in papers every year eventually result in contribution and there’s little reason for
the discipline should not come as a published journal articles, and many the paper to be published.
surprise. have also appeared as convention papers, 2. Begin by locating an article in your
dissertations, or senior theses, and they field, acquiring the data used in the arti-
have won many awards. Almost all of cle, and replicating the specific numeri-
those who closely follow the suggestions cal results in the tables and0or figures in
Gary King is the David Florence Profes-
sor of Government at Harvard University, below wind up with published articles. that analysis. ~You may start with the
where he also serves as director of the The advice offered here is not the only original article and find the data used,
Institute for Quantitative Social Science. way to conduct high quality research, but or work backwards from the data, such
His homepage can be found at http:// it is one relatively high probability path as stored in the ICPSR’s Publication
gking.harvard.edu. to success. Related Archive, or one of the other
Notes
* My deepest appreciation goes, in addition shtml. The course is taken by undergraduates 3. If you have a topic that has never before
to my students, to the numerous scholars who and graduate students from the Government been addressed, it is still best to begin with
have cheerfully, and in some cases repeatedly, Department and a variety of other departments the closest article to your area. Similarly, major
responded to my students’ queries over many and schools. An important feature of the class new data collections, while highly desirable
years. Thanks also to the National Institutes of for undergraduates is that they are treated just generally, are likely to take longer than the
Aging ~P01 AG17625-01! and the National Sci- like graduate students. The graduate students time available in a class project and so should
ence Foundation ~SES-0318275, IIS-9874747! have more wisdom about the literature and be avoided for the purposes of this paper.
for research support. what constitute important questions, but the Even if you ultimately plan a major data
1. See King ~2003! and http:00GKing. undergraduates often have better mathematical collection project, replicating an article at the
Harvard.edu0replication.shtml for more informa- backgrounds or other useful skills. In my cutting edge in the literature is usually an
tion on the replication and data sharing experience, the two groups often mesh well excellent place to start. You will learn what
movement in political science and other fields. together, compete successfully, and can is lacking and what might be fixed by your
2. The class is Government 2001 at Harvard make great coauthor teams, about which more data collection project. You may also be able
University. See http:00gking.harvard.edu0class. below. to gather convincing evidence for potential
References
Fisher, Bonnie S., Craig T. Cobane, Thomas M. gking.harvard.edu0files0abs0truth-abs. King, Gary, and Michael Laver. 1993. “On
Vander Ven, and Francis T. Cullen. 1998. shtml. Party Platforms, Mandates, and Government
“How Many Authors Does It Take to Publish _. 1995. “Replication, Replication.” PS: Spending.” American Political Science
an Article? Trends and Patterns in Political Political Science and Politics 28~Septem- Review 87~September!: 744–750. http:00
Science.” PS: Political Science and Politics ber!: 443– 499. http:00gking.harvard.edu0 gking.harvard.edu0files0abs0hoff-abs.
31~4!: 847–856. files0abs0replication-abs.shtml. shtml.
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Claire Metelits, and Ha- _. 2003. “The Future of Replication.” In- King, Gary, Michael Tomz, and Jason Witten-
vard Strand. 2003. “Posting Your Data: Will ternational Studies Perspectives 4~February!: berg. 2000. “Making the Most of Statistical
You be Scooped or Will You be Famous?” 443– 499. http:00gking.harvard.edu0files0abs0 Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Pre-
International Studies Perspectives 4: 89–97. replvdc-abs.shtml. sentation.” American Journal of Political
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Patrick James, James Lee King, Gary, James Honaker, Anne Joseph, and Science 44~April!: 341–355. http:00
Ray, and Bruce Russett. 2003. “Editors’ Joint Kenneth Scheve. 2001. “Analyzing Incom- gking.harvard.edu0files0abs0making-
Statement: Minimum Replication Standards plete Political Science Data: An Alternative abs.shtml.
for International Relations Journals.” Inter- Algorithm for Multiple Imputation.” Ameri- King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney
national Studies Perspectives 4: 105. can Political Science Review 95~March!: Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Sci-
Imai, Kosuke, Gary King, and Olivia Lau. 2004. 49– 69. http:00gking.harvard.edu0files0abs0 entific Inference in Qualitative Research.
“Zelig: Everyone’s Statistical Software.” evil-abs.shtml. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
http:00gking.harvard.edu0zelig. King, Gary, and Langche Zeng. 2006. “When Tomz, Michael, Jason Wittenberg, and Gary
King, Gary. 1991. “ ‘Truth’ is Stranger than Pre- Can History Be Our Guide? The Pitfalls of King. 2003. “CLARIFY: Software for Inter-
diction, More Questionable Than Causal In- Counterfactual Inference.” International preting and Presenting Statistical Results.”
ference.” American Journal of Political Studies Quarterly. http:00gking.harvard.edu0 Journal of Statistical Software 8~1!. http:00
Science 35~November!: 1047–1053. http:00 files0counterf.pdf. gking.harvard.edu0stats.shtml.