Redraft: January 21, 2004

To: ISEP Project Course Students

From: Mac Destler and Susan Schwab, Co-Directors

cc: David Crocker, Jacques Gansler, Carmen Reinhart, John Steinbruner, Tom Schelling, Stan Turner

re: ISEP Project Course 2003-2004

This memo spells out the basic requirements for the ISEP project course, aka PUAF 790. At its conclusion is a tentative schedule. The major work for the course is typically done in the spring semester, but students are expected to begin choosing and thinking about their projects before the end of calendar year 2003.

Check the course website (address tba) for information and updates, including changes in the course schedule.

A. Basic Information

Registration. The project course (PUAF 790) is required for all 48-credit (MPM) ISEP students. Students expecting to graduate in calendar year 2004 should therefore take the course in the Spring 2004 term, as it is not offered in the fall. Work must be completed by early May.

Requirements. Each student must complete and submit an analytic report, roughly forty double-spaced pages, on a current policy problem. Each student must also make a final oral presentation to ISEP faculty and student colleagues, setting forth his/her principal findings and conclusions. Preliminary drafts (and a preliminary presentation) are also required.

Schedule. Each student begins the process with a general project course meeting in late fall, followed by a one-on-one session with a co-director before mid-January 2004 to explore possible topics. There will also be at least three course meetings in the spring term-one at the start to discuss projects informally with ISEP faculty, a second for preliminary oral presentations, and a third (on a Friday afternoon in early May) for final oral presentations.

Topic. Students have broad discretion in choice of topic, which can, in principle, be any policy problem within the broad sphere of international security and economic policy. Topics are subject to faculty approval and are developed in consultation with the co-directors and other ISEP faculty.

Faculty adviser. Each student will be assigned a faculty adviser, who may be other than a co-director. The aim will be to find an adviser with expertise particularly relevant to the topic at hand.

(Optional) Outside Sponsor. Each student is encouraged, but not required, to find an outside sponsor, an organization within the policy community with strong interest in the topic to be addressed. If a project has a sponsor, its details are worked out in consultation with both the sponsor and the faculty adviser, and the final product is written specifically for the sponsor.

(Optional) Group Projects. Another possibility is for two or more students to undertake a joint project. In this case, an outside sponsor is appropriate.

Grading. Evaluation will be the final responsibility of the co-directors, who will draw upon assessments by the faculty adviser, other ISEP faculty, and where relevant, the outside sponsor.

B. Elaboration

The Topic. Unlike a traditional master's thesis, on a topic of interest primarily to scholars, the project paper is intended to be practical and policy-relevant.

*** The topic should be timely, but be warned against choosing one so volatile that its basic shape is likely to change dramatically as you write and rewrite.

*** The project should be specific and delimited, but also of appeal to a broad audience. In general, avoid issues of grand strategy (the role of the United States in the post-9/11 world) in favor of something manageable (US agricultural trade objectives in the Doha Round),

*** Be sure that sufficient information is available in the public domain (not a problem for most topics), as all drafts, reports, and presentations must be unclassified. Where possible, choose a topic that will enable you to supplement published information with interviews.

*** The central purpose of all project papers is to analyze options and make recommendations on the issue you choose to address. All projects must address some version of the following question: What should we (nation, agency, community, etc.) do now?

*** Group projects (involving more than one student) are possible, and faculty are available to help in their development. It is advisable for group projects to have outside sponsors.

You should come to the first spring-term project course meeting with a clear idea of the topic you plan to work on, and (if you choose) a potential sponsor.

The Paper. There is no one perfect structure for a project paper. However, experience in prior years has led faculty to offer the following advice.

*** The reader will need basic information about the policy problem: its history, prior attempts to deal with it, etc. Do not assume that since "the professor" knows, you need not explain. You are the expert, writing for those less knowledgeable, and you establish your credibility, in part, by providing a concise summary of information relevant to the subsequent analysis.

*** You will need to offer options for addressing the problem, and to develop criteria for evaluating these options, so that your recommendations can be grounded in solid analysis. You will need to acquire and summarize evidence-quantitative where possible--with sources provided for all data. In any case, you will need to make rigorous arguments grounded in fact, and to document points not likely to be obvious to the reader.

*** You should aim at an overall length of about 40 double-spaced pages, in a readable font (like this one, Times New Roman 12). This includes tables and charts inserted in the text, though you may append others to the report if you believe this directly supports your analysis. No paper will be accepted if it exceeds 50 double-spaced pages, or if its pages are crowded to bring it within that limit. And failure to proofread drafts (particularly the final) will be severely penalized.

In addition to the title page and table of contents, your paper should contain the following (suggested lengths in parentheses):

Executive Summary (one page)

Introduction (2-3 pages)

Here you introduce the topic and explain why it is important. Set forth your basic questions, your methods for analyzing the issue (ie, interviews, economic analysis, quantitative analysis, survey research), and any important limitations (data you couldn't get, issues you can't address, etc.).

The Policy Problem in Context (6-10 pages)

This is where you provide basic background information to the uninitiated and "set up" your analysis by introducing key concepts and terminology, stating why you are focusing on certain key questions, etc.

Analysis (20-25 pages)

This is the heart of the paper, and you should develop a working outline of this section as soon as possible. Here you will set forth and analyze various options for addressing the problem, making sure to establish their logic and plausibility. Use appropriate criteria for evaluating them (economic, military or operational effectiveness, political feasibility, consistency with other relevant policies, etc.). Avoid "straw man" options.

Conclusions and Recommendations (5-8 pages)

Here you make your central policy recommendation(s) and set forth the supporting arguments. Include both a summary-reminder of what the problem is and some discussion of next steps-how to implement the option(s) you have chosen. Sometimes the recommendation can be introduced through a matrix showing options and criteria and how each of the former measures up under the latter. (Or you could include such a matrix at the close of your analytic section.)

Oral Presentations. You will give two. The preliminary presentation, just after spring break, will be semi-formal, roughly six minutes for presenting and five minutes for faculty-student questions. The final presentation, at the end of the term, will be formal (power-point strongly recommended) and strictly limited to twelve minutes. The ISEP community and your sponsor (if any) will be invited to attend. Be succinct, limiting what you say to what really matters and what you project to information that can be easily read and grasped.

Outside Sponsors. Though writing for an outside sponsor complicates the project, it can also bring substantial benefit to the student-in immersing her/him in a "real-world" operating situation; in establishing relationships useful in later professional life. Sponsors of previous ISEP projects have included government agencies (NSC, Federal Reserve, USTR, State and Defense Departments, the Air Force), foreign embassies, Congressional committees, interest groups (business, labor, NGOs), etc.

Grading. In deciding the final grade, the directors will give weight to evaluations by faculty advisers and other faculty readers-and to faculty ratings of the final oral presentations. In general, written work will count for about two-thirds of the grade and oral, one-third.


C. Preliminary Schedule

Please mark the following on your calendars. It is, however, subject to change. We have far more students taking the course than ever before, and this has already led us to reserve two days for final oral presentations. The same may also be nccessary for earlier course meetings.

December 1: Initial course meeting with Directors

Dec 8 - Jan 16: Individual student meetings with Directors

January 30: One-page "project idea" statement due

February 2 and 4: Informal discussion of project ideas with ISEP faculty

February 9: Summary statement and preliminary outline due

February 10: Discussion meeting about project paper structure and content with co-directors

February 20: Detailed outline due

March 19: First draft paper due

April 1: Preliminary Oral Presentations

Apr 30/May 7: Final Oral Presentations

May 3/May 10: Final Project Papers Due