Research Seminar

2001-2002

+version 18 July 2001

Protected page Requirements Resources
6  September 13 September 20 September
27 September 4 October 11 October
18 October 25 October 1 November
8 November 15 November 22 November
29 November

Instructor

Professor Eliot Cohen.   Office hours (Rome 709) are held several times a week by appointment, and are posted at "Cohen's Corner" on the SAIS website.   Go there for further information.   Sign up for a time slot, either in person, or by calling Ms. Thayer McKell  (Rome 709) at 202.663.5774.   My office telephone number is 202.663.5781, and my email address is ecohen@jhu.edu.

Course concept

The seminar introduces second year master's degree and Ph.D. students to central problems of research.   The approach is empirical and historical: students will read practical guides and deal with issues of argument and verification by examining cases in the study of military affairs.   The seminar will meet during both the fall and the spring, when students will present preliminary reports to the group.   By the end of the second semester students will have written a paper of publishable length and quality on a topic of their choice, cleared with the instructor.  

The research seminar is a year long course for which credit is given in the spring semester, following the submission of the paper.   The class will meet ten times in the fall, and six times (possibly fewer) in the spring.   Three optional sessions on social science methodology will be set up for Ph.D. students and others who may be interested in this subject.

A note on electronic sources

There is a protected page, which may be accessed using a username and password that will be distributed in class.   To read the .pdf documents found there and on this syllabus you will need the free Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™.  The page has  back to top
Requirements 1.  Students will write a paper of publishable length and quality on a subject cleared by the instructor.   Paper requirements are:

The topic must be related to Strategic Studies,  non-trivial, and admit of more than one plausible initial hypothesis;

The subject must be researchable, chiefly through documentary sources;

The paper must include footnotes, prepared according to a standard system identified in the text, and an annotated bibliography;

The essay’s length may be between 5000 and 10,000 words (25-50 pages of text, beyond footnotes and bibliography).

2.  To help prepare for the course, students will prepare a concept memo and a formal prospectus, using the Strategic Studies prospectus format.

3.  Students are also required  to take the library's database orientation (not the overall library orientation), and to have the library instructor confirm that with an email to me.

Books required for purchase are:

Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher.  5th edition.  (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992).

Thomas Mann,  The Oxford Guide to Library Research Methods  (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1998).

William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style.  3rd edition.  (New York:  Macmillan, 1979).

William M. Arkin,  The Internet and Strategic Studies,  SAIS:  Center for Strategic Education, 1998

Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations  6th edition (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1996) or any other standard style guide.


Books recommended for purchase:

David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).

Mysteries that you may enjoy reading, and that speak to the subject of research:

Josephine Tey, Daughter of Time   (New York:  Macmillan, 1988)

Naguib Mahfouz, Akhenaten:  Dweller in Truth  (New York: Anchor, 2000)

Agatha Christie,    Five Little Pigs  (New York: Berkeley, 1999)

Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon  (film)

 

 

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Additional resources For additional resources, go to Cohen's Corner. back to top
6  September

Organizational meeting

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13 September

Getting it right

Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher, Chs. 1-3, 7,   "Research and Report:  Characteristics,"  "The ABC of Technique," "The Searcher's Mind and Virtues,"  "Truth, Causes, and Conditions,"  pp. 3-47, 154-180.  82 pages.
Carl von Clausewitz,  On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret eds. and trans.  (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1984),  Bk II, Chs. 5,  pp.  156-69.  14 pages.

Case:  S. L. A. Marshall and the ratio of fire

S. L. A. Marshall, "Combat Behavior of Infantry Companies," in Peter Karsten, ed., The Military in America: From the Colonial Era to the Present (New York: Free Press, 1986), pp. 338-49.  12 pages.
Roger J. Spiller, "S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire," RUSI Journal 133 (Winter 1988): 63-71.  9 pages.
Frederic Smoler, "The Secret of the Soldiers Who Didn't Shoot," American Heritage 40:5 (March 1989): 36-45.  10 pages.
Martin Blumenson, "Did 'Slam' Guess at Fire Ratios?   Probably: A Legend Remembered," Army 39 (June 1989): 16ff.  4 pages.

 

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20 September
concept memorandum due

Posing the question

Fischer, Historians' Fallacies, Ch. 1, "Fallacies of Question Framing," pp. 3-39.  37 pages.
James G. Roche and Barry D. Watts, "Choosing Analytic Measures," Journal of Strategic Studies  14:2 (June 1991):  165-209.   45 pages.

Case:  How important is logistics?

Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).   Read pp. 1-3, 231-7 first, to see van Creveld's conclusions.   Then read chapters 3 ("When demigods rode rails"), 4 ("The wheel that broke"), and 7 ("War of the accountants"),  pp. 75-141, 202-30.  96 pages.

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27 September

No class

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4 October

Establishing the facts

Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher, Chs. 5,  "Verification," pp. 96-133.  38 pages  or  Allan Nevins, The Gateway to History,  rev. edition.  (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1962),  Ch.  7, "Pilate on Evidence,"   pp.  189-225.  37 pages.
David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies:  Toward a Logic of Historical Thought.  (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).  Chs. 2-3, "Fallacies of Factual Verification,"  "Fallacies of Factual Significance,"  pp.  40-102.  63 pages.

Case: Understanding combat

John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking, 1976), Ch. 1, pp. 15-78.  64 pages.
Tony Horwitz,  Confederates in the Attic  (New York:  Vintage, 1999), Ch. 8, pp.  157-89.  33 pages.

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11 October
first draft of prospectus due

Finding the facts

Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher,  Ch.  4, "Finding the Facts,"  pp.  48-95.  48 pages.
William M. Arkin,  The Internet and Strategic Studies,  SAIS:  Center for Strategic Education, 1998.   49 pages.
Philip C. Brooks, Research in Archives:  The Use of Unpublished Primary Sources   (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1969), chapters 2, 6, pp. 14-35, 83-92.  32 pages.
Thomas Mann,  The Oxford Guide to Library Research Methods  (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1998).  (skim)
Barry Watts, "Unreported History and Unit Effectiveness," Journal of Strategic Studies  12:1 (March 1989): 88-98.  11 pages.
Ralph Bennett,  Ultra in the West:   The Normandy Campaign 1944-45    (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980),  Preface, Ch. 1 ("How it Was Done,” and "Examples of Ultra Signals,")  pp.  viii-xv, 1-26, 276-91.  50 pages.

 

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18 October

Making an argument

Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher, Chs. 6, "Handling Ideas," pp. 134-153.  20  pages.
Fischer, Historians' Fallacies.   Ch.  6, "Fallacies of Causation,"  pp. 164-186.  23 pages.

Case: Why did the Wehrmacht fight?

Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz, "Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II," in Morris Janowitz, Military Conflict: Essays in the Institutional Analysis of War and Peace  (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1975): 177-220.  44 pages.
Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1991), chapters 2-3, "The Destruction of the Primary Group," "The Perversion of Discipline," pp. 29-105.  77 pages.

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25 October

No class

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1 November

Strategy and social science


Kenneth Waltz,  Theory of International Politics   (Reading, Mass:   Addison-Wesley, 1979),  Ch. 1,  "Laws and Theories,"  pp.  1-18.   18 pages.
Harry Eckstein, "Case Study and Theory in Political Science," in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby, eds., Strategies of Inquiry  (Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 7)  (Reading, Mass:  Addison-Wesley, 1975),  Ch.  3,  pp. 79-92.   14 pages.   If possible read the entire chapter, pp. 79-132.
Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought:  Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance  (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), Ch. 2, “The place of biology in the sciences and its conceptual structure,” pp. 21-82.  62 pages.
John J. Diulio, No Escape:  The Future of American Corrections, Ch. 6, "Social Science and Corrections,"  pp. 212-265.  54 pages.

Case:  Why are we surprised?

Richard K. Betts, "Analysis, War, and Decision:   Why Intelligence Failures are Inevitable,"  in Klaus Knorr, ed., Power, Strategy, and Security:  A World Politics  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983),  pp. 211-239.   29 pages.
James Wirtz, "Intelligence to Please?   The Order of Battle Controversy During the Vietnam War,"  Political Science Quarterly  106:2  (Summer 1991):  239-64.   26 pages.

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8 November
prospectuses due (electronically)

Non-linearity, operational analysis and the social scientist

James Gleick, Chaos:  Making A New Science  (New York:  Penguin, 1987), "The Butterfly Effect,"  pp.  9-32.  24 pages.
Alan Beyerchen, “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,”  International Security  17:3 (Winter 1992/93):  59-90.  32 pages.
P. M. S. Blackett,  Studies of War:  Nuclear and Conventional  (New York:  Hill and Wang, 1962),  Part II, Chs. 1-3, "Recollections of Problems Studied, 1940-45,"  pp.  205-234.  30 pages.  or  James Digby, "Contributions of RAND to Strategy in the 1950s,"  in Andrew W. Marshall, J. J. Martin, & Henry S. Rowen, On Not Confusing Ourselves  (New York:  Westview Press, 1991), Ch. 2,  pp. 17-28.   12 pages.

Case:  Pre-invasion bombing strategy, 1944

Gordon A.  Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack   (Washington, D.C.:  Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1951), pp. 207-30.  24 pages.
Walt W. Rostow, Pre-Invasion Bombing Strategy:   General Eisenhower's Decision of March 25, 1944   (Austin:  University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 1-87.   87 pages.   Read the appendices if you have the time.
Solly Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords  (New York: Harper & Row, 1978),  Ch. 12, "Preparations for Overlord,"  pp. 216-45.  30 pages.
Charles P. Kindleberger, "World War II Strategy,"   Encounter  51:5   (November 1978):  39-42.   4 pages.
Lord Zuckerman, "Bombs & Illusions in World War II," and C. P.  Kindleberger, "A Rejoinder,"  Encounter  52:6  (June 1979):  86-89.  4 pages.

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15 November

Prospectus reviews

Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher, Chs. 9-15,  "Organizing:  Paragraph, Chapter, and Part,"  "Plain Words:  The War on Jargon and Clichés,"  "Clear Sentences:  Emphasis, Tone, and Rhythm," "The Arts of Quoting and Translating," "The Rules of Citing: Footnotes and Bibliography," "Revising for Printer and Public," "Modes of Presentation," pp. 201-390.  191 pages.

 

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22 November

No class

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29 November
assignment

Prospectus reviews

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, eds., The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. IV, In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950.  (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich),  pp. 127-140.  14 pages.

Reading period assignment:  Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, entire.  85 pages.

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copyright © Eliot A. Cohen 2001