Penn Professors on Writing in Political Science

Dr. John J. DiIulio, Jr.

About the Professor

Dr. John J. DiIulio, Jr. is a professor of political science. His interests are American politics, health care policy, crime policy, religious nonprofits, among other topics. He also directs Penn's Robert A. Fox Leadership Program.

Writing Tips

Unfortunately, much of "Political Science" writing is not simply "too academic," but too laced with jargon and too self- (or field-) referential for most people to benefit from whatever it may have to teach.

Personal Writing Process

Dr. DiIulio has an expansive range of topics, audiences, and approaches: "American politics, religion, crime, education, health care, or other topics, and whether the questions at issue in what I'm writing are empirical/inductive, formal/deductive/mathematical (like some of my early "academic" work), or largely ethical/moral/philosophicall: of course, the fun is tackling questions that have all three dimensions!"

"I guess I could say that I write with the particular audience in mind--different for a professional social science crowd than for, say, the student-readers of my co-authored American government textbook, and different for a national magazine readership that is mostly "political," such as the writing I used to do for, say, The New Republic or The Weekly Standard, in contrast to writing for an audience that is mostly "religious," such as for America the Catholic/Jesuit National Weekly or Sojourners."

The amount of time Dr. DiIulio spends on a piece depends on the audience and genre: "For an academic refereed journal article or a law review piece, usually about 10 full days of work. For a popular essay (like in a national political magazine), usually about 2 full days. And for an op-ed length piece, usually about 1 full day."

What he writes

DiIulio often writes academic journal articles, law review pieces, magazine essays and op-ed length pieces.

Links

Back to Writing in the Discipline

Other professors in Political Science: Dr. Marc Meredith, Dr. Nancy Hirschmann, Dr. Anne Norton