The Abstract, 250-400 words, single spaced, which outlines in summary form your overall plan for establishing and addressing a Research Question, should follow the template below:

• A Set-up for your Research Question, a brief lay-of the land narrative that provides a broad description of the problem at hand.This general comment shows what brings you to the issue, often by way of setting down the current scholarly debate, or by describing a scene from a film, book, or news event.
• The Problem as you see it, which hints at the Research Question itself.This brief narrative frames the issue at hand so that you can then ask a specific question for your research.
• The Research Question which can take the form of a stated problem (“In this essay I want to interrogate the ways ideology informs our identity-constructs”), or an actual question (“In what ways does ideology determine our identity?)This is the single most important component of your writing.
• The Research Method and a glimpse of your Researched Argument.This optional narrative shows how you plan to address the question through research, and how your argument will emerge from your findings.

“The themes of citizenship and community are being discussed in many quarters of the left today.This is no doubt a consequence of the crisis of class politics and indicates the growing awareness of the need for a new form of identification around which to organize the forces struggling for a radicalization of democracy.”

“I believe that the question of political identity is crucial and that the attempt to construct citizens’ identities is one of the more important tasks of democratic politics.But there are many different versions of citizenship and vital issues are at stake in their contest. The way we define citizenship is intimately linked to the kind of society and political community we want.”

“How should we understand citizenship when our goal is both a radical and plural democracy? Such a project requires the creation of a chain of equivalence among democratic struggles, and therefore the creation of a common political identity among democratic subjects.For the term citizens to actually mean this and function in this way, what conditions must it meet?”

“These are the problems that I will address, and I will argue that the key task is how to conceive of the nature of the political community under modern democratic conditions.I consider that we need to go beyond the conceptions of citizenship of both the liberal and civic republican tradition while building on their respective strengths.”

Sample Abstract

“The themes of citizenship and community are being discussed in many quarters of the left today.This is no doubt a consequence of the crisis of class politics and indicates the growing awareness of the need for a new form of identification around which to organize the forces struggling for a radicalization of democracy.

I believe that the question of political identity is crucial and that the attempt to construct citizens’ identities is one of the more important tasks of democratic politics.But there are many different versions of citizenship and vital issues are at stake in their contest. The way we define citizenship is intimately linked to the kind of society and political community we want.

How should we understand citizenship when our goal is both a radical and plural democracy? Such a project requires the creation of a chain of equivalence among democratic struggles, and therefore the creation of a common political identity among democratic subjects.For the term citizens to actually mean this and function in this way, what conditions must it meet?

These are the problems that I will address, and I will argue that the key task is how to conceive of the nature of the political community under modern democratic conditions.I consider that we need to go beyond the conceptions of citizenship of both the liberal and civic republican tradition while building on their respective strengths.”