Silke Van Eynde, 4/5
1. Research You provide the answer already in the question… Don’t.
Question
2. Hypotheses Nice, yet you use two characterisations rather than simply one for the DV, better
political development is a vaguer synonym for the precise capacity building concept
(which they conceptualise in three dimensions).
3. Conceptualisation Political development is too vague. You could/should have picked capacity building,
because you used that in your hypothesis.
DV Transboundary crises as IV is of course correct, but capacity building is definitely NOT
the IV!! This is because you muddled the waters in your formulation of the hypothesis:
IV
keep it simple and conceptualise that, no more!
4. Operationalisation This is OK, yet also here you make things less clear by writing more in phrases that are
not grammatically correct (there is of course no such thing a demand for non-military
DV threats, although that is what you grammatically write…)
IV The problem with the IV is that you do not name it and do not operationalize
transboundary crisis, but instead you have a paraphrase of the causal mechanism in the
hypothesis.
5. Case selection OK, yet in the future, do also provide a justification.
6. Comparison OK, yet some unclear formulations (‘idealities’?! the word does not appear in the text,
and does not even exist in English + On the back side of the page you write something
vague like: Too narrow arguments: why? Which? In comparison to what? Never take
stances without any explicit justifications! In what follows that, you just summarize the
article again, without saying what ‘broader’ would have been.)
1. Research You provide the answer already in the question… Don’t.
Question
2. Hypotheses Nice, yet you use two characterisations rather than simply one for the DV, better
political development is a vaguer synonym for the precise capacity building concept
(which they conceptualise in three dimensions).
3. Conceptualisation Political development is too vague. You could/should have picked capacity building,
because you used that in your hypothesis.
DV Transboundary crises as IV is of course correct, but capacity building is definitely NOT
the IV!! This is because you muddled the waters in your formulation of the hypothesis:
IV
keep it simple and conceptualise that, no more!
4. Operationalisation This is OK, yet also here you make things less clear by writing more in phrases that are
not grammatically correct (there is of course no such thing a demand for non-military
DV threats, although that is what you grammatically write…)
IV The problem with the IV is that you do not name it and do not operationalize
transboundary crisis, but instead you have a paraphrase of the causal mechanism in the
hypothesis.
5. Case selection OK, yet in the future, do also provide a justification.
6. Comparison OK, yet some unclear formulations (‘idealities’?! the word does not appear in the text,
and does not even exist in English + On the back side of the page you write something
vague like: Too narrow arguments: why? Which? In comparison to what? Never take
stances without any explicit justifications! In what follows that, you just summarize the
article again, without saying what ‘broader’ would have been.)
