Posted: January 10th, 2017

focus on at least one of the following elements: a) the underlying causes and effects of terrorism, b) the historical socio-political structures that contribute to terrorism,

Prior to beginning work on this assignment read the required chapters in your texts as well as Part 1 Section 1, “How to read a research article on terrorism,” in the Capron & Mizrahi (2016) text. You must also review the Summative Assignment in Week Six. To check your understanding of the material required for this interactive assignment, you may wish to access the quizzes and flash card activities on the companion website for the Martin text.

Understanding how to read journal articles in both the academic and professional world is important in order to critically examine what the author is presenting and how the article contributes to the overall body of thought on a given topic. Journal articles tend to be structured in a particular way. Some journal articles are a summary of current thought; others will present original research with a thesis, hypothesis, and a conclusion. Over the next two weeks, you will have the opportunity to identify several journal articles that you can use in your Final Paper. Capron and Mizrahi’s Part I exercise on reading research articles related to terrorism offers an effective way to analyze and understand the perspectives of various authors.

This interactive assignment is designed to contribute to your research for your Final Assignment, the development of a Department Counterterrorism Policy to implement a U.S. counterterrorism strategy against a specific international terrorist group.

Using the Ashford University Library, search for full-text scholarly journal articles related to terrorism theory. Once in the library website, follow these steps to conduct your search:

Select “Advanced Search.” On the next screen, enter “terrorism” in the first search box. In the second search box, enter “theory.” To focus your search further, under the “Limit your results” heading, check the following boxes: “limit to full text” and “limit to scholarly/peer reviewed.” Finally, select the “Search” button at the top of the page. After your results appear, select the box next to “Academic Journals” under the “Limit by Source Types” heading. You must review the abstracts of several applicable journal articles. Narrow your selection to three articles, of which you must select one for your Theory and Terrorism Journal Article Analysis. (Note: the SAGE companion website for this course is another good place to identify applicable journal articles.) Your chosen article should focus on at least one of the following elements: a) the underlying causes and effects of terrorism, b) the historical socio-political structures that contribute to terrorism, c) and/or the ethical and legal issues from either the perspective of the terrorist group or the government.