The point of the essay is to serve as your opportunity to demonstrate what you h

The point of the essay is to serve as your opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned in the class. Your task is to read 2-3 peer-reviewed articles, in which 1 of those articles may be the one you presented on. Write a paper that connects those articles to the core concepts, ideas, theories, and facts that we have discussed over the course. The key goals of this essay are (1) to demonstrate you know how to read and synthesize the major findings from political science articles, and (2) to be able to connect these findings or aspects of the article to material covered in the class. Where possible, this includes connecting it to representation and democratic theory (e.g. the electoral connection between voters and representatives).  
The paper should be a minimum of 3-pages, double-spaced, 12-pont font with 1-inch margins. However, the page limit is a recommendation based on what I figure is the lowest amount of space needed to fulfill the two key goals mentioned above—it is not a blind target to shoot for and then assume you have written a satisfactory paper. Focus on showing me you have achieved those goals, and then look at page length.