Tentative outline for doing a major research paper this section should contain one or two extremely well crafted paragraphs that succinctly state exactly what is the purpose of your paper. Begin your paper with some derivative of the statement: the purpose of this paper is. Theoretical importance of your research topic this description usually is relatively short, less than six paragraphs. Functional theory argues such and such and therefore this paper investigates the theoretical importance of. For example, the debate could be framed as: the culture of poverty theory argues that racism is not central to understanding afro american poverty.

However, critical theory, bonanich 1979 , argues that racial discrimination is a relevant factor. In this section, each theoretical perspective is elaborated and specific research hypotheses are generated. The rest of your paper will review the literature that examines these hypotheses. This is a state of the art review of the theoretical and empirical literature on your topic.

Essays on Communication

State of the art means that your literature review includes a review of the most recent research on your topic 1998. This review must include a brief review of the major theoretical sources usually seminal books , as well as a review of the empirical research presented in the journals. Thorough means a complete coverage of the different dimensions of your research problem. A clue for when to stop doing further journal research is when you pick up a journal article on your subject and you are relatively familiar with 60% of the cited references.

This section is the most important, grade wise, and therefore you should spend most of your time in writing a clear, succinct, and thorough review of the literature. This section briefly reviews the major findings of your review of the literature. It also includes a description of the major shortcomings of the research on your topic. This section relates to your introduction and your presentation of the theoretical importance of your research. Statements such as: in general , the research findings support the conclusion that racism is or is not related to poverty in the united states.

The direction of future research given that now you are relatively expert on a specific narrowly defined subject, you should tell the reader what needs to be done in the future to more fully address the theoretical and pragmatic issues related to your subject. Given that you are a relative expert on your subject and that you are policymaker, what do you suggest needs to happen to eliminate or lessen the severity of your research problem? your personal opinions are not legitimate unless your review of the literature supports them. The following is the proper format for directly citing a reference: it has been shown that racism. Each name that appears in the text of your paper must be included in your list of references bibliography. Footnotes should be used when you want to further elaborate a point made in your paper. These are sequentially ordered and are included immediately after the last page of the text and immediately before your bibliography.

using information published on the web i will not accept citations for research materials published on the web unless they are from referred journals such as jstor. That is, you can use web materials as long as they are electronic versions of referred journal articles. However, i will accept data published on the web if it is from an official government agency such as the census bureau. If you find a website that is relevant to your topic, find the sources that were used to create it. Do not assume that materials published on the web are factual and accurately portray the intent of the original authors. Only cite research that uses the scientific method explains how the data were collected and analyzed and is anonymously referred. See me if you have any questions concerning the validity of your web related sources.

If you do not properly cite your sources, i take 25 points off the grade of your research paper and you must rewrite it. Plagiarism is the use of the distinctive ideas or words belonging to another person without adequate acknowledgement of that person's contribution. In the context of academic work the standards for acknowledging sources are very high. An author must give due credit whenever quoting another person's actual words, whenever using another person's idea, opinion or theory, and whenever borrowing facts, statistics or illustrative material, unless the information is common knowledge. direct quotation: every direct quotation must be identified by quotation marks or by appropriate indentation, and must be promptly acknowledged. The citation must be complete and in a style appropriate to the academic discipline.