Research Paper Includes and broken into these sections:
Abstract
This is a one-paragraph summary of your entire paper. You should have a sentence about your question. Two about your theory, and two about your design and data. You can include the abstract on the title page, or include it on a stand-alone second page.
Introduction/Research Topic
500 Words Maximum
Identify your general research topic. Look on the last page of the syllabus for ideas about finding ideas. What makes for a good research topic? It should be important to you and you should be able to persuade others it is important. It should be a topic that can be addressed effectively using empirical methods (information, facts, and data should be available), and it should be a topic that others have written about.
What is your research question? You are proposing to predict and explain variation in what?
Why is this topic important? Why do we care to explain this? Are there public policy implications to what you are proposing to explain?
The Literature Review
500-1000 Words Maximum
How have people approached this topic? What have they learned about it? What theoretical explanations are offered in the literature?
Use appropriate databases and search strategies to identify at least 10 scholarly articles or books that are directly relevant to your topic. At least four must have a female lead author. At least seven must be written post-2005.
Theory and Hypotheses
500 Words Maximum
Now it is time to state your answer to the research question. You should develop at least one main hypothesis (based on your theoretical explanation), and a minimum of two alternative hypotheses that characterize competing explanations. For each hypothesis you should write a detailed explanation that clearly states your theoretical reasons to expect this hypothesis is true. Here you should draw on the literature review.
What are your hypotheses? Diagram them. What concepts/variables explain the variation in your dependent variable? What is the direction of the relationship? Present strong theory that clearly explains why you believe that each particular IV explains your DV. This is why we call them theoretically derived hypotheses. Has similar research (i.e., your lit review again) hypothesized and confirmed a similar relationship?
What is your unit of analysis? What is the logic behind choosing this unit of analysis rather than another?
Research Design/Data Gathering
1500 Words Maximum
How will you design your research and gather the information that will allow you to draw valid conclusions about your hypotheses? For each design choice, identify potential threats to reliability and validity and explain how your design will attempt to combat them in order to produce useful information.
Will you conduct an experiment? If so, describe the experimental procedures in enough detail that a freshman political science or geography major could do the experiment for you.
Will you conduct a survey? What are the survey questions and how will you collect a representative sample? Present your survey and methodology in enough detail that a classmate could do it for you.
Will you use existing data sets or archives? Where are they? What variables will you use? Justify your choices.
How do you propose to measure/operationalize your concepts/variables? There are potentially many ways to operationalize the same variable. Explain why the way you propose to measure your variables is better than the way it has already been done.
If using a survey instrument, do you propose to construct an index or scale? Give details on how you plan to construct and administer your survey. There are a lot of details to be addressed. Think of who, when, where, and how. Be sure to address questions such as validity and reliability. What are your study population, sample frame, and sample population? Once again, you need to provide enough detail that a classmate could do the survey for you.
Where might you find the data necessary to test your hypotheses? If you have a variable/measure that is similar to existing research, where did that researcher get these data? Are you proposing to use existing data sets or do you propose to gather all new data?
For this paper my theory/hypothesis is that Peacekeeping has not been effective at protecting civilians during the DRCs civil war.
I have included ALL sources needed along with other assignments that may have more useful information
