Research Paper Instructions:
The research paper is the culmination of your work throughout this semester. It should ideally build on your topic development paper, your rough draft, and be approximately 1500-2000 words long. It is your chance to synthesize course material and your own personal interests into a research project.
Your research paper must be formatted within the following guidelines. The purpose of the formatting is to ultimately help you write your paper. Your paper must be:
12 pt. font, double spaced.
Include your name, the class title, and the assignment name at the beginning of the paper.
In text citations.
An introduction section.
A literature review and theory section.
A data and methods section.
A results section.
A discussion and conclusion section.
A works cited page/bibliography.
Each section should be formatted with a header, corresponding to the above (e.g. Introduction, Literature Review and Theory, etc).
Each section should contain certain types of information, as follows:
The introduction communicates in broad strokes why you are doing this research, what your research question is, what your research entails, and what your conclusions are. It is a roadmap of the entire research project.
The literature review explains what other research says about this topic, how other research is important for what you’re doing, and how your research fits into and interacts with this literature. This must include at least two academic sources.
The data and methods section explain what data you are using, what the data represent, how the data are meaningful for your research, and how you analyze or interpret your data.
The results section describes the results of your analysis, with a focus on interpreting your results. Don’t simply list off the numbers in each cell of a table, tell your reader what the results mean related to your research question.
The discussion and conclusion wrap up your research. How do your results relate to your research question, is your question confirmed or disconfirmed? How do your results relate to the literature you’re interacting with, and how might these results be important broadly?
If you are looking for good models for how to write your paper, each of the journal articles we have read so far this semester provide strong examples of how to write sociology.
If you need help with formatting your bibliography and in text citations, you can find instructions at the following links for ASA format guidelines.
In text citations:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/asa_style/in_text_citation_references.htmlLinks to an external site.
Bibliography citations:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/asa_style/references_page_formatting.htmlLinks to an external site.
You must use ASA, APA, MLA, or Chicago formatting for your bibliography and in text citations for this assignment. Stick with one format throughout your paper. The Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) website can provide instructions for how to use any of these formats. I suggest that you use ASA or MLA.
The grade for the research paper will be based on the following rubric:
Format and writing – 5%
Introduction – 10%
Literature review and theoretical basis – 20%
Data and methods – 20%
Results – 20%
Discussion and conclusion – 20%
Bibliography – 5%
Wrtie the final reserach paper based on the rough draft and topic developmental paper
