Short Paper Assignment
Develop and answer a focused research question based on your genuine interest in exploring one music-related health and wellbeing method or practice, or a clinical Musical Therapy method or practice.
Please ensure that included in your citations, you reference between 8-10 peer-reviewed academic articles that are directly relevant to, and support, your discussion within the body of your paper.
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Writing Style: Each paper should be a well-written focused approach to exploring your topic and well-articulated research question. Please proofread carefully before handing it in.
Please do not begin your paper with 1-2 paragraphs of over generalized fluff about health and music. “From the time of the first cave persons, sticks were used to communicate rhythms…” We were not there, and so it is overly theoretical and assumptive, rather than historical and factual.
There are primarily two ways to begin an academic paper (at the upperundergraduate level):
Either 1) Your first sentence of the paper begins with “the guiding research question” or “thesis statement” of this paper is as follows: In this paper, I will be exploring the question ‘…’ ” Or 2) Your first paragraph ends with that sentence (or something similar ), and your first few sentences build up to that “guiding research question” or “thesis statement” with a logical addressing of the issue of interest to you that you will be covering.
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Citation Format: APA
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Title Page. Please ensure your paper has a title page with all identifying information (the same as the journal reflection format). But make sure that it is centered with a title at the top—a title that respectfully and specifically represents your paper’s research question.
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Overall Format: Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1-inch margins, double spaced.
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A grading rubric may be provided closer to the date of submission, but essentially the paper will be graded as follows: • 10% a well-articulated research question that is answerable in the space allotted (what is the space allotted? 5-6 pages, 1250 words, a word count that is not including the title page or references page) • 70% a meaningful, well-thought out, logically argued, exploration of a topic. • 10% correct formatting throughout, including proper citation format. • 10% spelling and grammar.
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Music & Physical Exercise Regime: Combining Interventions
Suggested Research Question: How is music or “preferred music” combined together with an exercise regimen affecting certain populations? Does it increase their health and wellbeing? In what ways have researchers (scientists, spots psychologists, music therapists, etc.) noticed significant changes? How did they test this? Did they record reportage by interview, with a questionnaire on happiness (after a certain time period, e.g., 1 week, 2 months, etc) or by asking participants to log their sleep patterns (if that is what you are interested in). If you would like to explore a more mixed methods approach, leaning toward the qualitative, you can read studies where participants are asked to describe their perceptions of productivity and feelings about quality of life. You are invited to design your own research question and exploratory pilot study.
