Research Proposal
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Writing is a major component of a college experience. Your professors and instructors expect you to write serious and thoughtful papers and essays in all their classes. Being able to write properly and cogently is central to the development of good communication skills, which you will find useful in many careers. Moreover, the ability to write enhances your ability to reason and participate in cultural and political life.
There are three resources to which you must be prepared to turn to improve your writing (and every student can improve their writing):
· You need the right tools for the job. A good grammar book, thesaurus, and dictionary are invaluable means for improving writing mechanics, punctuation, spelling, good usage, effective sentence construction, and composition. Obtain and use these tools.
· The staff of the Writing Center, located in Cofrin Library room 109, stands ready to assist you in improving your product. Visit them with drafts of your product. Seek their help.
· Consult with your professors and instructors during the writing process if you are having difficulties. Early detection of writing deficiencies may permit interventions that could improve course performance.
You should approach writing assignments with these two thoughts in mind:
First, professors serve as referees and reviewers for publishers. That means that they are the persons who decide whether something is publishable as is, whether it needs revision, or whether it should be rejected. Think of your professor as the referee of a journal who is making decisions about whether your paper is publishable.
Second, ask yourself: “Would I give a potential employer a cover letter and resume on anything other than clean white paper with clear dark ink, proofread, and consistent with an accepted format?” You might answer this question with another question: “Do I want the job?” If you answered “yes,” then why would you submit anything less to a college teacher? Professor are always gauging student interest and developing impressions of students on how students conduct themselves professionally. The quality of written product indicates your level of interest in both the course and in your professional development. Your professors not only care about your ideas, they also care about how you present your ideas.
Although I have now moved to paperless process, prepare you paper as if it were hard copy. This means the paper is to be prepared for production using clean, sturdy, white paper with black and legible print (no color print). There must be at least one inch, but no more than one and one-half inch margins on all sides the paper. Do not justify the text (the text you are reading is justified, an example of what not to do). Double-space but no more than double-space the body of all your papers (except where indicated otherwise). (The text you are reading is not double-spaced, an example of what not to do.) Preferred fonts are 12 points for Times New Roman, and 10 points for Arial and Courier New. Because the size and spacing of the fonts are variable, assignments in my courses require a certain number of words instead of pages. Use the same font size throughout the paper, including titles, section headings, footnotes, and endnotes.
The acceptable style depends on the discipline that organizes the subject matter. For social science-type papers, you follow the style of the American Sociological Association (ASA), as found in The American Journal of Sociology. For critical-social-historical courses, your either follow the ASA style or the format of historical journals, such as The Journal of American History and The American Historical Review. Go to the library and look at journal articles in these fields to see examples of appropriate format. For the purposes of this assignment, an accepted social science style is to be followed.
First Page of the Paper: The Title Page
Center the title of your paper at the top of the first page. Your paper must have a title. Do not title your paper “Research Proposal.” Create an original title that conveys the subject/theme of your paper. Put your name beneath the title. Beneath your name type your university affiliation and the date. Although this is the first page of your paper, leave the page unnumbered.
Second Page of the Paper: The Abstract
An abstract appears with papers produced for social science courses. It contains three elements: (1) statement of problem, (2) methods used, and (3) brief summary of conclusion(s). Type the abstract on a separate page (the second page). An abstract is 100-150 words maximum. Do not write the abstract in outline form; it should be a single block paragraph. Double-space the abstract. You may italicize the text of the abstract. Title the abstract page: Abstract. Do not put the title of the paper or your name on the abstract page. Do not number the abstract page.
The Body of the Paper
After the first two pages, you must number all pages in the top, right-hand corner. No headers or footers (running heads, etc.), just numbers. Do not put an extra space in between paragraphs unless you are completing a section of your paper and are not using section headings (the text you are reading has spaced between paragraphs, an example of what not to do). It is advisable to use section headings.
Carefully construct your paragraphs. Be sure that each paragraph presents a main idea and that this idea relates to the theme of the essay. The best way to organize the paragraph is to state a topic sentence and follow this statement with supporting statements. Supporting statements must link back to the topic sentence. Paragraphs must relate to one another in an orderly and logical manner. Take time to develop transitional phrases that link paragraphs in a coherent chain. The length of a paragraph is somewhat arbitrary, but it should contain a topic sentence with several supporting sentences. Advice: work from an outline.
Citing Sources
You must cite the work of other people you use or discuss in your work. Except where you are quoting, the words used must be your own. Failure to do either of these things constitutes plagiarism (intellectual theft). You will receive no credit for your paper if any part of the paper is plagiarized. Because I do not accept late papers, there are no “do-overs.” You have one shot at this.
For social science style:
· If you are citing in the body of the text, your reference citations should include author and year of publication (Brown 1978). You need to cite page number(s) if you quote text or if the information is very specific and/or the paraphrase is close to the original. Example: "It is impossible to fully grasp Marx's Capital…if you have not studied through and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic" (Lenin 1968:180). [Note the ellipses in the quote. These indicate deleted words where no meaning is lost.]
· Set off and indent quotes of more than three lines two tabs (tabs set at 3-5 spaces) with no right indention, as follows:
In much the same way that men are not taught to acknowledge all the ways they are privileged in society, whites are not taught to recognize how their status as white people confers them many privileges.... [A]ll the various interlocking oppressions take two forms: an active form which can be seen; and an embedded form which members of the dominant group are taught not to see. (McIntosh 1997:1)
[Note the use of brackets in the paragraph. Anytime you change the internal structure of quoted material you indicate you are doing so by enclosing alterations in brackets. Only change structure to facilitate the smooth flow of the composition. Never change meaning.]
· Identify both last names for dual authors (Simon and Dodder 1985). For more than two authors use “et al.” in the text (Stack et al. 1994), except the first time where you list all the authors (Stack, Bladlow, and Shriver 1994) if the number is less than five. When two authors have the same name use identifying initials in the text (P. Jameson 1992; F. Jameson 1967). For institutional authorship, supply the minimum identification from the beginning of the complete citation (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1963:117). If there is more than one reference to the same author and year, distinguish them by the letters a, b, etc., added to the year (Levy 1963a: 12). If the text you cite is from an Internet address, then cite the author and date as you normally would with the page number as it appears on the Internet site (Roberts 1996:3). Place any endnotes at the conclusion of your paper, on a new page, before the reference (works cited) page(s). Note: This may require creating a separate file for a bibliography.
You may title reference page(s) either “References” or “Works Cited.” The reference pages begin on a new page, but continue the page number from the body of the paper. References are doubled-spaced. Examples of bibliographic entries (note that these are not double spaced):
Gartman, David, 1986. Auto Slavery: The Labor Process in the American Automobile Industry, 1897-1950. New Brunswick. NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Peck, Dennis, 1987. "Toward Sociology of Action: Breaking Through the Zone of Indifference.” Sociological Spectrum 7: 2-23.
The Assignment
Submit in the forms of copy uploaded to D2L and one electronic copy via e-mail by the first day of the second week of class (or earlier), a 100-word research proposal/research question in Word format only (not WordPerfect, Works, or any other format). Successful submissions demonstrate relevance and importance of desired research topic. Proposals are accepted, rejected, or returned with a request for clarification and modification communicated through D2L commentary and/or e-mail. Consult Babbie chapter 15 “Reading and Writing Social Research” for how to properly construct a research paper. I expect these substantive paper components:
· Literature Review. Your review must use at least six scholarly (academic) non-internet full text sources. This means actual library research utilizing peer-reviewed articles, books, and/or reports (see appendix A of the Babbie text).
· Theoretical Framework/Analytical Framework. Frame your research question in terms of a conceptual/theoretical framework. Descriptive analysis is insufficient for this assignment. For qualitative research, sensitizing concepts and goals of research must be identified and elaborated.
· Research Method. Describe selected methodology in terms of the research question and theoretical perspective.
· Hypothesis. Formulate hypothesis (or hypotheses) in terms of how you conceptualize, operationalize, and measure factors/variables used in your proposed study.
· Data Collection. Describe the method of data collection.
· Documentation. Photocopies of the first pages of articles, books, and so forth cited in your proposal must be turned in to me on the day the final product is due.
Submit one copy of the final paper uploaded to D2L and one electronic copy via e-mail by 4:30 on the final Thursday of the semester. Under no circumstance will a late submission be considered for a grade. Submissions must be formatted as if they were hard copies and must be submitted in Word format only (not WordPerfect, Works, or any other format). If I cannot open an attachment you will receive a zero for the assignment, no exceptions. All papers must use an accepted scientific writing style (such as APA or ASA). Standard scientific structuring is required, i.e., title page, abstract, introduction, body, conclusion, references, and appendices and charts (if any).