Your final project is a research paper where you will examine a research question. In groups of 3 to 4 students you will explore relevant research and literature; describe your question/study; conduct the analysis; and draw conclusions based on your own findings and what other researchers have said about your topic. Each group will develop its own research question(s) but all groups will work with the same data collection instrument. You will find and describe appropriate literature about the issues that are embedded within your questions. This paper should be about 20 pages (excluding the appendices). While the final version of the paper will be due at the end of the semester, several parts of the project will be due earlier. The following is the breakdown for each part:

Project Sections (see syllabus for exact deadlines):

· The Question Statement/Reading List: This should be a one-page statement that explains the issues you are going to examine. What is your research question? hypotheses? concepts? theoretical and operational definitions? How are you measuring/analyzing your variables/concepts? Why is this study important (why should we care about this)? Think of this as an introduction to the topic, by highlighting the importance of your question. Also, briefly describe your data collection process. Describe your method and your content/sample. This is the start of the “Methods” section of your paper (See description below). Finally, you need an initial reading list. This is a bibliography of the articles and books that relate to your question. You need at least 15 sources, only 5 of them can be from web sites or newspapers. The rest should be either books or (peer reviewed) research journal articles.

· The Instrument: Here you need a first draft of your data collection tool. It consists of 10 questions (variables) you think will answer your research question. These questions should be directly related to your concepts (the operational definition)   We will be going through your group instrument in class and end up later with one unified code book (I will be writing/editing the final code book).

· Data Gathering (Codings 1, 2, 3...): These are individual codings each one of you will conduct on your own. Deadlines for these codings are on the syllabus.  Further instructions on this will follow soon. (This part accounts for 25% of your grade. These codings should be taken very VERY seriously!)

· Data loading and analysis: This deals with uploading the information gathered using your instrument. It should be coded and uploaded in SPSS or any other compatible database application (I will be doing most of this automatically from the computer code book.)

· The Presentation: Depending on how many groups there are, you should be prepared to talk for about 8-10 minutes. You need to discuss the results of your findings and comment on what the social significance of your research is. I know that some will be “works in progress.” If this is the case speculate about what you think you will find. You do not need to have your final paper written at this point.

· The Final Project: You should structure your paper in a clear and concise format. The following is a brief description of the important sections of the paper. Note that there are more sections that will be discussed in class:

· Introduction/Question statement (See description above): This should be about 2 pages.

· Literature review: This is where you discuss what others have concluded about your question/area of examination. Does the previous research lead you to believe that certain evidence will be found? You need to cite at least ten scholarly publications. This section should be about 4-5 pages.

· Method: Here, you need to explain what you did. It is essentially a description of the techniques that you employed to collect your data. You should describe both the specific procedures and the methods that were used. This should be about 1-2 pages.

· Analysis: In this section you present your findings. Here is where you start constructing your arguments/conclusions by discussing the results of your study. The idea is to provide evidence about the answer(s) to your question(s). Be sure to create appropriate charts, graphs, figures, etc... This should be about 6-8 pages.

· Conclusions: This is where you discuss the meaning behind your findings. Try to think of larger social issues that arise from what you found. What does your research say about contemporary U.S. society, public opinion, politics, economics, other societal level implications, etc… Basically, you need to answer your question(s). Commenting on how your findings relate to the previous literature should help in thinking of the “big picture.” You may want to provide solutions to the problems and issues that you find. Finally, you may want to comment on how your own study could be improved – this is often called, “Suggestions for Future Research.” This should be about 4-5 pages.

· References: You must cite all literature and provide a bibliography using any standard format.

· Appendix: This section consists of items that the reader may want to know, but would disrupt the narrative of your paper. For your paper the instrument should be inserted here.