You must do the research question assignment before you start writing the paper!

The paper is actually composed of two assignments

· a research question and bibliography and

· a five page research paper written using the sources from the bibliography.

You must complete the research question [RQ] assignment (320rq.htm) first before you start writing the paper! When you have completed the RQ, the professor will assign you a grade for the RQ assignment and tell you to start the paper. If you write the paper before completing the RQ assignment you will receive a ZERO on the paper!

Due date, grading, etc

See the course schedule for the due dates.

See the syllabus to how much the paper will affect the course grade.

Drafts are STRONGLY encouraged – in fact begged for!

If you want to get a high grade on the paper make sure you also read the following link.

o checklist for avoiding low grades on paper

What to write about

See the research question assignment for greater details, but you will write a paper that answers a question about the course content. The question you answer is the same thing as the THEME of the paper.

How to write it [how to structure the paper]

You want to write a literature review in the style you will see in the “introduction” section of journal articles. I say again, you will structure your paper like a literature review like you will see in the first section of all of your articles. Emulate the articles you read.

You will notice that the author[s] tell their own story about a topic that leads to a research question [or theme]. They read the literature on a topic and find common themes in all of the articles and then write a story about what they found. So they will often have several authors cited when they describe a common theme in the literature.

For example, if they were writing about racial disparities in prisons there might be several authors who have noted this and the author will site all of those authors.

How not to write it [don’t have a “laundry list” structure]

Do NOT write it in a laundry list manner. Do not have the body of the paper have a paragraph structure that covers each of the five articles one at at a time. So you do NOT want it to read like, “article 1 said this, article 2 said this, article 3 said this” etc. You are to discover common themes in the five articles and tell that story, not “laundry list” it like just described.

Help! There is no way I can write a five-page paper!

Yes you can. You can and you can do it well if you are willing to push yourself, work hard, and face your fears. So you know you are not weird, dumb, or crazy read how the following link that describes how scared your professor was when he first attended college: Help! I am afraid of writing!

How to Write a High-quality College-Level Paper

You must start early and be sure to show drafts to your professor first and foremost. Past students have said that the UHWO writing center is really only helpful for those who have serious problems with sentence grammar and/or essay organization. The writing center is staffed by students so do not take their advice regarding content.

If you are willing to do this I promise you can learn to write very well at the college level! I promise! You should have seen how lousy I was at writing when I started college! And you should see how many UHWO students just like you have dramatically improved their writing in my courses! You can and you will be one of those types of students!

I can remember being scared about writing a grammatically correct five-paragraph essay. Well, I learned to write a short essay, but I was scared out of my wits when I had to write a five-page paper. Well, I learned to do that and then I had to do a ten-page paper – of course I could never do that. Then in graduate school they assign twenty-page papers! I thought there was absolutely no way I could ever write a twenty-page paper, let alone a masters thesis (~50-100 pages) or doctoral dissertation (~200+ pages). So I think you get the idea…clearly, like me, you are far more capable than you have ever imagined!

So what goes in a research paper anyway?

Students sometimes misunderstand a research paper. We are often overwhelmed with the prospect of a whole lot of work and fail to realize that research is founded upon a very simple premise – the goal of research is to collect data to answer a very specific research question! Everything in research is geared towards answering the research questions. Whenever you are feeling overwhelmed by the paper and wondering what to do, try to remember this.

As such, it should come as no surprise that the goal of this paper is to learn a little bit about how to collect data to answer a research question(s). Students will select a topic of interest, develop a very specific*research question, and attempt to answer it by gathering some data.

The data can be as simple as a literature review. In fact, the simplest way to approach this paper is to come up with a research question and seek to answer it by reviewing the relevant literature. However, if students have a project with real data in mind, that would be acceptable as well. For example, there are several government agencies that have large data sets relevant to our topic freely available on their websites. You could also examine some media depictions of our topic and report how the media tends to cover the issue.

Important Writing Tips

I want all students to focus on writing grammatically, structurally, and theoretically sound papers. I have given a page requirement, but this is just a general guideline. Think of it this way: students will be required to formulate research questions that will require about five pages to answer adequately.

I want students to focus upon quality rather than quantity! Concentrate upon meeting the requirements of what the writing is supposed to accomplish, not the length. If the written piece meets the assignment requirements it is long enough. If it does not meet the requirements -- it does not matter how short or how long it is -- it is inadequate. Try to strive for a concise writing style. Just make sure no vital elements are left out. One wants to “cover all of the bases,” but not in a style that is long-winded, rambling, or verbose.

Write only in THIRD person!

Do not write in first or second person – use only third person.

The checklist for avoiding low grades on paper shows you how to change first person to third person and how to change second person to third person.

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*^{Observation is the cornerstone of
science! About now, an observant person
would be noticing that their professor is stressing something very important…}