Your independent
research project involves two steps.
A. You are first required to turn in a formal
proposal of your research topic.
Within your summary proposal explain the issue or question your
research will address. I want to get a
good idea of what you want to do. Give
me an idea of the data sources and variables you plan to use for the
study. I will grade your proposal on how
coherent and developed your research idea is.
I will discuss the idea with you the week after you turn it in. Your final research paper MUST follow the topic you outline. (I will keep a copy of your proposal).
B. Here are notes regarding the written research paper
1. The paper should document your research into a social science
question. Most papers of this type have
(roughly) the following format:
A. Introduction
Introduce your topic.
Briefly summarize some previous research on the subject. State how you are going to approach the
issue.
B. Analytical Section
If you want you can separate a section in which you
further discuss your ideas on your topic.
If it increases clarity, you could formally present your ideas using
such tools as a supply/demand diagram or a production possibilities curve. Use this section to tell the reader the
specific relationships you expect to find between the important variables in
your empirical models.
C. Statistical Model/Regression Equation
Use this section to specify the variables in your
statistical models and the regression equations you will analyze.
D. Data Sources
Briefly outline the data sources used in the
construction of your dependent and independent variables.
E. Empirical Results
Discuss your empirical results. This is arguably the most important part of
the paper.
F. Conclusion
Restate some of the main empirical findings of the
paper. Maybe you can rephrase the most
important findings using big picture
language. This would be a good place to
summarize the point of the paper.
G. References
Document the papers and books you cite in your study
or referred to in your research. I am
not picky on the formatting of this. You
can follow the reference formatting in one of the research studies we reviewed
in class.
H. Tables of Statistical Results
If you want, you can instead embed the tables within
the empirical results section.
2. There is no minimum page limit for this paper. Use the narrative necessary to clearly
express your ideas. Do not feel obligated
to pad. Economize on words and keep your
writing direct.