INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INTRODUCTION SECTION:
A properly written introduction will help you, the researcher, clarify and structure your research proposal.
1) Introductions should generally be brief and to the point. By brief, we mean about 250-500 words or 1-2 standard double-spaced Word pages in length.
2) The introduction should start with a hook statement intended to attract attention to your paper and make your audience actually read it (a hook statement can be in the form of a question or affirmative statement).
3) The first paragraph of the introduction should describe the purpose of your research proposal (i.e., why you want to do the study).
E.g., “The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the frequency of assaults on police officers working in predominantly minority communities increases as police legitimacy in those communities decreases” or “The purpose of this study is to determine whether historically, economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Dallas, Texas had higher levels of assaults on police officers than more economically advantaged neighborhoods in Dallas.”).
4) In your second paragraph, you need to explain why this topic is important to both yourself and your audience. As such, you need to provide some background material. This background may be based in history and/or current events.
Looking back to the previous example, why police legitimacy, why assaults on officers, why Dallas? Why now? Is this a particular issue in Dallas or do you work for DPD, or do you live in Dallas and data collection will simply be convenient (that last is perfectly OK and one reason why so much research is conducted in large cities with universities).
5) Finally comes your outline of the rest of the proposal (Literature Review and Methodology).
E.g., “The second chapter of this proposal will provide an overview of existing research conducted on this topic over the past five years” or “The next section of the proposal will review the most recent literature with an emphasis on data collection methods as well as researcher conclusions.” Follow such statements with something along the lines of, “The third section of this this proposal will explain how the current study will collect and analyze with a brief discussion of expected results.”
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LITERATURE REVIEW SECTION:
In this class, the literature review will serve as a summary statement of current research and the resulting knowledge regarding a specific research topic to serve as a basis for collecting new information (described in the methodology section of the proposal).
In terms of formatting, a literature review is organized by topic and sub-topic rather than by source. I.e., instead of saying “Author A (2015) has found this. Author B (2018) has found that.” you will say something like this: “Author A (2015), Author C (2017), and Author D (2020) have concluded that …” (basically, find a common theme across different studies rather than summarizing each study separately.
1) In a literature review you want to focus on explaining to the reader why the researchers did the research (in part, this would refer to the prior researcher’s introduction including problem statement/research question), how the researchers did their research (method), what they found, and how those findings led to their conclusion. Literature review should be organized by topic/sub-topic rather than by source.
2) As you write your literature review, remember what your research question is and make sure that whatever studies you are overviewing in this chapter are relevant to the research question and presented in a logical order.
3) Remember that your literature review will serve as the basis for developing the methodology section of your research proposal. A well-done literature review will make writing the proposed methodology section much easier.
4) Your literature review should consist of the following sections:
4.1) Introduction (an introduction of its own, separate from chapter one).
This is where you tell the reader what they are about to learn from your review of the published literature on your subject. The introduction to the literature review should describe the issue and why it is important to study. It should also discuss the research question and the hypothesis/hypotheses. Yes, some of this is already in your introduction, but needs to be repeated here for several reasons; one of which is to assist those readers who read only this section. Following the brief introduction will be the actual review of the literature.
4.2) Topical/sub-topical analysis of sources (applicable existing literature).
This section will cover what you have learned from the recent literature (usually limited to those sources published within the past five years) pertaining to your topic. The length of this section is dependent on the nature of the topic, the number of relevant sources available, the quality of the sources, the point or points you are trying to make using the sources, and your writing skills. You will be summarizing specific information from your sources in regard to telling the reader what the research has shown about the topic and sub-topics and, most especially, how the research was conducted; that is, what methods were used to collect data, what data were collected and from whom, and how the data were used, problems encountered, etc. This section needs to be formatted using topical subheadings. We need relevant detail pertaining to method as this detail will form the basis of and support for your method chapter.
4.3) Conclusion.
This is where you summarize all the research reviewed and re-tell the reader what you learned from it about research methods as applied to your topic. There should be a strong review of the key conclusions of prior research and perhaps a discussion of the practical application of the research material. Most importantly, you need summarize the data collection methods used with a view of applying them to developing your method chapter. This section is also used to summarize problems with earlier research as well as points prior researchers missed; this is used as support for the need for your proposed research. For example, a great deal of older theory testing in criminology was based on studies of lower-class males. Discussing this omission in this section will support the need for using scarce resources to test the same theory based on a sample of middle-class females.
5) Use headings and subheadings in the body of your paper to facilitate transitions between different points.
General requirements for both parts:
1) As all written assignments in this class, the introduction and literature review must be in APA format. Among other things, you must provide a title page, use double space, write only in third person, cite your sources both in-text (in-text citations) and at the end of the paper (full references), limit the number of direct quotes, and be objective in your wording. Cite sources used in APA format and provide an APA formatted source list at the end which must be entitled “References” and not anything else (e.g., Works Cited or Bibliography). Do not simply cut and paste citations; ensure they are in the required APA format. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the APA Sample Paper posted in Modules to see what a good APA research paper should look like.
**Please submit your paper in a Word/PDF format to make sure you do not lose points for APA formatting.**