Introduction for Research Paper

1. INTRODUCTION:  Statement of Purpose, Significance of the Study, Operational Definitions

 

Well-written introductions to a research paper should motivate and arouse the interest of the reader.  Specifically it must answer the following questions:

What is the purpose of the study?

Why is the problem important?

What contribution will it make?

How are important terms defined?

The Introduction should unveil the problem under study and provide a rationale for further reading.

You must include the following subsection within the introduction:

 

Statement of Purpose.  The purpose statement should reveal the researcher’s intention and the context in which the research problem will be addressed.  Suppose the approved topic was for you to see how your peers felt about the need for secrecy in organizations.  Your statement of purpose might read:  The purpose of this study is to examine employee attitudes at XYZ corporation toward the need to maintain secrecy in interpersonal communication among employees and with other employee groups.   It should clearly state how you would measure your variables and who you would propose to sample.

 

            Significance of the Study.  This section should provide a rationale for the study.  Tell the reader why the problem is important and what contribution it will make.  You will want to include enough information so that the reader is convinced that the project is worthwhile.  Why is the topic an important one? How will it help the individual, group, department, organization, or community?  Sometimes there will be statistics or examples from your literature sources that can be used as evidence in this section.  If you include information that is taken from your literature in this subsection or in Operational Definitions, clearly document the source of that information using APA documentation standards. You would also need to include a partial bibliography with your submission of Assignment 2.  If you are unfamiliar with APA standards, consider purchasing the Hacken book suggested in the syllabus.

 

            Operational Definitions.  One of the key steps in conducting research is the definition of major terms and variables.  If a relevant variable is not clearly defined, it is impossible to evaluate the results of a study.  It is not necessary to define obvious terms, only those that may have less than clearly understood meaning.  The list of definitions provided with this assignment may not be complete.  You may find that as you continue to review the literature and develop a plan to measure your variables, you will need to add to this list of important terms.   

 

2. Review of the Literature and Bibliography

The Review of the Literature involves locating, reviewing, and evaluating resources that provide both background material and information on related studies.  You must include a minimum of 8-10 sources in the review with the majority of sources being journals and periodicals rather than books.  You may not use websites as sources in the review of the literature; however you will be using search engines, such as EBSCO and findarticles, to locate appropriate sources.  As you review your sources, look for the major subtopics of the material and organize your literature under these various subtopics.  It is important to organize your literature review in the sequence best ordered for a logical flow of the information.  An article-by-article presentation, stringing them together, is much less appealing than a review organized by subtopics.

 

            All material paraphrased, summarized or directly quoted from another source must include documentation within the paragraph.  Directly quoted material should also include quotation marks.  Failure to properly document imposes severe grade penalty, as it is considered plagiarism.  Most, if not all paragraphs in your review, should contain a citation as you are reviewing what other researchers and authors are saying about your topic.  If you are unfamiliar with APA documentation, consider purchasing the APA Style Manual or Hacken’s A Pocket Style Manual, available through the bookstore.  You will not only be using APA documentation style within the review of literature, but also in your Bibliography.

 

            Your Bibliography is an alphabetical listing of your sources by author’s last name.  If the source does not list an author, I prefer that you cite by the title of the article and then list by title of the article alphabetically in the bibliography.  With articles downloaded from EBSCO, you will have the original citation.  Use that original citation both within the paper and in the bibliography.  With other search engines, you will not necessarily have the original volume, issue, or pages, although you will have the date and the journal in which the article appeared.  In that case, the complete web address should appear in the bibliographic citation.  When checking the sources cited within the review, I should be able to match them exactly to the bibliographic citation.  Check this before submitting the assignment.

 

            The following items should be included with this assignment:

Title Page:  The title of your paper should be clear, concise and a specific descriptor of your research problem.  The title page should also contain your name, the date, the professor’s name and the university.

Table of Contents is a listing of major headings, subheadings, and the pages upon which they are found.  You will not be able to list page numbers for those sections of your paper that are Assignments 4 and 5.  You can add those page numbers as those sections are completed.

Review of the Literature (a minimum of 8-10 sources)

Bibliography  (an alphabetical listing by the author’s last name)

 

 

3. Methodology

 

Divide the methodology into the following subsections. 

 

Hypothesis or Research Question.  Using your Statement of Purpose from the Introduction, you will be phrasing your problem as either a Hypothesis or a Research Question.  Good research questions should be stated in a clear, unambiguous manner to imply the possibility of its solution through research.  While the research question asks how variables are related to one another, a hypothesis provides a tentative answer to such a question and a more specific guide for research.  Review the discussion of hypotheses and research questions in Part One of the Study Guide.  See also Adler and Clark, Chapter 4.

Methods: Procedures for Collection of Data.  In this section of your paper you will outline a plan for conducting research of your topic.   Although you will not be actually conducting the study as part of the course requirements, the best advice is to plan in such detail that another equally competent researcher could pick up the proposal and replicate the study.  The research plan can involve either individuals or groups as the unit of analysis, but the aspects of design should be chosen so as to maximize the strength of your study.  State clearly and fully the methods to be used in gathering data to test your hypotheses and/or to answer the questions posed above.  See Adler and Clark, Chapters 8-12, as you explore design possibilities. 

Sample.   The reader will want to know demographic information about the population from which the sample would be selected.  Details of how the sample would be selected should also be explained here. This subsection should answer these questions:  1) what is the source of the sample (the population from which the sample would be selected); 2) how would the sample be selected; 3) why was this sample selected; 4) what are the characteristics of the sample.  The sample information should include the number of respondents, the nature of the respondents, specifically any demographic information such as age, gender, etc.

Procedures for Data Collection.  It is necessary in this section to describe the chosen design and data collection procedures.  If an experimental design is chosen, explain both the experimental process and the controls which would be applied. See Adler and Clark, Chapter 8.  Should the problem be survey, observational or attitude assessment, the plan of action and the instrumentation should be explained.  See Adler and Clark, Chapters 9-12.

Study Design.  This section consists of a chronological list of the steps that would be used in conducting the study.  It should be as detailed as possible to include time estimates where applicable.

Data Analysis.  What will be done after the data is collected?  The statistical methods you would use to analyze your data are outlined in this section.  If the techniques or measurement procedures are unusual, describe them in detail.  For non-statistical methods of analysis, describe the qualitative factors you will be using.

           

 

4. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

 The final section of this research paper must include the following subsections.

Although you have only a proposal for conducting the research, you discuss the probable findings and conclusion, based on the design chosen, your opinions, and the review of the literature.  If applicable, include your experiences during the research process and opinions. 

Results and Conclusions.    Discuss the probable findings and conclusions to include your opinions.

Generalizations.  Indicate the extent to which your results and conclusions might be found in other populations and samples.

Implications.  What can be learned from your study?  What courses of action might be implicated?

Limitations.  What deficiencies does your study have?  Limitations are any factors that restrict the scope or generalizations of the probable findings.

Suggestions for Future Research.  Indicate avenues for further research. 

 

 I also browse three example for this research paper, please just follow the requirement to complete this paper. Also, PLEASE!! Do not get any research from INTERNET or BOOKS. The only place you can find to do a research is “http://web111.epnet.com.proxy.amberton.edu/search.asp?tb=1&_ug=sid+7049A84F%2D9E3D%2D4705%2DB607%2DBC1BC6137FD1%40sessionmgr6+dbs+aph+cp+1+8502&_us=hs+True+dstb+DB+ss+SO+sm+KS+BAA4&_uso=hd+False+db%5B0+%2Daph+1BEE&newsrch=1

And it will require user name: ctang089   Password: 04-672-759 (should include - )

Then you can success to enter this website to find any topic!!

 

I want to make sure that please include EVERY subsections in each section:

For example: For the Introduction, Please include “The Statement of Purpose”, “Significance of the study”……Another example for the conclusions, should include: “results and conclusions”, “Generalizations”, …..etc!

Every section I will brown the example, so please please follow the example. If you have any more questions about this research, please e-mail me. Thanks

 

 

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