Assignment 2: Case Study
Your case study research paper (HW2) is where you will use the information developed in HW 1 and incorporate your research analysis, to create a coherent research paper that is 13-15 pages in length. (This number DOES NOT include the Title Page, Abstract (front matter), or References Pages).
While it is inappropriate (not to mention a violation of university policy) to cut-and-paste from past assignments in old courses into new ones, this research project is evolutionary and builds itself up from a research proposal to a completed product. For this reason, in this class it is permissible to paste the information (as appropriate and as it makes sense) from your research proposal into your case study research paper.
Format: Your research paper should include a title page, abstract, body, and reference page. Your paper should have 1-inch borders on all four sides, use times new roman-12 point font, be double spaced, and not have an extra space in-between paragraphs. (You may need to turn this off in MS word by going to “paragraph” and clicking “Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style). Since this is an INTL course you need to use the Turabian parenthetical citation style with a references page (aka author-date method).
As you proof read your assignment I encourage you to work with Belcher, Wendy Laura. 2009. “Editing Your Sentences” In Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Sage. This resource has a nice step by step process for enhancing your writing.
Your research paper should include the following sections:
Introduction:
This section should be written last and should pull from some of the elements of HW1. You will need to clearly provide an overview of the topic you are writing about, a concise synopsis of the issues, state your research question, and discuss why the situation is important to investigate. Writing the introduction last is helpful in ensuring that you’ve incorporated any changes that may have taken place over the course of your research. This section should be 1-2 pages in length.
Literature Review:
All research projects include a literature review to set out for the reader what knowledge exists on the subject under study and helps the researcher develop the research strategy to use in the study. A good literature review is a thoughtful synthesis of important information that pertains to the current study. Literature reviews include a summary and critical assessment of the arguments that exist (including whether or not you agree with them) and are arranged thematically. At the end of your literature review, you should discuss some of the clear gaps in knowledge and explain how your research will help fill this void and further our knowledge of the subject under investigation.
Developing a clear and concise literature review can be challenging. For this reason it will be important for you to review the attached synthesis matrix. NCSU also has an excellent overview of literature reviews for graduate students and it ca be found at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/litreview/.
This section should be 5-6 pages in length.
Methodology:
This section will pull from, and expand upon, your research design section within your research proposal. Methodology sections are another standard element in research papers as they provide the reader with a clear understanding for how the research was carried out. In this section you should discuss your case study methodology and explain the validity of your approach. In your explanation be sure you explain how you chose the case to investigate, your data collection method, your data analysis (i.e. the questions you asked to help guide your research and thus answer your primary research question), and any potential data limitations and biases that pertain to this specific project. In your discussion of the studies limitations you should keep in mind that its always best to end on a positive note, so be sure you discuss your plan to mitigate the limitations and biases, if any. This section should be 2-3 pages in length. Simply stating that you are using “qualitative” methodology is not enough. What SPECIFIC methodology are you using and how is it employed? This link will help you with your information literacy:
http://www.socscidiss.bham.ac.uk/methodologies.html
(This link comes from the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University. I recommend you watch the video as it explains qualitative vs quantitative methodology.)
Analysis and Findings:
Your analysis and findings section should provide a narrative of your research and the analytical arguments that you will make as a result of your findings. In this section you will discuss the different information processing errors that occurred within your chosen situation and explain how they lead to or are leading to errors in analysis and/or decision-making. Within this section you should provide the evidence that proves or disproves your research hypothesis. This section should be 2-4 pages in length.
Conclusion:
This section will contain the concluding analytical arguments based on what the research has revealed. Here you will discuss some of the techniques and strategies that can be used to help mitigate the information processing errors and/or decision-making errors that occurred during the situation under investigation.
Like any conclusion, it should provide a synopsis of the project, the strategy, the results, and what the research adds to our body of knowledge. Within your conclusion you should also offer suggestions for avenues of future research for other scholars as all knowledge is evolutionary. This section should be 1-2 pages in length. What research areas do you recommend future research explore?
References:
This section will contain all of the references that you have cited within your paper. They should be listed in Turabian References format and arranged alphabetically. Entitle this section as “References”, each source notation should be single spaced with one space between each source.
At this level your references should fall within the 18-25 sources range and be made up primarily of peer reviewed content. If you are not quite sure what “peer reviewed” means here is a link to help you:
http://guides.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/content.php?pid=209679&sid=1746812
This link to John Jay College of Criminal Justice answers the fundamental questions regarding this issue: “In academic publishing, the goal of peer review is to assess the quality of articles submitted for publication in a scholarly journal. Before an article is deemed appropriate to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must undergo the following process:
· The author of the article must submit it to the journal editor who forwards the article to experts in the field. Because the reviewers specialize in the same scholarly area as the author, they are considered the author’s peers (hence “peer review”).
· These impartial reviewers are charged with carefully evaluating the quality of the submitted manuscript.
· The peer reviewers check the manuscript for accuracy and assess the validity of the research methodology and procedures.
· If appropriate, they suggest revisions. If they find the article lacking in scholarly validity and rigor, they reject it.
Because a peer-reviewed journal will not publish articles that fail to meet the standards established for a given discipline, peer-reviewed articles that are accepted for publication exemplify the best research practices in a field”.