Steps in Completing Assignment
Outline of the Proposal
Helpful Hints
Appendix 1:  Guide to References and Citations
 

DUE DATES:

The preparation of a research proposal is an integral part of your experience in this course.  It will give you the opportunity to apply the concepts and skills you are learning and to incorporate them into an organized, coherent product.  As you prepare your proposal, you will have considerable freedom in selecting your topic and developing your own ideas. The principal requirements are that (1) the proposal must involve explanatory rather than purely exploratory or descriptive research (see chapter 4), (2) it must be original—that is, it cannot consist of a straight replication of an existing study, and (3) you must follow the guidelines and format outlined below. 

A research proposal identifies a hypothesis, shows how it follows from previous research and theory, and outlines the procedures to be implemented to investigate it.  For purposes of this assignment, your proposal will contain three major sections:  (1) a theoretical section which defines the problem, presents a rationale for doing the research, places the proposed study in the context of other theoretical and empirical work, and generally tells the reader the research question or hypothesis you intend to investigate; (2) a methods section which tells the reader precisely how you intend to carry out the investigation; and (3) a results section which requires you to speculate about possible outcomes.  In any proposal, the researcher should not only describe in detail what he or she plans to do but also justify every key decision.  Your primary goal is to develop a proposal that, if carried out, would lead to valid interpretations of the social world.  But, as with any proposal, you also must consider what is feasible and practical.  Ethical considerations and available resources invariably affect what researchers choose to do.  Therefore, for purposes of this assignment, imagine that you are limited to a budget of $10,000.

Steps in Completing Assignment

     1.  Select a partner.  You are required to do this exercise in teams of two.  Among the many advantages to working in teams, perhaps the most important is that you can learn from one another and can cross-check the validity of your conclusions.  This will occur, however, only if you work together on all phases of the project; for example, both teammates should read all articles cited in the literature review and each person should carefully edit the writing of the other.  I will ask you to identify your partner on Friday, Sept. 8.

     2.  Choose a topic.  The first step in creating a research proposal is to come up with an idea or general research topic.  Topics may be derived from many sources:  personal experience or observation, sociology courses in which you are or have been enrolled, existing social science research and theory.  I encourage you to select a topic of personal interest and, so far as possible, to draw upon papers you have prepared or are preparing for other sociology courses.  A statement of your topic is due on Monday, Sept. 18.

     3.  Conduct a literature review. The next step is to transform your initial idea into a research question or formal hypothesis.  To do this, you will need to review the literature to find out what is known and not known about the topic.  Even if you begin with a well-formed hypothesis, you must review the literature to determine if the hypothesis has been investigated and to establish its practical and theoretical importance.

While there are many sources of information on a topic, the most valuable source of recent, credible studies consists of articles in social science journals.  To identify relevant articles, you should use one of the electronic databases in Dinand Library.  I recommend either SocioAbs, one of the New FirstSearch periodical indexes, or Expanded Academic ASAP, a database with references and full-text journals.

The kinds of journal articles in which you are interested are reports of empirical research.  If you are able to locate a very recent research article on your topic, the citations within that article should provide a useful guide to the most relevant prior research.  In your literature review, emphasize the most recent research and those studies that seem to represent major advances in knowledge (as indicated, for example, by their frequency of citation).

The immediate purpose of the literature review is to find out what is known about a topic, so that you can identify an original testable hypothesis that builds on previous research and theory.  The concluding section of most research articles often provides hints on how to extend the line of inquiry.  The author may note, for example, that studies have produced inconsistent results; he or she may offer one or more possible explanations for a particular finding; or the author may speculate about other possible effects of the causal variable.   You may propose, therefore, to investigate an explanation of discrepant findings.  You might ask yourself, how did the studies differ in their samples and measures?  What extraneous variables were not controlled?  Or, you may test an explanation or propose a limiting condition of a particular finding.  Are there intervening variables that might explain the relationship?  Does the finding apply only to the particular samples used in extant studies?  Finally, you might propose to investigate other effects of a social condition. 

In addition to helping you identify a testable hypothesis, reviewing published research will enable you to learn how the topic has been investigated by other researchers, including measures that have been developed.  By paying attention to the style and organization of the articles, you also can learn how to write the literature review and methods sections of your proposal.

     4.  Formulate hypothesis and write section I.  Once you have read enough of the literature to formulate a hypothesis, you should write the first section of your proposal, outlined below.  This section should clearly present the sociological relevance of your proposed study.  It should establish the importance of the topic and show how your research flows from previous studies.  A draft of this section is due no later than Friday, Oct. 13.

     5.  Write the remainder of the proposal.  After you have gotten my feedback on Section I, you may proceed to write the rest of the proposal.

Outline of the Proposal

A.  Statement of the research topic.
B.  Rationale for the proposed study.
C.  Literature review.
D.  Formal statement of the specific hypothesis to be investigated.

II.  Methods.

A.  Overall description of the research design.
B.  Theoretical and operational definitions of all concepts.
C.  Specification of the unit of analysis and description of sampling design.

III.  Results.

A.  Presentation of hypothetical data that would support the hypothesis.
B.  Presentation of hypothetical data that would fail to support the hypothesis.
C.  Presentation of hypothetical data controlling for one extraneous variable.
D.  Theoretical implications that could be drawn from the “results” in Parts A - C.

IV.  References.

All books, articles, chapters, and other sources must be cited in the text of your paper, and all references in the text must be listed in a separate references section at the end of the paper.  Appendix I consists of a Guide to References and Citations that presents the format of the American Sociological Association for citing sources in the text and listing references in the references section.

Helpful Hints

I have carefully designed this assignment to be carried out over the course of the entire semester, so that you will not be too burdened at the end, when you have numerous other exams and papers to write.  Still, there is a lengthy period between the time that you submit your draft of Section I and the due date for the completed proposal.  Students in past semesters have tended to postpone revising Section I and completing the remainder of their proposal until the end of the semester, sometimes with disastrous results.  I strongly urge you, therefore, to spread your work over the entire two-month period, perhaps by working out a timetable to complete each section.

I fully expect to spend time outside class talking to you about your proposals.  If, at any time, you have questions about this assignment, please see me.

Appendix II is the form that I will use to evaluate your proposals.  Except for Section I, I have not prescribed page limits.  Although I do expect you to be thorough, I also place a premium on conciseness. Good is not the same thing as long.  As with any piece of writing, proposals that are more or less complete but use a lot of words getting to the point are less impressive and invariably less clear than those that give the same information as briefly as possible.

Here are two common writing errors to avoid:  first, treat the word “data” as a plural (e.g., these data support my hypothesis); second, avoid confusing the words “affect” and “effect,” which often are used in conveying causality.  In verb form, “affect” means to influence or have an effect on (e.g., the results imply that binge drinking affects academic achievement).  In noun form, “effect” means a result, or anything brought about by a cause (e.g., the study shows that binge drinking has a negative effect on academic achievement).

In addition to these guidelines, you also may find it helpful to look over completed proposals from past classes.  Therefore, I have placed three sample proposals on reserve in the library and in the Johnson Reading Room.  Another good model is “The Research Paper” located at the Trintity University Web site.  This is an excellent illustration of the standard format for research reports, which as noted above corresponds closely to the format for a research proposal.

Finally, don’t forget to read over Appendix I!  Now, in this course, is the time to learn how to cite references in the text and to learn the format for references found in most social science journals.
 
 

References and citations serve several purposes.  Most importantly, they give credit to whom it is warranted.  In addition, they acknowledge the value of others' work, create an important record of the line of scholarly inquiry, and allow readers to evaluate the accuracy of your conclusions and to pursue the subject further by examining the original documents.

All work that is a source of the ideas presented—whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized—should be cited properly.  To summarize is to condense the original into a sentence or two in your own words; to paraphrase is to follow the original statement or passage more closely but still restate it in your own words.  In paraphrasing, do not use whole phrases, many of the same words, or sentence structures similar to the original.  To quote a source is to extract a word, phrase, sentence, or passage from the original and insert it into the text.  Quoted material should be enclosed within double quotation marks or, if lengthy (longer than three typewritten lines), indented as a block quote.

In general, it is better to summarize or paraphrase others' ideas than to present a stream of quotations.  Your paper will be easier to read and will better convey your understanding of what you have read.  Use direct quotations when the original words are particularly well chosen—clear, incisive, or powerful.

If you use another writer's words or ideas without citing the source, you have committed an act of plagiarism.  Faculty members who find students guilty of plagiarism assign a grade of zero on the assignment and file a report with the Department Chair and Class Dean that is placed in the student's file.  Students found guilty of two offenses of academic dishonesty are dismissed from the College.  (See the Statement on Academic Honesty in the Holy Cross Catalog, pp. 12-13.)

Documentation of sources should be presented in two places:  (1) in the text, to identify and credit the source immediately following its use; and (2) following the text, in a list of references with more detailed information about each source.  Cite the source whose ideas and/or words you are using.  If you are citing work referenced or quoted by another author (and you do not have access to or have not read the primary source), cite the original author "in" the work where you found it; for example, (Rossi in Singleton and Straits, 1999:423).

There are many possible formats for in-text citations and reference lists; you may be familiar, for example, with the style requirements of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA).  In this course we will follow the format guidelines of the American Sociological Association (ASA).  The guidelines and examples below have been adapted from the ASA journal Teaching Sociology.

In-Text Citations

• Identify each source at the appropriate point in the text by the last name of the author or authors, year of publication, and pagination (if needed).  Examples:


Glaser and Strauss (1969) discussed the importance . . . 
Declining enrollments pose a threat to the faculty (Huber 1985:375-82).
Merton (1940, 1945) argues . . .
 

• In the first in-text citation of items with four or more names, use the first author's last name plus the words "et al."  List all names only when "et al." would cause confusion.  In citations with three authors, all authors' last names should be listed the first time the reference is cited; in subsequent citations, use the last name of the first author plus the words "et al."

• When two authors in your reference list have the same last name, use identifying initial, as in (J. Smith 1990).

• For institutional authorship, supply minimum identification from the beginning of the reference item, as in (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1986:123).

• When you cite more than one source, alphabetize citations within parentheses, as follows: . . . issues that both faculty and students are expected to address (DeMartini 1983; Lynch and Smith 1985; Rippertoe 1977).

• Ampersand (&) should not be substituted for "and" in citations and references.

• In a section headed REFERENCES, list all items alphabetically by author.  If you include more than one item by any author, list those items in chronological order.

• Do not number the references.

• The reference section must include all sources cited in the text.  Name every author in each source; "et al." is not acceptable in the reference list.

• The title of a book, journal, or periodical should be either underscored or italicized.  The title of an article should appear in "quotation marks," and all main words should be capitalized.

• The volume number of a journal article should follow the title of the journal, followed by a colon and the page numbers on which the article appears.  For example:  American Sociological Review 65:323-42.

• List page numbers as follows:  1-10; 68-69; 101-102; 115-19; 1003-1008; 1000-23; 1156-89; 1133-1209.

• List publisher's name as concisely as possible without loss of clarity, as in "Wiley" for "John A. Wiley and Sons."

• Type the first line of each reference flush to the left margin.  Indent any subsequent lines at least three spaces.

• Double-space the references.

• Journal article with single author:

• Journal article with two authors:

• Journal article with three or more authors:

• Book references:

• Items in edited volumes.

• Items in popular magazines and newspapers:

• Web sites: