mass murder

All papers will be submitted to Turnitin
You will write a research proposal about an approved topic related to criminal justice. Keep in mind that you must have a research question and testable hypothesis. A good way to think about this is addressing some sort of problem you see related to criminal justice. You can also choose to evaluate a policy or program related to criminal justice.
This handout is designed to assist students in the completion of the Research Proposal and related assignments. The actual rubric for the assignment can be found on Canvas. The paperalone is worth 100 points. In addition, several additional assignments will be related to the paper and will count towards the final grade (see the syllabus). The grade of the final paper will be based on following the criteria given for each section of the paper. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that students understand and follow the below instructions. If you have ANY questions or are uncertain about something, please contact me as soon as possible.
Each section is specified an approximate point value but a more specific rubric will be given on Canvas.
Introduction
The Introduction should include:
Correct APA citation must be used
o Make sure you are citing frequently enough.
At least twice each paragraph, i.e. bookend citations
Need to cite each time you change sources
Need to cite any information that can be disproven
Must include a research question
Must include a clear thesis statement (version of your hypothesis)
Must make an argument as to why this topic is important
Must include back ground information of the Dependent Variable
o Statistics and news articles work great here
Must include background information of the Independent Variable
o Statistics and news articles work great here
Writing should be clear and free of grammatical errors
Section Total 10 Points
Literature Review
The Literature Review should include:
Correct APA citation must be used
o Make sure you are citing frequently enough.
At least twice each paragraph, i.e. bookend citations
At the end there should be a Reference Page in correct APA format that corresponds will all in-text citations.
Must include AT LEAST 5 ACADEMIC JOURANL ARTICLES.
o The VAST MAJORITY of the literature review should be academic journal articles.
Headings and subheadings MUST be used.
There should be three subtopics in the literature review and subheadings should be used to identify these subtopics.
o See the lecture on writing literature reviews for further guidance.
o Also, see the examples on Canvas.
The sections and paragraphs should have a logical flow and organization.
Journal articles should be discussed in relation to each other where appropriate.
The appropriate content should be covered in depth without being redundant.
o See the lecture on literature reviews for the content that should be present.
No more than 3 quotes should be used in the entire paper, there is a point penalty outline in the formatting section.
Writing should be crisp, clear, and succinct. The writer should incorporate the active voice when appropriate. The meaning should be explicit. See the list of common mistakes in the formatting section.
Section Total 35 Points
Methods
Writing should be clear and free of grammatical errors.
APA should be used where appropriate.
The Methods section of your paper should include following:
Research question and how you expect it to be answered (your hypothesis)
o What question is your research trying to answer? For example what is causing an increase in violent crimes in Indianapolis?
o Your expected answer to this question is your hypothesis. Why do you expect these results?
o Feel free to use the example on Canvas to guide you but you cannot copy from the example, you have to make it your own. If it is too close it is academic dishonesty.
Sample
o Thoroughly describe your sample. This means:
Describe in detail exactly how you want to collect your sample
What is your sample element/unit of analysis?
What is your sample frame?
What sample size do you want? Why did you choose this size? Remember, many people choose not to complete surveys so you will want to survey a lot more people than what you want in your sample.
Is it a probability or nonprobablitly sample? Which sample technique from these categories did you use? You can use any samplingtechnique we covered but if you use the same one as the example you must make it unique to your study. You cannot copy from the example.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the sampling technique you chose?
Is there possible sample error?
o This section must look different than the examples, if it is too close it is academic dishonesty.
Dependent Variable
o Clearly state what your DV is. It helps to give it a label and call it the same thing every time.
o Explain in great detail how your will measure this variable (operational definition).
This means, exactly how will you collect this information? What specific questions will you ask? What are the possible answers to these questions? (Hint: surveys will be the easiest way to measure variables, if you do not plan to do a survey then you must discuss this with me before turning in the paper)
This might also mean you have to actually define some terms. For example: what is means to be a youth, what is a gang, what is a drug crime, etc.
o This section must look different than the examples, if it is too close it is academic dishonesty.
Independent Variables
o Clearly state what your IVs are (you may have more than one but it helps if they are related to the same concept). It helps to give variables a label and call it the same thing every time.
o Explain in great detail how your will measure these variables (operational definition).
This means, exactly how will you collect this information? What specific questions will you ask? What are the possible answers to these questions? (Hint: surveys will be the easiest way to measure variables, if you do not plan to do a survey then you must discuss this with me before turning in the paper)
This might also mean you have to actually define some terms. For example: what is means to be a youth, what is a gang, what is a drug crime, etc.
o This section must look different than the examples, if it is too close it is academic dishonesty.
Research Design
o What type of research design do you want to use in your study?
o Explain what this design is, the strengths and weaknesses.
o Why did you choose this design?
o If you want a visual in your paper you may create a diagram of this design and fill it in using your DV and IVs (like we did in class, this can count as 1 page). This is not required, only if you want a visual. Keep in mind that if the diagram is incorrect it will cost you points. This is the only visual that will be allowed in the paper. I recommend discussing this with me before turning in your paper.
o This section must look different than the examples, if it is too close it is academic dishonesty.
Section Total 50 Points
Conclusion
Summarize each section of your research paper here. No new information should be introduced in the conclusion. Outside information still needs to be cited even if it was cited before in the paper.

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