Your final paper will present a modern or historic case study (large N analysis is also acceptable) that tests or expands on a hypothesis directly derived from a theory/concept studied in class. You are expected to either compile one in-depth case study, provide a most similar/different set of cases, or utilize publically available data to test a hypothesis derived from your theory. Each paper should be 6-8 pages in total using times new roman font, 1 margins, and double spacing with no additional spacing between paragraphs.
The final paper must include the following sections:
I. TITLE PAGE AND ABSTRACT: The paper should include a title page and a basic abstract though this does not count toward your page total.
II. INTRODUCTION: The first introductory paragraph of your paper will clearly state a research question (general statement of interest), thesis for the paper (what you expect to find), and specific hypothesis(ses) that you will test in the paper. It also sets the context for how and why you are studying this topic. It should be kept to about a page.
III. LITERATURE REVIEW: The brief (1-2 pages) literature review that you are expected to include in the latter part of your introduction is an introduction to the theory that you are testing, a quick explanation of what support it has, and a short overview of how it has been upheld/altered in scholarship. A good literature review does all of the following: (a) organizes common findings of other works together; (b) puts these common findings in a systematic order to build upon one another; (c) evaluates these studies critically (do not accept the findings as valid be skeptical!); (d) relates this to the work you will do (e.g. I will expand on the literature by testing this theory in an exceptional case.
IV. ANALYSIS: This is the meat paper in which you test your hypothesis. You can utilize large or small N methods (briefly describe your methods at the start of this section) to either find evidence for or against your theory. (large N means statistics and small N means case study)
V. CONCLUSION: This is the section where you summarize your findings, their implication for scholarship in the field, and discuss where you could go from here (expand the findings with more cases, retest in alternate situations, etc) to learn more
FORMATTING, CITATIONS, AND REFERENCES: The final paper must have less than 5% quotations and have no fewer than 7 viable sources (books, peer-reviewed journals that are not already included in the syllabus). These papers must be submitted to a dropbox folder on Canvas no later than 5 pm on April 4. Quotes over 5 words are not allowed in the piece.
Incomplete citations and reference list, unclear writing, failure to utilize scholarly research or papers of record, unclear organization or failure to clearly state your thesis (crux of your paper) are all weaknesses that will greatly diminish your grade on this final project.
Documentation Style: you can use any citation style that you are familiar with just be consistent. If you arent familiar with a citation style, I suggest APSA style, which is the easiest of the options I find. http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/DocAPSA.html or http://www.apsanet.org/media/PDFs/Publications/APSAStyleManual2006.pdf ). I will also accept APA or Chicago-style citations but prefer APSA if possible. You must also be prepared to show me the hard copies of your sources if asked to do so.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
In editing the paper, make sure that it is free of major grammatical and mechanical errors, that you have included transitions between topics/paragraphs, and that you do not over-use first person language or clich phrases in your writing. If you must refer to yourself in the paper, please do so as I and not we. Unless, of course, you are actually the king/queen of some state. Your best chance for meeting all of these criteria is to write your paper far enough in advance to be able to utilize the writing center. If you fail to utilize that resource, you will receive no leeway for errors made.
I will fail any paper that plagiarizes at all. Do not plagiarize. If you are unclear what constitutes plagiarism, please seek the help of myself or a librarian. Specifically, you MUST use in-text AND bibliographic citations in every single sentence that:
you use other peoples words or ideas in any way from direct quotes (avoid at all costs in such a short essaylimit to one or two word quotes only), to paraphrasing, to borrowed ideas.
you include a fact that is not commonly known. Anything you had to look up must be cited.
