POSC 300: Assignment and Keywords

Remember, there are a series of small assignments that will culminate in a final project and presentation. This area is only re-stating instructions given by your professor on the assignment sheet for easy reference - be sure to review the full assignment details for more information!

Literature review (due November 10th) - 4 pages minimum (not including introduction)

Research paper submission (due December 8th) - 12 pages minimum (not including cover page, references, and appendix)
Worth 120 points.

Research presentation - 7 to 10 minutes long (slides are required)
Worth 100 points.

You will be working to write a research paper or research design which includes the sections outlined below. If you are writing a research design, you will not report data analysis and results but need to be sure you include the extra information listed on the research design/proposal assignment page given by your instructor.

Parts of Your Paper

• Introduction
  Establishes what you want the reader to know about your topic and research & identifies the research problem.
• Literature Review
  Critically evaluates existing research in greater detail & describes the theoretical framework underpinning your study.
• Methodology
  Describes how each objective will be achieved, including the study population and sampling, data collection, and data analysis.
• Results
  Reporting your findings objectively and succinctly, and includes statistical analysis.
• Discussion
  Addresses questions of "what have we learned?" and "where should we go next?" through interpretation of results, description of trends or relationships among variables, discussion of the implications of results, and limitations or unavoidable bias in your study.
• Conclusion
  Should​​​​​​​ directly relate to your introduction while discussing a summary of your findings, recommendations when appropriate, and any potential for future research.
• References
  Cite all sources throughout your work in consistent APA 7th edition style.

Adaptations for a Research Design:

• Methodology
  This section of your work will provide discussion and justification of your proposed methods.
• Results & Discussion
  Similar section here, where you will discuss anticipated findings.
• Budget
  Include costs and justifications in your budget, be sure to research real funding sources for accurate information.
• Timetable
  This timeline should be realistic and to the point, including a series of objectives with expected completion dates and a justification of these decisions.

Research Question: "How does media affect voting in young people?"

The first step is to identify the most important parts of the question, the keywords, that get to the base of what we what to research.

Keywords:   media    voting    young people

Now we need to brainstorm some of the different ways we can think about these key concepts. Those alternate keywords can be synonyms, broader, or more narrow terms.

Television is one type of media, and a talk show is one type of television program; the terms get more narrow. Civic engagement is a broader category under which voting might rest. And youth is just another way of saying young people. All of these are legitimate ways of coming up with alternate keywords. You never know which one will be best for a particular database or website until you start looking! What works well in one, might not go over very well in another.

You can use the worksheet below to explore options for your own topic.