Questions we Can Help you to Answer

Paper Instructions:

This assignment is intended to provide you with a short version of what will become the introduction section to your final paper. (If you can't think of a topic, consider distracted driving, but remember that the topic is yours to choose.)

The more detail and research you add, the less expansion you will have to do to complete your introduction section.

In this paper, include at least the following sections:


    1. What is your research topic? Describe two if you can't narrow it down to one. Don't just tell me what it is; describe it a little. It might help to pretend that your audience is an intelligent corporate executive who has read nothing of the work in your field, and you're asking for corporate funding to run a study. The topic should clearly relate to the study description at the end. (5 pts)
  2. Why is your topic important? Use authoritative, published material to describe current effects of the problem or the current state of society. If it helps, pretend I'm that smart but ignorant corporate executive who is deciding whether you get the funding to study this topic. (10 pts)
    3. Why do you think current research is insufficient to cover this topic? You should be able to describe enough current research to convince me that you're moving in the right direction for your final paper. The goal for this portion in your introduction is to convince the smart but ignorant corporate executive that you are knowledgeable enough to know what questions to study. (Often, the papers that you're reading describe questions that remained when they were published.) (10 pts)
    4. How would you go about studying this? Just give me a general description; something you could describe to your boss as you're riding the elevator somewhere. You will have time to change or improve your ideas before you write the Methods section of your final research proposal, but I'd already like you to be thinking about what variables you might want to study--even if you're not completely settled on how to measure them yet. (5 pts)
I will also assign points from these two categories:

Amount of research (10 points): One point per source, up to a maximum of 10 points. Only sources referenced in-text count, even if you list more at the end of your paper. If you cite an article that talks about a published study and I can find the published study on the Penn State library's website, you will not get credit for that source.

General quality (10 points): This is a holistic category intended to capture the general quality of your paper. Using professional language, good grammar, numbering pages, and other hallmarks of good writing is the emphasis here.

This is also the category where I will look at your styling. You have 2 options:

Option 1: APA styling

Many academic publications continue to make use of APA style conventions. This choice will probably be useful in a variety of college courses and preparing you for a formal publication process. If you choose this option, you should have:

-APA in-text references
-An APA references page
-APA-style page numbers
-Double-spacing, as expected in APA format
-An APA title page
-Proper placement of document title on the first page following your title page

Option 2: Beautiful styling

Even if you choose not to follow all aspects of APA style, you will still use APA-style to do citations. You must still use:

-APA in-text references
-An APA references page
For other aspects of style, actively make choices about your document construction. The main purpose is to expose you to capabilities in word processing software and to think about how the parts that you control can enhance your writing's communication.

If you choose this option, you must change the default settings from your word processing software for all of the following:

-Font
-Font size
-Line spacing
-Margins
You must prepare a creative title page. A creative title page would not have only text on it. Consider something like this as an inspiration: https://www.shrm.org/academicinitiatives/universities/TeachingResources/Documents/Recruitment%20and%20Selection%20IM.pdf