Student Guide for Short paper 1

The purpose of this assignment is for you to write a research proposal based on a

published research paper before developing a research proposal of your own topic. You

will be assigned a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal. To find the assigned

paper, you will need to search for the paper by its title, the journal, or authors in the

library’s catalog. Note that if you are accessing the library catalog from off campus, you

will need to login using your TAMUC credentials.

You will first need to read the article carefully and thoroughly. Then assuming that you

are about to conduct the research described in the paper, write a research proposal. In

the research proposal, you will need to provide the background/introduction, purpose of

the study, research hypotheses, data and methodology, all of which should come from

the journal paper. A general outline of the research proposal is given below.

Note that you need to summarize/rephrase the corresponding contents in the paper

using your own words. Directly copying from the paper is plagiarism and not acceptable.

Refer to the Academic Honesty Policy for consequences of plagiarism.

Formatting

The proposal should be double-spaced using Times New Roman 12 font and should not

exceed 1000 words, including references and appendix, if any. You are required to

follow APA style when writing the short paper. Here is a tutorial on APA style:

http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~instruct/articulate/apa_mod/APA_Intro/player.html

Research proposal outline Cover Page: Include a title of the research proposal, course number, course name, and

the author’s name

Background/current situation: What led you/the authors to address this problem?

Why is the research important?

Purpose of the Research: What is the purpose of the proposed research? What

contribution the proposed research will provide?

Research hypotheses: What are the research hypotheses that will be tested in the

proposed research. Research hypotheses are usually clearly stated in published journal

papers. You can directly copy and paste the hypotheses. This is the only exception to

the plagiarism policy.

Research design and sample design: you should discuss the data that will be used in

the research. If it is primary data (collected through surveys), describe what type of

surveys will be used, how sample will be selected, what is the expected sample size,

etc. If it is secondary data, you should describe the source of the data. You will also

need to briefly describe that the methodology that will be used to analyze the data

collected. Note that you do not need to have fully understanding of the methodology.

One or two sentences about the methodology should be sufficient.