assinment week 4

Assignment: Research Proposal – Draft of Introduction

This Assignment is part of the Final Project’s Research
Proposal that you will turn in at the end of Unit 9. In light of the
fact that this Assignment will be part of your MSP Portfolio and should
represent the very best of your writing, the project has been designed
to be completed in portions to permit feedback and revision. The
Assignment for this unit will produce a draft of your Introduction
section; the Unit 7 Assignment will be a draft of the Method Section;
and the Final Project in Unit 9 will incorporate revisions of both of
these earlier Assignments as well as an abstract.

As noted, this Assignment represents the Introduction
section of your Research Proposal. It will be written as a standard
paper, with title and references page. When it is revised for inclusion
in your Final Project, some changes will need to be made, but if you’ve
done well here, those changes will be minor.

The Introduction section of a Research Proposal includes
an explanation of the topic, a literature review of previously
published research on the topic of the research being proposed, and a
description of the proposed research question and hypotheses.

Open the Introduction section with an introductory
paragraph complete with a thesis statement, just like any paper. From
there, move into a discussion of the research topic: describe the topic
and the issues around it, define terms that might not be known by the
reader. Make sure that they understand the topic.

Once the reader understands the topic, move smoothly
into a literature review discussing recent research on the topic (using
the 3-5 articles you found while doing the Unit 2 Discussions and
Assignment if you have remained with that topic). Describe each research
paper’s hypothesis and method, and critique the methods used and the
conclusions that were drawn. Was the research done well? Are the
conclusions drawn sound? Did they miss anything?

After the literature review, transition into a
discussion of your proposal’s research question. Explain the question
itself and why it needs to be asked and answered. Describe the
hypothesis (you may have more than one) that you have formulated and how
it relates to the research question.

Finally, write a summary paragraph that recaps the
research topic, the research question and hypothesis, and what the
proposed research hopes to accomplish.

Assignment Directions

To recap in an outline format:

1. Formal title page
2. Introduction section
   1. Introduction paragraph (with thesis statement)
   2. Background material – ensuring that the reader understands the research topic
   3. Literature review – clearly and completely discussing recent
      research on the topic using three to five peer-reviewed, scholarly
      sources
   4. The proposed research – What is the proposed research, why is it important?
      1. Define the research question and why it is important or useful to ask and answer the question
      2. Describe the hypothesis and how it will answer the research question
   5. A summary paragraph
3. Formal References section

The Assignment should:

• Follow Assignment directions (review grading rubric for best results).
• Use correct APA formatting per the APA Publication Manual, (6th ed.).
• Demonstrate college-level communication through the composition of original materials in Standard American English.