THE RESEARCH PAPER

This paper will give you experience using statistics to answer research questions. You will have to ask a question, engage in background research, choose a statistical method to test the question, then test the question, and based on your results, decide on the answer. The final step is to discuss what your results imply for future research.

The paper must be similar to published papers in the major sociology journals (such as Social Forces, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Science Quarterly). Each paper must have the following sections: introduction, background/review of the literature and theory, data and methods, results, discussion/conclusion, endnotes or footnotes, references, tables and figures.

You must design a research question, develop several hypotheses based on prior studies on the topic, and use statistics and data to test the hypotheses.

Due Dates:

By September 27th, meet with Dr. Donato during office hours, or by appointment, to discuss paper idea

Prospectus due by 9 a.m. on/before Tuesday, October 4th
This should be approximately 2 typed pages of text that describes your research question,
notes some related sources, and discusses what dataset your will use.
(What is your research question? Why is it of interest? What are some important
studies that have been done in the past? Note: THIS WILL TAKE TIME. You have to
decide what to do your paper on, and then research what others have done on the topic.)

Background Section due October 27th
To write this section, you need to collect a set of prior studies that addressed your topic, read these
studies, and then synthesize them analytically. Note: THIS IS A DIFFICULT TASK, probably more difficult than you imagine it to be. Please get moving on this quickly because you may need to reread these studies more than once before you figure out how to summarize them in an interesting way. From these prior studies, you will also have to describe prior theories and develop your hypotheses.

Draft Results Section due November 15th
Here is where you discuss preliminary results. You will have to tell us what your hypotheses are,
and say something about the data and methods you are using. But most of this section must address your results. What have you found? Present tables and figures, if appropriate, but also discuss your findings in the text. This section should be between 3 and 6 pages.

Final Paper due 4:30 pm on/before Friday, December 9th of finals week
We will grade the final paper based on its quality. Is the paper well written? Are the hypotheses
reasonable? Are the statistical tests being proposed reasonable given the hypotheses? Are the data good for the statistical tests being proposed? What about the literature review? Is it more than simply a description of prior studies, or does it go the extra step as an analytical review that leads into hypotheses/expectations? Are the tables/figures appropriate, labeled correctly, etc.?