Research paper guidelines

This is not a standard research paper that you learned how to write in your English class. You must do original research. This means that you cannot write a paper using only other people's past research. You must go out and do interviews, surveys, observe a setting, conduct an experiment, or other form of original data collection.

This research paper requires the completion of intermediate steps throughout the course. After completing a step, make sure you go back and read my comments before proceeding to the next step. If you do not, you are at risk of not understanding what is required for the completed research paper turned in the last day of class.

Steps to Doing Sociological Research

1. Define the problem

State what you want to study. What is the question that you are interested in? Select and clearly define the research topic. For example, if you are interested in strategies parents use in controlling their children in public, you might start with this research question: Do control strategies used by parents in public places vary by type of public place?

2. Review the existing evidence

Review the literature (the published research dealing with your particular issue) to see what others have written about the topic. What have others in the past found out about the problem that you are interested in? It may be that previous research has already satisfactorily answered the problem. If not, by seeing how and what others have done in the past, you can better formulate a research question, develop a clearer research hypothesis, choose the best research design, get ideas on how carry out the research, and develop an effective method for analyzing your data.

Try using database found on the Cuesta Library web page. You can find a few full-text articles. For almost all research articles, the abstract is shown. You can learn a lot about the research simply by reading the abstract. Of course, you can use Google as well.

3. Formulate a hypothesis

A hypothesis is an educated guess about what is going on. Hypotheses can be based on theory or previous research. A hypothesis should be formulated in such a way so that the factual material gathered will provide evidence either supporting or disproving it. For example, your hypothesis might be, parents will use more coercive in situations where there is a stronger demand for good behavior. This hypothesis might have been developed as you did a review of the literature or based on your theoretical model. You may or may not need a hypothesis for the research that you are conducting. However, it is a useful exercise to formulate one, whether you end up including the hypothesis in your paper or not.

4. Develop a research design

Decide how the research materials are to be collected. Which research method is chosen should depend on the objectives of the study as well as the aspects of the behavior to be analyzed.

5. Collect the data

Here you gather the data that will be used for your analysis. That is, conduct your research.

6. Analyze the data

The collected data is analyzed to determine whether the hypotheses are supported.

7. Develop conclusions

Discuss how your findings relate to larger issues. For example, if your study was on the control of children in public places, you might want to talk about relationships between parents and children in the late modern world in general.

8. Present the findings

Write up the research and submit it by the final exam.

Additional thoughts:

This ordering should be understood as a general recommendation, not as the definitive rule for doing sociological research. Often steps may be skipped or the ordering may differ in actual practice. For example, you may not want to formulate a hypothesis when conducting an ethnography. Or, you may first define your problem and then while doing a review of the literature find that someone else has already solved that problem. You will then have to go back to step one. Or, you may have chosen a research design and are about the carry out the research but find out that you cannot gain access into the site that you wanted to observe. You will then have to go back to step 3 and formulate another hypothesis that can be answered using an alternative research method.

Choosing a research method

Survey method (must ask open-ended questions). This method allows you to measure attitudes and behaviors of a large number of people. Survey at least 40 people. If you are doing any sort of comparison, try to get at least 20 responses for each category that you are interested in, for example, 20 women and 20 men. You must ask a few open-ended questions. And you must do an analysis of the answers. Here are two examples of what an analysis might look like: The New Racism in the Media and Racism Without Racists

In-depth interview. If you want to do a close analysis, that is, detailed analysis of some social phenomena, you might try the in-depth interview method. Though your sample size will be smaller, you can get a more detailed sense of the issue you are interested in. If you are going to do in-depth interviews, try to interview at least six people. Here is an example of what your analysis might look like: Fake It 'til You Make It

Content analysis. You might want to do content analysis if you are interested in patterns that exist in popular culture. For example, do a content analysis of news programs, song lyrics, or TV shows to show gendered attitudes embedded in popular media. If you are doing a content analysis, try to spend about ten hours collecting data. Students often misunderstand what is required of a content analysis. Please make sure you submit a trial run and read my comments carefully before turning in a final version. Here is an example of what your analysis might look like: The New Racism in the Media.

Other methods. If you want to use other methods, please make sure you write a detailed proposal and get my approval.

Things to consider

1. Do not ask potentially embarrassing questions or questions about illegal behavior. If you are asking questions that have any potential of embarrassing the subject, please get my approval before conducting the survey or interview.

2. For surveys, include a comment at the top of the survey stating what the survey is about, and inform them that the survey is voluntary and that they can stop at any time.

3. For interviews, tell the person what the study is about and get their consent. For example, you might say, "I am doing a survey as part of the requirements for a course I am taking at a local college. The questions concern behaviors and attitudes related to parenting. Your name will not be requested or any other identifying information about you. You can refuse to answer any or all of these questions. Are you willing to participating in the survey?"

4. Please do not use minors as subjects without parent or guardian's written consent.

5. If you are audio-taping or videotaping, the consent must be in writing.

6. Handing in all surveys, field notes, and interview tapes is optional.

7. Keep it simple; if you try to do too much, you will never get done.

8. Write up the research and submit it in by the final exam.

Research paper grading rubric (approximate value in parenthesis)

Introduction (10 percent)

Here, you will tell me what you are going to tell me. Also, tell me why your research is important. That is, provide social relevance for your topic. Furthermore, guide the reader to your primary research questions. The research questions should be sociological in nature, clear, interesting, sociologically relevant, and testable using sociological methods. You can also introduce your hypothesis here.

Literature Review (20 percent)

A complete literature review is not required for this class. Your literature review must include a discussion of at least two sources, one of which should be similar in methods to the method you used, and another of which should be an academic source. Contact me if you have any questions about this. Discuss how your sources relate to your research questions and methods.

Note: A literature review should be a separate section for most projects. However, it can be embedded into the paper for ethnographies and content analysis papers. You must get prior approval if you do not want to include a separate literature review section.

Methods (10 percent)

Describe how you conducted your data collection (Facebook? Survey Monkey?). Describe how you analyzed your data. Describe the variables you examined. Provide a short description of your subjects, for example, age range, gender, and any other relevant characteristics. Did you choose appropriate methodology, employ it competently, and critically examine data?

Results and Analysis (40 percent)

Your analysis should be detailed and comprehensive. Did you clearly and competently present/discuss results and evaluate findings in relation to hypothesis? Use graphs (preferred) or tables for presentation of numerical statistics. State your findings in essay form if you are doing qualitative research.

Conclusion (10 percent)

In this section, connect findings to other research, put research in perspective, and acknowledge limitations and future implications. In the other sections, I want you to be scientifically rigorous, making sure that you are following the rules of the scientific method; however, in this section, I want you to be more creative and imaginative. Talk about what your findings suggest about larger concerns. Here I want you to speculate on the implications of your findings to more general sociological concerns. For example, if you found that men care more about physical appearance then women, talk about what you think the significance of this finding is with respect to gender relations in general.

References Cited (10 percent)

In this section, include and cite appropriately the relevant literature. Simply giving me a web address is not enough. Here is a link to a resource guidance on how to appropriately format the works cited section and in-text citations: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/1/.

Sociological Perspective (will add or detract from your grade)

Did you demonstrate understanding and use of sociological imagination throughout paper?

Writing Quality (will add or detract from your grade)

Think carefully about organization, style, grammar, etc. Make sure you proofread carefully.

Frequently made comments on research papers

Comments about the works cited section

No works cited: You need a works cited page.

Works cited: Works cited page needs to be formatted using a standard format, for example, MLA or APA.

Academic source: I would have liked to have seen an academic source in your works cited.

Comments about the literature review section

No literature review: You need a literature review section. If you do not want to write a separate section but integrate the literature review into the rest of the paper, please get my approval first.

Literature review: Your literature review needs to be developed more. Talk more about what previous studies have found. Provide more detail.

Cite sources: You need to cite your sources.

Cite text: You need to put in in-text citations.

Comments concerning research methods

Methods: Your methods section needs more development.

Methods unclear: The methods you used is unclear. This section needs to be developed more.

Data collection: You need to explain why you chose the cases that you chose. You want to say something that expresses your attempt to eliminate bias in the choosing of the cases.

Detail design: Your research design needs to be more detailed. How many people did you survey?

Detailed data collection: I would have liked to have seen a more detailed discussion of your data collection process. How did you collect the data? How did you do the survey? How did you recruit your subjects? When did you collect your data?

Subjects: Discussion of your research subjects need to be more developed – age range, gender distribution, Cuesta College students?, location (e.g., all live in California?).

Number surveyed: Include number of people surveyed.

Comments concerning your discussion of data

Ask more questions: You could have asked more questions. It would have improved your paper.

Ask open-ended questions: Asking open-ended questions could have improved your paper.

Detailed data discussion: I would have liked to have seen a more detailed discussion of your data. Go question by question, going over what you found for each question.

Comments concerning your analysis of data

More detailed analysis: I would have liked to have seen a more detailed analysis.

More complicated analysis: I would have liked to have seen a little more complicated analysis, that is, a more in-depth discussion of why you found what you found.

Miscellaneous comments

Name and class: You need to put your name and class you are in on your paper.

No conclusion: You need a concluding section.

No original research: This paper does not conform to the paper requirements.

No race or ethnicity component (for Race and Ethnic Relations class only): The paper does not have a race or ethnicity component, a requirement of this paper.

Not content analysis: This is not content analysis as discussed in class. Content analysis papers are no longer allowed without a preapproved proposal.

Proofread: Proofread your paper a little more carefully.

Title: You need a title for your paper.

Underdeveloped: This paper in general is somewhat underdeveloped.

Appendix: This section needs to be put in an appendix.

Research paper examples

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