This week we will be completing the introduction to your paper based on the research question you provided to me last month (I will check to make sure they match). You should have no less than five pages to complete these two sections of the research project. Please see the detailed instructions.
Introduction (one page)
Literature review (3-4pages)
What have other scholars written about your research topic? Cite at least 10 case studies.
Introduction Instructions
The first job of the introduction is to tell the reader what your topic is and why it’s interesting or important. This is generally accomplished with a strong opening hook. The hook is a striking opening sentence that clearly conveys the relevance of your topic. Think of an interesting fact or statistic, a strong statement, a question, or a brief anecdote that will get the reader wondering about your topic.
For a paper describing original research, you’ll instead provide an overview of the most relevant research that has already been conducted. This is a sort of miniature literature review—a sketch of the current state of research into your topic, boiled down to a few sentences.
This should be informed by genuine engagement with the literature. Your search can be less extensive than in a full literature review, but a clear sense of the relevant research is crucial to inform your own work.
The next step is to clarify how your own research fits in and what problem it addresses. In an empirical research paper, try to lead into the problem on the basis of your discussion of the literature.
Think in terms of these questions:
• What research gap is your work intended to fill?
• What limitations in previous work does it address?
• What contribution to knowledge does it make?
You can make the connection between your problem and the existing research using phrases like the following.
Phrase Connection Although x has been studied in detail, insufficient attention has been paid to y. You will address a previously overlooked aspect of your topic. The implications of x study deserve to be explored further. You will build on something suggested by a previous study, exploring it in greater depth. It is generally assumed that x. However, this paper suggests that y … You will depart from the consensus on your topic, establishing a new position.
The research question is the question you want to answer in an empirical research paper. Present your research question clearly and directly, with a minimum of discussion at this point.
The rest of the paper will be taken up with discussing and investigating this question; here you just need to express it. A research question can be framed either directly or indirectly. This study set out to answer the following question: What effects does daily use of Instagram have on the prevalence of body image issues among adolescent girls? We investigated the effects of daily Instagram use on the prevalence of body image issues among adolescent girls.
If your research involved testing hypotheses, these should be stated along with your research question. They are usually presented in the past tense, since the hypothesis will already have been tested by the time you are writing up your paper.
The final part of the introduction is often dedicated to a brief overview of the rest of the paper. In a paper structured using the standard scientific “introduction, methods, results, discussion” format, this isn’t always necessary. But if your paper is structured in a less predictable way, it’s important to describe the shape of it for the reader.
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Literature Review Instructions
A key step in summarizing a literature review is to summarize each primary source in a paragraph form using complete sentences.
The summary should include several pieces of information. Please use these as a guide to complete the summary of 10 articles for your research project.
- What is the articles full citation?
- What is the purpose of the article?
- What is the research question?
- Why is the research important?
- What gaps are being addressed with this research?
- What theory is used or tested?
- What sample was used? How was the sample obtained?
- How large was the sample?
- What are the characteristics of the sample?
- How was the data gathered?
- What years do the data cover?
- What are key definitions used?
- What type of analytic technique was used?
- What are the findings?
- What was concluded from the data analysis?
- What additional key themes emerged?
- Did the findings support the literature?
- Did the findings fail to support the literature?
- Are particular characteristics important to consider (race, gender age)?
Use JSTOR, Google Scholar, or the school library for your sources. The articles must be within the last 10 years. They must be scholarly articles. You must provide a copy of a full text article.