Senior Seminar Guidelines for Proposal

p. 1 - Title page

p. 2 - Abstract (less than 150 words)

p. 3 - Begin body of the literature review

-Use subheadings to organize your literature review.

-Make sure there are NO basic grammatical errors. (Take particular care with incomplete and run-on sentences.)

-The literature review should be around 8 - 10 pages.

p. 13 (or so) - Research Design

Begin the description of your proposed research on a new page. Have a separate (labeled) section for each of the following:

a. Statement of the problem -- Here state what the specific point of the research is. What are you trying to prove? Be SURE that you very clearly and explicitly state your hypotheses. If there is more than one, put them in a list. For example: "I hypothesize that males will score higher than females on the Herzog Test of Musical Ability" or "I hypothesize that there will be a significant positive correlation on the MMPI Psychopathic Deviate Scale and the number of premarital sexual partners."

Also, in this section be sure that you clearly indicate your independent and dependent variables and how you are going to operationally define them.

b. Subjects - How many, how are you going to get them, how old, etc. Remember to be realistic about saying that you will use a random sample. It is almost impossible to get a truly random sample!

c. Materials - Indicate any surveys that you are going to use or equipment you will need.

d. Procedure - Very specifically indicate what you are going to have the subjects do or what you are going to do to them. If you are doing a study that involves correlations or experiments, be sure you have specified exactly what type of data you are going to be collecting and using in the analysis.

e. Data analysis. Indicate how you are going to analyze your data. Specify both the statistical test AND the variables that you are going to analyze. For example: "A t-test will be used to compare the Herzog Test of Musical Ability Scores of the male and female subjects." or "A Pearson Product Moment Correlation will be used to examine the relationship between the number of sexual partners of the subjects and their score on the MMPI Psychopathic Deviate Scale."

p. ? Reference section - APA style. You should have between 12 and 20 references. They should be reasonably up to date and normally should include both books (or chapters from books) and journal articles. Do not tell me at this point that you cannot find enough stuff. Do not rely too heavily on one or two references.

IRB forms

-Include the checklist and a copy of your informed consent form

-the informed consent form should give your name, something about the purpose of the study (this can be very brief -- "This is a study of how people perceive music."), the fact that the subject can withdraw at any time, and a statement that the subject freely agrees to be a participant.

Grading - This paper counts for a significant part of your grade. I will be looking for the following:

1. Writing - Is the writing style professional? Are there grammatical or spelling errors? (These will definitely hurt you.) If you have questions about your writing skills, I suggest that you make an appointment at the Writing Center in the library and have one of the grad students who work there look your paper over with you!

2. Comprehensiveness of the literature review and organization

3. Experimental design -

-Is the hypothesis clear and are the variables operationally defined?

-Is the design appropriate the research question?

-Are there missing control groups or uncontrolled variables?

4. Analysis - Are the statistics appropriate for the design (ex. a t-test for a design with two groups, an ANOVA if there are more than one independent variables, MANOVA if there is more than one dependent variable, etc.)?

6. References - Does it conform to APA style? Are references cited correctly BOTH in the text and in the reference section.

Other:

1. VERY IMPORTANT--

-Turn in two compete copies of your paper to me.

-Make sure that you have an extra personal copy.

2. Be SURE that you take the tutorial on the WCU Writing Center web page on plagiarism – this is a requirement. Plagiarism may result in failure of the course.

3. Use headings and subheadings to organize your literature review.

4. Remember to follow the principles of writing that we have worked on all semester when writing your paper (e.g., avoid direct quotes, no extra words, etc.)

5. Proposals should be profession written – no typos, spelling errors, reference errors, etc. Sloppy papers will not be accepted. As always, in your literature review avoid direct quotes unless necessary.

6. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. All sentences not in direct quotes must be written by you and in your own words. It is not sufficient to simply change a word or two taken from an article or book or from the Internet. I know how college students write and I know how professional writers write. A useful guideline is that when paraphrasing someone else's work, close the book and express the ideas in your own words. (You will still need to cite the reference.) The WCU Writing Center web page has an excellent discussion of plagiarism. Check it. Plagiarized papers will be handled according to the university academic honesty policy and may result in failure for this course.