Assignment 5

The purpose of this assignment is to test your ability to define a good research topic which you will also use for future assignments (Exploratory Research Document, Annotated Bibliography, Final Electronic Portfolio), compose research questions that will guide your information search, develop a research proposal, and perform preliminary research on your topic.

Research proposal:

Please read through the entire assignment before starting. Contact your instructor if you have questions or to report any problems.

Instructions

Use a topic assigned in another class or any topic of interest. If you can't think of your own topic, feel free to use one of the following:

• Online Social Networks
• Internet Crime
• Free Speech and Content Control on the Internet
• Computer Viruses and Worms
• Online Drug Sales
• Internet Security
• Phishing

Create a Word document that includes the following:

1. A statement of your broad topic to be researched. (2 or 3 descriptive sentences)
2. Write three (3) general questions about your topic that you might want your research to address. These may be the preliminary questions you tried out in the Web search and Library classes.
3. Develop your focused research topic by answering the following about your topic:
   1. Is there a specific person, group or subject that is the focus of your topic?
   2. What aspects or subtopics of your topic interest you?
   3. Do you want to focus on a specific geographic region or location?
   4. What time period do you want to cover on your topic?
   5. What statistical or quantitative data may help you examine your topic in depth? [Hint: "None" is not an acceptable response. "None" means your topic may need an adjustment.]
   6. Using your ideas from items b or c above, write a specific research topic that your project will answer.
4. List the major ideas (keywords or phrases) of your research question. If these ideas do not appear in your question, this is a warning signal-either these aren't really your major ideas, or your question doesn't directly address the ideas you believe are important.
5. Build a table to display at least 3 of your major ideas (keywords or phrases) and at least 2 or 3 different synonyms for each of these concepts.
6. Discuss the aims and objectives of the research, including:
   1. Why is this topic important to you? [Hint: If it isn't important to you , perhaps you should rethink your topic.]
   2. Who is the target audience for your final project? [Hint: "Everyone can read my project" is not an acceptable answer.]
   3. What aspects of the topic will be interesting and relevant to your audience?
      [Hint: "none" is not an acceptable answer]
   4. Are you making any assumptions about the results of your research? What are they?
   5. What type of data or statistics do you expect to use in your research?
7. Conclude by detailing how you broadened or narrowed your topic to come up with the final research statement. If you changed topics altogether, this is where you will explain that.
8. At the end of your document, create a time schedule (or timeline) for your project listing the components and their completion dates. This time schedule could be in the form of a table, a bulleted or numbered list, or any other format that clearly shows your plan. Use the assignment due dates from the syllabus for the dates your research proposal, ERD, annotated bibliography, and PowerPoint are due. For example, a possible format could be:

Here is an example of a completed research proposal.

As you conduct your information search to help develop your research proposal, you will complete and submit an Exploratory Research Document (ERD). This will help you focus on some specific aspect of the broader topic you have selected. Next week you will use information from the ERD to create and submit an annotated bibliography. Finally, you will use the information you have collected for your ERD and annotated bibliography in conjunction with Internet research to create an Electronic Portfolio with links to related online resources.

Your research proposal should be completed in the form of a Word or Rich Text Format document. Be sure to run a spell check and proof your work before submitting--points will be deducted for spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors. Once you have finished creating your research proposal, submit your file using the online drop box.

Grading Rubric