For your final assignment, you will write an analytical research paper on how the federal government can safeguard the public from the threat of bioterrorism without restricting civil liberties.
For this assignment, you are essentially doing the first three elements of your research paper outlined below.
Title Page of the Paper: The title of your paper should be brief but should adequately inform the reader of your general topic and the specific focus of your research. Keywords relating to parameters, population, and other specifics are useful. Do not use your research question as the title of the paper. The Title Page must include the title, name, course name and number, date, and Professor’s Name.
Introduction, Research Question, and Hypothesis: This section shall provide an overview of the topic that you are writing about, a concise synopsis of the issues, and why the topic presents a “puzzle” that prompts your research questions, which you will include. This section will be 1-2 pages. End your introduction with your research question and hypothesis. If you struggle with writing hypotheses, then use the “If……then….” formula. Example, “If the United States fails to address vulnerabilities in the rail system then the frequency of security incidents will increase.” A corresponding research question could be: Why has the United States failed to adequately protect the rail system?
Review of the Literature: All research projects include a literature review to set out for the reader what knowledge exists on the subject under study and helps the researcher develop the research strategy to use in the study. A good literature review is a thoughtful study of what has been written, a summary of the arguments that exist (whether you agree with them or not), arranged thematically. At the end of the summary, there should still be gaps in the literature that you intend to fill with your research. It is written in narrative format and can be from 4-6 pages depending on the scope and length of the paper. A literature review is comprised exclusively, or nearly so, of peer reviewed articles as that is where original research of scholars is published.
As a literature review, this section should identify the common themes and theories that the prior research identified. In this section, what you do is look at the conclusions of prior research and identify what the common themes are you see in those conclusions. You then identify those themes. The APUS online library has some helpful information on writing a literature review. Using the example above, you should approach your literature review from the perspective of “what have other researchers found on the failure of the U.S. to protect the rail systems?” You are telling your reader about the literature on your topic and not presenting any results of your research. Do not write an annotated bibliography. Your best approach is to identify four or five themes that you wish to address in your paper. Then, use those themes as secondary headings. Discuss, in an integrated fashion, several articles that address each of those themes. Lit reviews are customarily comprised exclusively, or nearly so, of peer reviewed articles.
Technical Requirements
- Your paper must be at a minimum of 5-9 pages (the Title and Reference pages do not count towards the minimum requirement).
- Scholarly sources should be used for the lit review. At least 6 peer reviewed articles are required for the lit review.
- Scholarly sources include peer reviewed articles, government publications, and academic texts.
- Type in Times New Roman, 12 point, and double space.
- Students will follow the current APA Style as the sole citation and reference style used in written work submitted as part of coursework.
- Points will be deducted for the use of Wikipedia or encyclopedic type sources. It is highly advised to utilize books, peer-reviewed journals, articles, archived documents, etc.
- All submissions will be graded using the assignment rubric.
