Start this assignment with an introduction about your research topic (cyber security) and why it is of interest and a research “puzzle” (about 1-2 pages). You want to guide your reader from your research area to your research topic, then on to your specific research question. Start with a “hook” that encourages the reader to keep reading. A hook can be an interesting or unusual event, a statistic, or some other information that shows the reader what piqued your interest about this topic. Write a paragraph about why you are writing on this topic. Include some facts and cite them properly.
Note: This will be the first draft of your introduction of the Week 8 paper, so be sure to write it in an academic voice (avoid first person and contractions) and include sources. Use parenthetical references according to APA style. Please also include a reference list.
While there are many ways to frame a research question, at the graduate level, your research questions should be 1) open-ended and start with “How,” “Why,” “What,” or “To what extent;” 2) should incorporate the variables you seek to assess and their relationship; and 3) should indicate how you intend to test the nature of that relationship. You want to make sure that your question has an appropriate amount of complexity so that it requires a significant amount of research and analysis. A simple Google search should not be able to answer your research question.
If you want to discuss how or why some phenomenon changed, Independent (IV) and Dependent DV) variables are appropriate. In your hypothesis, the independent variable makes a change to the dependent variable. Be specific and discuss ideas for how you might go about measuring the impact that the IV has on the DV. You need to focus in on one or two specific variables, otherwise your research will quickly spin out of control as you will not have the capacity to effectively address the relationship between all the variables.
Remember, when we include every possible variable, we are describing our phenomenon, but we are not explaining it; selecting the most impactful variables will help you show why or how the events you want to describe happened.
From here develop a hypothesis that reflects your educated guess as to the relationship between those variables. You may use an “if” “then” statement or you may formulate it as a narrative statement. This is an initial attempt at the hypothesis. Technically your hypothesis will not be in the introduction; it will follow your lit review in the final paper.
Hypothesis: A potential answer to the research question that is testable using qualitative or quantitative data; the hypothesis explains why something happened. When using independent and dependent variables, the hypothesis is a statement for how a change or condition in one or more independent variables cause(s) a change or condition in a dependent variable.
To recap what is needed in your submission for this assignment:
- Introduction to the overall paper due in week 8
- Research Question
- Explanatory variables; Dependent (DV) and Independent Variables (IV) – if applicable.
- Hypothesis
Technical Requirements
- Your paper must be at a minimum of 1-2 pages (the Title and Reference pages do not count towards the minimum limit).
- At least 2 peer reviewed or scholarly references should be used for this assignment.
- 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.
- All submissions will be graded using the assignment rubric.
