The topic for your research paper can be anything pertaining to border and coastal security. You get to chose the research question and hypothesis. No approval is needed…this is college and you will be treated as such. .

You are to prepare and submit your research paper in a Microsoft word document and submit as an attachment. Use proper APA for citations and format, which includes using Times New Roman, Font 12-double space and 1″ margins.  Your research paper should be 10-12 pages of content excluding your title page and reference page. A minimum of 10 outside references are required. Additionally, you are to include a title page, defined “abstract”, and reference page. Your research paper must be an original work and you cannot recycle a paper that you prepared and submitted to any other class (refer to your “student handbook” for the University plagiarism policy).  When you submit your research paper (word document) for grading, it will automatically be submitted to Turnitin.  Here is the specific format:

Cover Sheet (APA format)

Abstract

Introduction (Research Question and Hypothesis)

Literature Review (Note this is not an annotated bibliography but a Literature Review)

Methodology – don’t simply state qualitative methodology. 

Analysis & Findings

Conclusion and Recommendations

Notes:

Methodology : This section provides the reader with a description of how you carried out your qualitative research project, and the variables you identified and analyzed.  It describes any special considerations and defines any limitations and terms specific to this project, if necessary. This section can be brief or more complicated, depending on the project, written in a single page.  

Analysis and findings are not the same as conclusions. In the analysis component of this section you identify how you analyzed the data.  The second part is the finding you got from your analysis of the data. The findings are the facts that you developed, not your interpretation of the facts. That interpretation is conducted in the conclusions and recommendations section of the paper.  Findings will come from the prior research you examined and your analysis of those prior findings to create new findings for your paper. While there may be some facts that are such that they will stand and translate to your paper, the intent is to create new knowledge, so you will normally analyze the data to create your own findings of what facts that data represents. 

Conclusions and Recommendations is the section where you give your interpretation of the data. Here you tell the reader what the findings mean. Often the conclusions and recommendations sections will mirror the findings in construct as the researcher tells the reader what that researcher sees as the meaning of that data, their conclusions. Then, drawing on those conclusions, the researcher tells the reader what they believe needs to be done to solve/answer the research question. This section may include recognition of any needs for further research and then finishes with a traditional conclusion to the paper as a whole.

Remember, your paper should seek to answer a question that helps to solve the research question and validates or nulls your hypothesis