Mary Jackson Pitts, Ph.D.

mpitts@astate.edu

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Paper development:

Library research

20 abstracts due October 5^th

Should be type written and complete.

Abstracts will likely be more than one page long.

Outline for final paper.

1A)    Title page….   Follow APA

2A)            Abstract…..     Brief 150 words or less abstract about paper

Paper begins

1)            Introductory statements about topic… two to five paragraphs setting the stage to present your statement of problem.

          Statement of Problem………Paragraph or two which must contain information about the purpose of your research.  IE  The purpose of this study is to examine agenda setting to provide an explanation of  the process that local television stations use to develop their coverage of national and international news.

          Justification…  Must address the revenue aspects of this industry problem.  Must discuss in detail the reasons why this type of theory building is import to society.  Will need citations which identify sources which provide revenue info, census info, effects of previous research.  The theory that perhaps you are reworking or rethinking and developing.   What makes this study worthy of attention.

2)             Previous research--Set the stage for the focus of your paper.  IE if talking about advertising you need to give a history of advertising.  

          Theoretical Framework  --  designed to help the reader understand the  importance of the theory or theories that you are using to develop your own theory.   You must address every aspect of the theory that you plan to borrow from.   All empirical research should be addressed in this area as related to the topic at hand.  Studies that have been used to test these theories should appear in your paper.

You must also address items such as current events, technology, economics impact  and the like on the phenomena that you are trying to explain.

3)       Your theory---At this point you are about to jump into your own theory building.    Identify what aspects of the underlying theory you plan to borrow from to explain your theory.  What implications exist for the phenomena using this theory?   At this point you may develop a model to explain your theory as it relates to a given phenomenon.

4)            Conclusions----  You may outline a variety of  scenarios that play out using the theory that you have built.   These implications may come in the form of action items or bullet item that advance your theory to the phenomena you have described.