Research

HSTM 3353 Research Paper Guidelines

Introduction:

These guidelines are intended to provide you direction in writing your research papers. They are not exhaustive, but merely provide guidance in your writing. There will be some specifics on here, but by and large, I cannot tell you how to write your paper; that is your job. You are expected to write a research paper that does not merely summarize a topic but instead critically analyzes a topic and offers a discussion based upon previous research findings as well as your own opinion injected into the paper. You will be expected to offer critical analysis and thinking to your topic, not just talk and talk for pages and pages.

Timeline:

· Topics for the research paper must be approved. Students who have not had a topic approved will lose one letter grade on their research paper.

· To gain approval for a topic, please complete the Topic Approval Assignment under the Assignments tab in the course.

· Rough drafts for the research paper are due prior to the final paper submission. See the Research Paper Draft Assignment under the Assignments tab.

· Final versions for the research paper are due by the specified date in the Course Schedule. Late papers will NOT be accepted!

Topic and Cases:

This is a legal issues in sport management class. I have left it up to you to choose a topic of interest. You need to make sure you have chosen a topic that is neither too broad (e.g., Drugs and Sports) nor too narrow (e.g., a topic with no case law). You need to have researched your topic before you decide upon it. It will be difficult for you to write a paper on a sport law topic for which you cannot find any cases. You can find case law pertaining to a topic from a variety of sources:

· Your textbook cites numerous cases. These case citations are included in the book and can be used to pull the cases themselves off of LexisNexis. You will not, however, be able to pick a topic your book covers and only use those cases cited in the chapter. This paper requires that you do some actual research.

· You can search on the LexisNexis database by subject using keywords. It takes a bit of practice, but it can be done.

· You may use the Troy Libraries homepage to search in a variety of databases for law journal articles on a particular topic, such as drug testing. Then, while reading those articles for your topic, you will read about cited cases in those articles. You will need to use journal articles in your paper.

Format:

· You are expected to produce your papers with Microsoft Word, using 12-point Times New Roman font and double-spacing, except on your References page.

· You are expected to use APA 6th edition formatting throughout your paper. If you are not familiar with this formatting, you need to either purchase an APA manual (Amazon is a good, cheap place), check out a manual from a library, or use a variety of online resources dedicated to APA formatting:

· http://www.apastyle.org/ (look at the Tutorials here)

· http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

· http://www.vanguard.edu/faculty/ddegelman/index.aspx?doc_id=796

· http://www.liu.edu/CWIS/CWP/library/workshop/citapa.htm

· The formatting must be throughout the paper, including References. You will lose points for failing to use proper APA formatting.

· Your paper needs to be a minimum of 6 pages and a maximum of 8 pages. The Title Page and References do not count in this number. Make sure you are not filling your paper with “fluff” just to get the pages required.

· I will be using Turnitin for these papers. Turnitin is a plagiarism-detection service that compares students’ papers to sources such as magazines and books, other student papers turned in to courses across the country, and the Internet (e.g., websites, etc.). If you plagiarize, it will result in an automatic zero on the paper and a possible F in the course and expulsion from the program. Please do not plagiarize.

· You also cannot use a paper you did for another course in this course or vice versa. Papers and assignments need to represent original work in each course you take.

Outline:

The basic outline of your paper should be as follows:

1. Title Page

a. Tell me your title, class, and date.

2. Introduction

a. Introduce the subject of your paper. It may help to mention recent developments in the issue/subject.

b. The Introduction should feed into your next section.

3. Statement of Problem/Issue

a. Tell me why this is an important issue.

b. Have other studied this before? If so, why is it important to do further research? If not, how is the issue important?!

4. Literature Review

a. This will be the bulk of your paper.

b. You are reviewing and summarizing the literature/cases on your given topic.

c. Talk about other research in this area. What have other scholars found?

5. Discussion

a. This is where your opinion starts to come into play. Don’t just tell me that Title IX needs to be done away with, tell me why that is a reasoned stance and support it with research.

6. Conclusion

a. The ending to your paper. Don’t overlook this. It needs to tie everything together.

7. References

a. Need to be in APA format

b. You must include at least 2 peer-reviewed sources (e.g., journal articles), a sufficient number of cases ( at least 2 ) and at least 4 other sources (cases, other articles, books, etc.). DO NOT plan on writing most of your paper off of website information or Sports Illustrated articles.

c. WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A SOURCE!!!

d. As this is a sport law course, you need to have a substantial part of your reference list be cases you have researched and pulled off of Lexis-Nexis

e. Your book cannot count toward your source total, but you can use it as a source.

f. Make sure to follow proper formatting!

i. EXAMPLE:

Baker, T. A., Connaughton, D. P., Zhang, J. J., & Spengler, J. O. (2007). Perceived risk of terrorism and related risk management practices of NCAA Division IA football stadium managers. Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, 13(2), 145-179.

**Plagiarism:

Please read this section very carefully. Plagiarism is the unauthorized use of another’s words or thoughts without attribution. It can take many forms, and students are oftentimes confused by it. When writing your papers, take note of the following guidelines:

· Your main job in these papers (and other papers in your SFM courses) is to take a lot of researched articles and incorporate them into your paper, while discussing the topic you have chosen. This means that the vast majority of what you are writing is coming from somewhere else and not your own ideas and thoughts. As such, it must be cited. Any sentence you write in your paper that contains information from a source needs to be cited as such. You need to paraphrase content (not copy) and cite to it with an appropriate internal citation, such as (Carroll, 2016).

· DO NOT COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR PAPER!!! LET ME REPEAT – DO NOT COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR PAPER!! It is NEVER appropriate to copy a section and paste it into your paper, even if you go into that material and add a word here or there or make changes. It is still plagiarism. Even if you cite to the sourcve, word for word material is still plagiarized content. Do not do it!

· Do not excessively quote in your papers, even if you cite to the material. ONLY quote when there is a reason to do so. YOUR PAPERS ARE LIMITED TO A MAXIMUM OF 5 QUOTATIONS!! DO NOT EXCEED THIS LIMIT.

· *** YOU MAY NOT USE A PAPER IN THIS COURSE THAT YOU HAVE USED IN ANOTHER COURSE. THERE IS NO “DOUBLE-DIPPING” IN GRADUATE SCHOOL, EVEN IF YOU WROTE THE PAPER. IT IS CONSIDERED “SELF-PLAGIARISM.” If you want to write on the same topic for this course as another in this program, contact me (or the instructor of the course) to discuss and clear it prior. Again, DO NOT take a paper you wrote in another course (e.g., Ethics, Intro to SFM) and “tailor” it to this course. You will be caught, and you will receive a zero.

· For more information on Plagiarism and how to avoid it, see Troy Libraries’ Jay Brandes’ guide here:

http://trojan.troy.edu/library/assets/documents/pdf/plagiarism_student_guide.pdf

Grading:

This is really where you get the least amount of information. Grading is a tricky thing. I can tell you that you will lose points for failing to follow proper formatting guidelines. You will also lose points for spelling and/or grammatical errors. You have spell-check, so there are no excuses for these things.

These papers will be graded very tough, as they represent 15% of your grade in this course. I am expecting to receive polished work from you, not rough drafts, so you need to have gone through significant revisions before turning them in to me. Use your peers – exchange papers and revise each other’s work. I cannot tell you how long you should spend on this assignment, but taking into account the time it will take to research the topic, read the requisite articles and cases, write the paper, and revise it to a sufficient point, I would say that you should plan to spend a minimum of 20-25 hours on this assignment. I cannot stress this enough; if you turn in something that was written the night before, you will most likely receive an F on it.