About my business law class

1

RESEARCH PAPER PROJECT: GENERAL GUIDELINES AND SOURCES

M. Brown

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Research paper with a maximum length of 6 pages (not including works cited page (required);

any appendices (not required); and/or cover page (not required)).

Consists of four parts: 1) completion of LMC (academic research) Tutorial (10 points) 2)

topic proposal (20 points) 3) Written Presentation (50 points) and 4) Final Draft of the completed

paper (50 points).

For additional details, please refer to the information below, as well as other course documents.

GENERAL FORMAT

Name, class, and date must appear at the top of the first page of the document.

APA format for all bibliographic information, including: 1) Part IV of your Presentation

assignment (not in Parts I-III, where references are not required) 2) in-text citations in the final

draft only and 3) the Works Cited page of your final draft. APA format is not required in any

other way(s) in your submission (e.g., margins; cover page, if any; etc.).

The Final Draft requires a minimum of 10 in-text citations in APA format (example:

“(Hofstadter, 2015)” (please be sure to look for examples of in-text citations in APA format

within a paper on google).

Please also make sure that you know that the Final Draft is an actual research paper, not just an

update of the Written Presentation).

Double-spaced, 12 point font.

White paper; no color or designs.

¾ to 1” margins on all sides.

Minimal, if any, use of direct quotations. If you find a direct quotation worth using, such as

George Washington advocating the use of hemp, put it in. If you find a line of poetry that

says something in such a profound manner that you cannot possibly replicate either the

words or the spirit, put it in. Unless your situation is along these lines, though, do not use

direct quotations; I want to see what you say, not what your source does. Paraphrase; do

not quote directly unless absolutely necessary. Overuse of direct quotations may result in

one or more of the following: 1) high score on Vericite, leading to a) issues pertaining to

academic dishonesty b) a 0 grade on the assignment and/or requirement to redo the

assignment, subject to all policies pertaining to late submissions 2) rejection of the

assignment without opportunity for makeup and 3) reduction in grade on the assignment,

even in the absence of any of the other, foregoing penalties.

There must be a “Works Cited” page that lists every source to which you have cited in your

paper. The format and style for all citations in your Works Cited page must conform to APA

citation style. Students are responsible for researching and applying the APA citation style on

their own, including via using available online tutors, tutorials, the on-campus writing center,

and/or other resources; the instructor will not provide samples. Please note that a “works cited”

page is different from a bibliography (a “works cited” page lists only the works you have actually

used; in contrast, a bibliography lists anything and everything that you have looked at, regardless

of whether you actually used it).

Separate paragraphs for each, separate idea. Indent each new paragraph without extra spaces in

between paragraphs.

Introductory paragraph and conclusion paragraph.

The introductory paragraph must contain a clear, concise thesis statement. It must also provide a

specific indication of what arguments you are going to make in the rest of the paper.

Topic sentences (first sentence in each paragraph of the paper) must tie into and support the

thesis.

Strict adherence to grammar and to other rules pertaining to writing skills. If you have problems

with writing skills, the time to fix them is before you turn in your paper.

You must submit the final draft of the Research Paper Project by the applicable deadline to the

Research Paper assignment submission link.

SOURCES

You must complete the LMC Tutorial (10 points) in order to familiarize yourself with the

variety and quality of different types of sources. After completing the tutorial, you must print the

proof of completion page and email it to the instructor by the deadline on the syllabus.

There must be a minimum of 10 in-text citations. As a general rule, every single time you are

inspired by an idea from something you have read or seen, you must cite to it.

The citation format for both 1) in-text citations and 2) the works cited page needs to be in APA.

Samples of APA formatting for citations are available from a wide range of sources on the web,

and it is the student’s responsibility to learn about and apply them in this assignment.

For the Written Presentation, there must not be no more than three internet sources; there is no

limit on any other type of non-internet/non-web-based source. For the final written paper at the

end of the quarter, there must not be no more than five internet sources; there is no limit on any

other type of non-internet/non-web-based source. Note: a citation to a book, etc. appearing on

the internet counts as a web site citation; it does not count as a citation to a book, etc. within the

meaning of this paragraph. A book, newspaper article, etc. that appears in print but which you

have accessed via the internet will be counted as an internet source; if it comes from the student

sitting in front of their computer, then it is an internet source, period. Please note that one goal of

this assignment is to get students to physically enter and do research in a real library; this cannot

be accomplished by doing all research sitting in front of a computer.

Limiting research to sources on the internet will necessarily limit your access to information,

limit your ability to do precise research on your specific topic, and severely hamper the depth of

thought and sophistication in your analyses, leading almost invariably to simplistic and shallow

ideas and arguments. Not only will you directly lose points for not abiding by these (or any other

course instructions), but your research and writing based exclusively on internet sources will

reflect shallow, incomplete, and often-inaccurate information published by sources that have

little, if any, understanding of the legal system, especially on controversial topics like gun rights,

abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, and gender issues. Please consider this seriously:

I have been grading papers for twenty years, and even if the shallowness or a source is not

evident to you, it is immediately visible to me, and it will affect your grade in a big way.

The range of possible types of sources include, but are not limited to, the following:

Internet/web-based sources

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Book (including books at the Circulation Desk on Library Reserves at the Bellevue

College Library specifically for BUS 201 students)

Scholarly/academic journal article (example: Harvard Law Review)

Popular journal/magazine (example: Time)

Newspaper

Newsletter

Interview

CD Rom

DVD

Letters

Government documents

Statute

Theses

Dissertations

Hearings

Committee meeting minutes

Practice manuals

Causes of Action

Case reporters

Please keep in mind that the guidelines here on sources represent the minimum requirements.

There is a vast difference between research that just barely satisfies the minimum and research

that goes beyond the minimum. The final grade depends on a wide range of factors, but an “A”

paper will never come out of “C-” research. In other words, the quality of your sources and the

skill with which you use them will affect the quality of the paper and, of course, the grade. In

general, excessive reliance on internet sources is the number one factor behind poor quality

research and superficial analyses of your topic in the finished paper (and, of course, the overall

quality of the paper).