Pre-Thesis

FINAL DRAFT OF PRE-THESIS RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Your final draft of your Pre-Thesis project is due in no later than midnight December 16

1. You must have a working title for your paper.

2. Incorporate all the notes I have made to you.

a. You should be sure that it is error free (a handful of errors will not be a disaster). If necessary, have someone read it for grammatical issues. What often helps is to read it aloud.

b. The paper must be plagiarism free. If there is plagiarism, you will receive F for this course.

c. Do not use quotation marks. You will lose major points if you use quotation marks but DO NOT including a page or paragraph number.

d. You want to be sure that your Lit Review is a MINIMUM of 11-15 pages.

3. The project MUST comply with APA and the research template format (25% of the points are allocated to APA, formatting and writing issues). You should be using the checklist I have provided. Please note the following

a. You do not need an abstract at this point.

b. You do not need a table or figure List.

c. You DO need a Table Of Content for the text – it must include a minimum of the first and second level headings.

d. You need page numbering done correctly.

e. You must have a reference list – you may have references that you have not used yet. (Note: you need to remove any references you did not use). The reference list must be done correctly with correct APA conventions. The bare minimum references required is 15.

f. APA style issues, citing, references, and layout are critical and are worth 25% of the total points. You can leave notes to yourself or me in the paper – but they should be a different color.

g. Chapter 2 should be full of citations – and citations should occur early in the paragraph

4. Each chapter must have an introduction – IT DOES NOT INCLUDE A HEADING.

a. Chapter 1 – the background in the introduction MUST set the stage for the problem statement and the rest of the chapter. It must be complete enough that when I read the problem statement I do no wonder where it came from.

b. Chapter 2 – the introduction section must restate your problem/purpose and you MUST include the literature that is covered in the chapter.

c. Chapter 3 – the introduction section must restate the problem again and you should give an overview of what will be in the chapter

5. I expect you to use the APA checklist. This will help you be sure that your APA is correct.

6. Remember, the final draft is worth 200 points. Note that this is the final draft and my grading will reflect that. While I graded the homework as drafts, you received feedback and should be able to produce a professional project. So if you don’t change a chapter, expect to receive a lower grade on the final draft than you did on the initial draft.