Abstract
Type your abstract here. Typically 150-250 words. This should be a roadmap for what is covered in your paper. Give away the ending! You will likely write the abstract last since it should contain all key highlights of your thesis. Abstracts are double-spaced, and not indented.
Keywords: List some keywords for your senior thesis project.
We Need A Change
Starting here, your entire paper should be double-spaced. Do not add extra spaces between section headings and subheadings. One space between each is sufficient (standard double-spacing).
Also, just remember that the 2500 words do not include title pages, references, etc. Only the body of the text.
(Indented) Start with an introduction. This area introduces your paper, and also may be used to inform the reader your motivation for picking this topic. At the end of your introduction, you should state your research question that you are looking to answer through your paper/review of literature. The introduction will likely be 1-2 pages double spaced.
Literature Review [or “Background Information”]
The problem I am going to be addressing is about mass shootings taking place around the country and what needs to be done to stop this real-world issue.
Start with an introduction to your literature review. This area should tell the reader what they will read in the coming sub-sections. You should also provide a brief summary to introduce the major themes that were found in your literature review. Three to five themes will be just fine. The literature review should be at least 2-3 pages long.
Subheading – Theme 1 (not indented)
(Indented) Type your literature review about Theme 1 here. Make sure you cite your sources in-text and in your reference list.
Subheading – Theme 2
(Indented) Type your literature review about Theme 2 here. Make sure you cite your sources in-text and in your reference list.
Subheading – Theme 3
(Indented) Type your literature review about Theme 3 here. Make sure you cite your sources in-text and in your reference list.
Subheading – Theme 4
(Indented) Type your literature review about Theme 4 here. Make sure you cite your sources in-text and in your reference list.
Subheading – Theme 5
(Indented) Type your literature review about Theme 5 here. Make sure you cite your sources in-text and in your reference list.
Conclusion
Wrap up your literature review with a few sentences or a short paragraph to transition your paper into the next section. Bridge us between the background information and whatever section comes next.
Method
The study was conducted by interviewing and surveying 20 different types of people including college students, relatives, neighbors, and friends In the “Method” section, you should describe the details of how the study was conducted. You should provide the reader with enough information to be able to replicate your study. Details that are not important for replication should not be included (e.g., what type of pencils the participants used, etc.). The reader should also be able to evaluate the appropriateness of your methods for the hypothesis you made. Method sections may vary in the number of sections the authors include, but the most common sections are described below (you do not need to include all of them – select the ones that make sense for the work you are completing). The entire Method section should be written in past verb tense.
Whatever form this section takes, it will be ½ page to 1 page in length (not super long).
Participants
Describe who participated in your study. How many participants were in the study and how were they selected/recruited? In what way were the participants compensated for running in the study? Were any data sets deleted? If so, why were they deleted? Describe any demographics of the participants that important to the study. If you’ve conducted an experiment, indicate how many participants were assigned to each condition.
Design
The design may appear separately in a journal article or it may be combined with another section (e.g., Materials section). Either way, it is important to explain the design of the study. What variables were manipulated and/or measured? How were they manipulated/measured? If there are independent variables in the study, indicate the levels of each variable and whether each variable was manipulated within- or between-subjects.
Materials
Describe the materials used in the study. What were the stimuli? How were they developed? If appropriate, provide examples of the stimuli. Provide citations if the stimuli have been used in previous research. If there are questionnaires or surveys, describe them and relevant reliability and validity statistics.
Procedure
Describe the procedure of the study in chronological order. Explain what the participants did in the order they did them. Summarize the instructions. What tasks did they perform? In what order did they perform them? If different participants were exposed to different conditions, explain the differences in the conditions.
Other
If you are doing a project, your “Method” section may just be explaining the steps you did to complete your project (e.g., a rationale for your business plan or curriculum design, etc.). You can rename the “Method” section to anything that serves a logical purpose for your work. You just need to explain how you went about your process.
Results/Analysis/Presentation of Project (whatever you want to call it)
In your results section you should describe the analysis conducted on your data (e.g., surveys, interviews, textual analysis, policy comparison, etc.). Also report the outcome of the analyses (e.g., what did you learn?). Tables and figures may accompany your results section. Use tables or figures when they more clearly display results. Never include the same data in both a table and a figure. If using social media data, images, tables, etc. in your results and/or analysis section, here is how to format those properly.
You can include sub-headers as needed for this section. It should be 4-5 pages long.
For projects, this is where you would present what you created (e.g., curriculum, workshop series, etc.).
You should have in-text citations in this section to back up your claims (this goes for projects, as well). Never make a claim without a reference. You’ll be using both primary (data you collected) and secondary (research articles/books/etc.) sources in this section.
How to make a claim:
State your claim.
Provide evidence. (primary source)
Back up evidence with research. (secondary sources)
Solidify your connection.
Below is a TINY example from my own research on how to format social media data or any picture, hide personal information, and also to incorporate sources into your analysis—super simple! Keep in mind, this sample comes after all of the fancy words and terms were thoroughly explained and examined in previous sections.
EXAMPLE ANALYSIS
On Twitter and Facebook as SoE
In my next three examples, I look at small stories on Twitter and Facebook. Twitter and Facebook have many affordances which are used to link users together with many opportunities for co-tellership in storytelling (e.g., hashtags, comments, responsive uptake activities, and the ability to tag user accounts). Page (2018) discusses the shared story, a type of small story which can be amplified in the world of social media. People separated by space and time can all still participate in collective storytelling.
Figure 3.4. Tweet from @RoosterTeeth on Christmas Day 2017.
In Figure 3.4, you can see a Tweet from @RoosterTeeth, the official RT Twitter account. This Tweet was retweeted 261 times with 2,783 likes and 31 comments, which tells a shared story of its favorability with the community members on Twitter. This is fairly high interactivity, especially considering how this was done on a holiday when people spend time with relatives and loved ones. Liking is an interpersonal mediated action that creates a collective social identity for those engaging with the tweet (Page, 2018). Retweeting is also a way for users to make connections between participants (original poster, retweeter, and audiences liking and commenting) (Page, 2018).
The timing of the Tweet is also important. The Tweet was posted on Christmas Day, which is a statement of how community is something special enough to be acknowledged on the holiday, reinforcing the claims of “love” and “family” made in the Tweet. The use of “We are honored” is an ECF to emphasize and heighten the importance of how special the community is to RT, the production company. These elements build to the final line of “we love you” from RT to the community. The love being punctuated and emphasized by several emojis including a Christmas tree, rooster, and heart. Here, community is pictured as being about RT’s love for the community and for the community to love RT (through the retweets, comments, and likes). The pronoun “we” is used to create a personal touch (Gardelle & Sorlin, 2015) which also as high subjectivity as “we” could mean Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC., but each member is left room to imagine their favorite RT celebrities as being the collective “we.”
Discussion
The first part of your discussion should review the hypotheses/ideas/theoretical approach you stated in the introduction and you should state what you learned in your data analysis (or through creating something new if a project).
In the second part of the discussion section you should compare your results to past studies, particularly studies discussed in the introduction. If the results are not the same, discuss possible reasons for the difference.
Lastly, in your discussion section you should discuss the validity of your study. Were there any possible confounding variables that could have affected your results? If so, what were
The discussion section is less rigid than the other sections in format. You have more freedom here to discuss any relevant issues pertaining to your study. Be sure to end your Discussion section with a paragraph summarizing the contribution of your study.
This section should be about 1-2 pages in length.
Conclusion
In your conclusion, you should wrap everything up. What were the major takeaways? What are your thoughts for the future? What were the most important things you addressed here in this thesis? This should be ½ to 1 page in length.
References
Only include references that are properly cited in your paper. They should be listed in alphabetical order, and follow one of the prominent formatting mechanisms (APA, MLA, etc.). References are also double-spaced and use hanging indents for subsequent lines after the first line of each entry.
You need a total of 25 sources (15 peer reviewed and 10 credible).
Appendix
Not all of your thesis/projects will need an appendix. This is a space where you put things that would take up too much room in your paper or are here for reference. Examples of things that would end up in an Appendix:
Interview questions list
Survey questions list
CITI Certificate
One-page Student Researcher IRB paper signed by both student and professor
Copyright notices to indicate you are able to use items for anything you include that is copyrighted (such as a special graph or chart).
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