For this paper you will need to include information from at least three sources that meet the following criteria:
At least two (2) of your sources must be articles from peer-reviewed academic journals.
You may also use a book or a chapter from a book/edited volume as ONE of the three required sources, but you do not have to include a book.
At least one source must describe a theory or theoretical perspective relevant to your topic.
It may also include research or data analysis, but at least one source must provide some theoretical analysis that has been, or could be, applied to your topic.
At least one source must present and analyze empirical data relevant to your topic. It may also include theory, but at least one source must provide some research or data analysis relevant to your topic.
This may include sources:
o That conduct their own analysis of “secondary data”.
o That analyze original data not reported in previous publications.
o That conduct what is often called a “systematic review” or “meta-analysis” study where the authors analyze data across many different studies to try to summarize their results.
o NOTE:
Sources that simply review or summarize previously published research on a topic do not satisfy this criterion.
No more than one of your articles may itself be a “literature review” article. These articles provide a comprehensive summary and synthesis and/or critique of a particular body of research.
They are extremely helpful in getting a “lay of the land,” narrowing in on a specific research topic within a broader area, and contextualizing a particular issue.
They are not sufficient, however, for developing your analysis paper.
News articles, blog posts, and other non-academic sources may be used , but they do NOT count toward the three source minimum.
Structure of the Paper
The final paper should contain the following sections:
Introduction
Briefly describe what the paper is about in approximately 2 paragraphs, including a description of the topic/issue and why it is important within the field of juvenile delinquency.
Identify any theories, major research findings, and/or policies you will discuss in your paper, but you do not need to describe them in detail yet.
Literature Review
This will have two sub-sections:
Theory
Describe how different theoretical perspectives have been applied to analyze, understand, and/or solve your topic/issue.
Stay at a relatively general level and describe the variety of theories that have been used to study this topic.
Choose at least one key theoretical perspective that you think is most important to your topic, and then present the theory in terms of its:
o Context –
What assumptions are made about human nature, the law, and the basic causes of crime , and whether it is a micro or macro perspective.
o Theoretical model –
Identify the key concepts and the arguments that explain how these variables cause delinquency
Provide a diagram of the theory using the tools learned in this course.
Empirical Evidence
Summarize what we know about your topic based on the findings of past research.
Application
Describe the implications of the theory and research you reviewed how could or has this knowledge been used to understand and/or solve your topic/issue?
If the theory is true and the evidence correct, what would they lead us to do or change?
You should get into the details of exactly what parts of the theory are most important to the topic and give examples to illustrate.
Conclusions/Recommendations
In this section, you want to pull it all together.
Briefly review the main points of the previous sections.
Explain how the theoretical insights and the research findings you reviewed lead us to a given conclusion, a policy recommendation, or otherwise move us forward on the topic you have chosen.
This could involve proposing:
A new research project to investigate a new aspect of your topic that was not investigated in the literature you reviewed.
A modification, extension or adoption of a public policy to address the topic/issue you raised in your paper .
Make sure that you clearly articulate how the research project/direction or policy change you are advocating is connected to the theories and research findings you discussed in the prior section.
Discuss any barriers to the successful implementation of the research project or policy change and conclude by noting why this would be important to pursue.
References section/page
All sources must be acknowledged, whether you quote them or not.
You must include citations in the body of your paper whenever you base your ideas on something you read.
You must include a list of references at the end of your paper.
Both in-text citations and the references section should be formatted in either ASA
(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/1/)
or APA style
(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/).
You can use the tools in MS Word or other software to format your references.
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