Prepare a research summary describing the results of an original investigation using any of the data made available for this course. Organize your report consistent with the guidelines found in Appendix A in Babbie and Benaquito's Fundamentals of Social Research.

This assignment is the most important single piece of work you will do for the second term. It may build off of other research assignments you completed for this course or a new topic that you find interesting. 

Imagine once again a conversation with your boss and your boss’ manager. They were impressed with your first term paper, but have asked you whether there are multiple influences most useful in explaining the topic of your choice. In meeting with you, they made some unsubstantiated claims about the relationships you are researching. Once again, you have to put these claims to the test by clearly formulating and testing a hypothesis.

You should concentrate above all on the technical aspects of the paper while writing as if these managers have only the knowledge of statistics that one gets from POL242. Your priority should be the effective communication of your results, not the demonstration of your statistical virtuosity. These executives are very busy, and will only read your paper if the presentation is clear. Attract their attention by clearly stating your hypotheses and showing how your data bears directly upon them. Try to tell them a story that unfolds smoothly as one reads through the paper. Like the first paper you should double-check to make sure your tables are accurate and clearly and concisely communicate your analyses. You should strive to ensure that your data is fully analyzed and explain any possible shortcomings. Impress the executives by presenting clear conclusions that are grounded in the analyses and refer back to the hypotheses.

You may use any of the statistical techniques we have discussed in class. As appropriate, you may draw upon recommend reading to utilize more advanced methods. Be sure to provide sufficient detail on your operational definitions of concepts, your indices or other measures, as well as on your statistical analyses so that if the executives ask one of the company’s statistical experts to replicate your findings, they can easily do so after working from your paper. Some of these technical details may be relegated to an appendix. 

Beyond striving for a technically sound paper, you should also consider the literary merit of your work. This may require re-writing things as well as eliminating the unnecessary and moving the extraneous to a note or an appendix. The idea is to make your work a good read with a theme that engages the reader as well as communicating your best analyses.

Your boss's boss wants no more than 5 typed double-spaced pages plus tables.

Do something that would get you promoted to boss!

Assignments