Instructions and Tips for Synthesizing the Introductory, Literature Review, and Methods Outline Sections

Along the way, even though you may have adhered very closely to the procedures outlined, it is inevitable that the focus of your research project drifted a little. This is normal. After all, when you first wrote your research question you were relatively uniformed about your research topic. During the literature review process you became informed of the controversies within your research topic. You might have even become more interested in a related topic. These happenstances may have caused you to rethink your research question. And, after learning about the advantages and disadvantages of the various research methods you might have discovered a better method than the one you originally planned.

So, your task now is to merge the assignments into a single document, which we will call a research proposal or prospectus. Here are a few tips for doing this.

• Write an introduction.
  • We did not have an introduction assignment, so this will be new material.
  • An introduction includes a statement of the issue, what the focus of research has been up until this point, a brief summary of what needs further investigation, and your research question.
  • Explain here is your study is explanatory, exploratory, descriptive, or evaluation. New material, refer to chapter 1: What are the different types of research?
• Literature review. Refer to assignment 3.
  • Make the necessary changes to assignment 4 and add it below your literature review
• Methodology section. Refer to assignments 5-8.
  • As you write the methods section, ‘tell the story’ of how you intend to conduct the research. Describe the steps the same way you might describe how you are planning to take a trip or vacation—progressing from one place to another. Try to avoid technical jargon to the extent possible.
  • Components to include:
    • Hypothesis: Refer to assignment 3.
    • What type of study you intend to conduct. New material, refer to chapter 4.
    • Variables: Refer to assignments 5&6.
      • Address any issues I commented on in those assignments.
      • Explain the IV and DV, and how they are conceptualized (defined) and how they are operationalized (measured).

• Sample: Refer to assignment 7.
• Design: Refer to assignment 8.
• Ethical issues: Refer assignment 8 and to chapter 3.
  • Think about any ethical issues involved in your study and include the following:
    • The potential for harm to the participants.
    • What type of privacy you’re offering (confidentiality or anonymity) and how.
    • How you will obtain consent.

What I am looking for:

• That you have the necessary components (Introduction, Literature Review, and Methodology) in your assignment.
  • Hint: title each section. It will help you stay organized.
• That citations are used when necessary.
  • You must cite whenever presenting information learned from another source.
  • All claims must be supported by a legitimate citation.
  • APA format
• The extent to which your introduction, literature review, and methods plan are congruent. (i.e. your literature review should be relevant to your research question and the methods plan should produce the data necessary to answer your research question).
• That your methodology section includes and properly explains all of the necessary parts:
  • Research Question
  • Hypothesis
  • How you defined and measured each variable (see assignment 5)
  • Sampling strategy (see assignment 7)
  • Design of your study / How you will collect your data (explain this in detail) (see assignment 8)
  • Any ethical considerations (see chapter 3)
• The readability and organization of your manuscript.
• Grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• This document should be no more than 3 pages in length. Bibliography is the 4th page.

• (IV) Sex: M/F Nominal, 2. (DV) Vehicle Vandalism: Slashing tires, Keying body, Breaking Windows. Nominal

Research Question: How often do females vandalize vehicles?

Hypothesis: The profiles of female offenders are different and reflect the nature of crime and potential to reoffend.

Sampling Strategy: The population that will be sampled are female offenders in bell county who have been charged with vandalism

Members of the sample will be selected based on sex and female offenders 35 years of age will be sampled. For this study, a systematic random sample will be used to select members from the population. Members will be chosen at regular intervals from the sampling frame. The number of the first member to be included in the sample will be chosen randomly.

Research method: surveys focused on women who have vandalized vehicles.

Annotated bibliographies

Chan, H. C., & Heide, K. M. (2009). Weapons used by juveniles and adult offenders in sexual homicides: An empirical analysis of 29 years of data. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 5 (3) 89-208. DOI: 10.1002/jip.87

The primary research question aimed to determine which killing methods juvenile and sexual offenders used to murder children, adults, adolescent, and elderly victims. The scholars collected details of 452 juveniles and 3393 adult sexual murderers from the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide Reports database dating from 1976 to 2004. The researchers sampled people convicted of murder and sexual offenses such as rape. The scholars grouped the murders weapons into four distinctive levels, which included personal, firearms, contact and edged weapons, and other weapons

Ching, H., Daffern, M., & Thomas, S. (2015). A comparison of offending trajectories in violent youth according to violence type. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 27 (1), 8-14. DOI: 10.1002/cbm.1969

The study is based on the widespread public concern regarding thrill-seeking violence, also known as appetitive violence among the youths. The researchers want to learn if appetitive violence indicates an offending trajectory. The hypothesis was that youths, who engage in appetitively violent index offense have a high probability of recidivism than juveniles, who commit nonappetitive index crimes.

Cuervo, K., Villanueva, L., Gonzalez, F., Carrion, C., & Busquets, P. (2015). Characteristics of young offenders depending on the type of crime. Psychosocial Intervention, 24 (1) 9-15. DOI 10.1016/j.psi.2014.11.003

Cuervo et al. (2015) explored the profile of juvenile offenders by the nature of crimes they commit, which is either against people or property. The common crimes against material goods included robbery, burglary, and forced entry. The research suggests that males commit property crimes, whereas females commit crimes against individuals.

Literature review

The profile of violent juvenile offenders according to the nature of committed crimes has been the focus of criminal justice researchers. According to Cuervo et al. (2015), the findings from their studies showed that while male juvenile offenders are more interested in property crimes than female offenders who are convicted for violence against people. The type of crime and socio-demographic of juvenile offenders has gained attention from researchers.

Meanwhile, several investigations into the profile of juvenile offenders revealed contradictions in the research

In spite of the contradictions in the literature on the demographics of juvenile offenders, the need to investigate the relationship between the nature of the crime and recidivism was recommended as an area of future studies. The researchers encouraged future investigators to examine the motivational factors for committing juvenile offense in the general population as another focus of future studies (Ching, Daffern, and Thomas, 2015). In the case of this research study, its purpose is to explore how the profile of juvenile offenders can be used to identify behavioral patterns used for developing interventions.

References

Chan, H. C., & Heide, K. M. (2009). Weapons used by juveniles and adult offenders in sexual homicides: An empirical analysis of 29 years of data. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 5, 189-208. DOI: 10.1002/jip.87

Ching, H., Daffern, M., & Thomas, S. (2015). A comparison of offending trajectories in violent youth according to violence type. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 27 (1), 8-14. DOI: 10.1002/cbm.1969

Cuervo, K., Villanueva, L., Gonzalez, F., Carrion, C., & Busquets, P. (2015). Characteristics of young offenders depending on the type of crime. Psychosocial Intervention, 24, 9-15. Doi 10.1016/j.psi.2014.11.003