Research Project (6-8 pages)
Each student must complete a research project (6-8 pages) this does not include title and or/bibliography page. Standard font and font size such as Time new roman 12.
The project consists of a preliminary outline and preliminary bibliography to be submitted July 3rd and a completed paper that is due July 11th. Although you can hand in a hard copy, it must be emailed to me in MS Word format.
A power point presentation of your paper will due via email and presented to the class on the last day of class July 18th.
Find a topic of interest. Select a public a topic from the Effective Public Manager text that interests you. This should give you a very broad area for topics.
If you need help selecting a topic, please get with me. Avoid issues that are solely political or that are primarily the concern of the private sector. The topic must be approved by the instructor and this should be done via email.
Find 4-6 recent peer-reviewed academic sources related to this topic. These sources should be directly related your topic. The textbook cannot be substituted as a source in place of a journal article. There should be a myriad of peer-reviewed articles and sources available in
the Barry library.
If possible make some reference to one of the Scholars presented in class or the one you presented.
For the completed paper
1) Introduction (no more than 30% of paper length)
a. Brief description of the issue
b. Explain why the issue is important from a public manager's perspective. This does not mean you should say "This is important to public manager because..." Instead, you should simply describe why the issue is important. Use an example from current events or your own experience to help illustrate this point.
2) Describe the findings from the academic literature and relate those findings back to your introduction.
a. What lessons from the academic literature can be applied to the issue you are researching?
3) Conclusion
a. Sum up your main points
b. Use references to back up your conclusions
4) References page
a. Use APA
b. Textbooks do not count as legitimate sources
c. You need 4-6 peer-reviewed public administration journal articles.
d. You may also use books to supplement your sources, but they cannot be substituted for the 4-6 journal articles.
e. References should be recent (within the last 5-7 years).
Make sure the work is original and your own and all papers will be checked for plagiarism.