The topic for your research paper is to be chosen from the list of topics below. If you prefer, please contact me to have a topic assigned to you; below is a list of potential topics:

Port Security, Port Facility Operations, Maritime Transportation System, Piracy (piracy on the high seas), Transnational Organized Crime, Drug Smuggling, Human Trafficking, Illegal Immigration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the United States Coast Guard. Please have your topic choice approved by me before proceeding (submit topic choice by the end of week 2 via MyCampus Email System”). Research paper due by end of week 5.

Here is the specific format:

Title Page (APA format)

Abstract (250 words, no quotes or paraphrases. This is your “elevator speech” of the research)

• Introduction (Research Question and Hypothesis)
• Literature Review (Note this is not an annotated bibliography but a Literature Review)
• Methodology – don’t simply state qualitative methodology.
• Analysis & Findings
• Conclusion and Recommendations
• Reference list 
• Literature Review: Include/highlight this section in your paper. A review of your list of sources.
• Methodology: Include/highlight this section provides the reader with a description of how you carried out your qualitative research project, and the variables you identified and analyzed.  It describes any special considerations and defines any limitations and terms specific to this project, if necessary. This section can be brief or more complicated, depending on the project, written in a single page. I want to see more than “I used qualitative methods”….what do you specifically mean? Did you use content analysis? Did you use Case Study? These questions are being asked NOW so that you are not surprised in other courses that require this to be included. Types of popular Methodologies include: (1) Case Study, (2) Content Analysis etc. 

Analysis and Findings: Include/highlight this section. They are not the same as conclusions. In the analysis component of this section you identify how you analyzed the data. The second part is the finding you got from your analysis of the data. The findings are the facts that you developed, not your interpretation of the facts. That interpretation is conducted in the conclusions and recommendations section of the paper. Findings will come from the prior research you examined and your analysis of those prior findings to create new findings for your paper. While there may be some facts that are such that they will stand and translate to your paper, the intent is to create new knowledge, so you will normally analyze the data to create your own findings of what facts that data represents. 

Conclusions and Recommendations: This is the section where you give your interpretation of the data. Here you tell the reader what the findings mean. A great approach is to think about how the reader will react to your conclusion. Often the conclusions and recommendations sections will mirror the findings in construct as the researcher tells the reader what that researcher sees as the meaning of that data, their conclusions. Then, drawing on those conclusions, the researcher tells the reader what they believe needs to be done to solve/answer the research question. This section may include recognition of any needs for further research and then finishes with a traditional conclusion to the paper as a whole.