Essay, Drug and Crime Project

1) Have a meaningful and enticing paper title and an abstract. Write the abstract AFTER you have completed items 2-10, but place it right after your title, on the same page. An abstract is one paragraph that consists of no more than 250 words and includes: a) the problem and purpose(s) of your paper, b) a short description of why the topic is important, c) a brief summary of the info found/developed relative to the problem selected, and d) a guide for future research/policy/theoretical efforts. (put both on 1 page)

2) Describe and be clear as to what your selected problem is. The “problem” should be posed as an open-ended question that is short, simple, and covers the extent of the topic selected. Provide at least 3 reasons why the problem was chosen and is of value to the CJ discipline. Discuss the importance of the problem and describe how you went about selecting this problem over all others that you could have chosen. (1 page)

3) Describe how you searched for prior work to answer your problem identified in #2. Specify the key words, databases, and search engines that you used. Describe the inclusion or exclusion criteria you used to amass the 15 scholarly sources (20 for graduate students) that you cited throughout the paper. Only academic-peer-reviewed sources–no Wikipedia or lay sources count towards the sources’ quota. (half a page)

4) Explain the theoretical or conceptual framework guiding you or being built from your problem. Describe in detail at least three of your hypotheses. Make it clear why it is you expect/hypothesize these three things relative to your problem. Graduate students include a conceptual model—see the PowerPoint and handout for an example (1-2 pages)

5) Describe your findings from the literature review. Organize these results around the three hypotheses that you pose driven from your policy/perspective/theory selected. Each of the 15-20 scholarly sources must be cited in the body of the paper. (2-3 pages)

6) Make sure that the literature review summarizes multiple ideas on the problem selected and tells a compelling, well-organized story. These ideas should be diverse.

7) Make sure that the literature review includes both the “classics” and recent efforts.

8) Explain simply your results so that a nonexpert in the problem’s field could understand them; discuss the findings relative to the theory/policy brought forth. (half a page)

9) Provide at least three specific suggestions for further research, policy, or theory development on the problem. Be detailed in each of these three recommendations. Stating that more work needs to be done is not acceptable. (1 page)

10) Provide a “References” page(s) using American Psychological Association (APA) style.