This is where you will submit your official prospectus for this class. Please follow the directions below:

Your prospectus must be at least 10 pages long (10 pages of full writing, NOT including works-cited/bibliography/reference pages, an optional appendix, or any blank space/page). It should be double-spaced, twelve point font, 1-inch margins. It must contain all of the following REQUIRED SECTIONS(note: each section should be clearly labeled wherever the section begins):

• Introduction (Background of Project and Intro to Research Question)
  • Describe in detail the background of the issue you’re examining, how you got interested in it, and your research question
• Literature Review
  • Your full, finalized mini lit review of the 5 sources (remember to do the full summary, critique, and application of each of your 5 sources to your research as you had previously done for your mini lit review before)
• Research Proposal Section: IMPACT ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY
  • Describe in detail your research question, your theory, your hypothesis and null hypothesis, the dependent variable (Y), the independent variable (X) of interest, and what confounding variables (Z’s) you will control for (and don’t forget to describe why you chose those particular set of confounding Z’s and what inspired you to come up with those confounding Z’s)
• Methodology Section (the majority of your prospectus)
  
  • This is where you will describe your whole methodology (your entire research plan) in vivid detail. The methodology section will make up the bulk of your prospectus. You will be graded on how extensive this section is, how creative you are in coming up with a very detailed plan that explains every step of your research process, and how much you incorporate and apply everything that you learned from class in this section. This section should address the following in vivid detail:
    
    • Are you going to be using experimental design or observational design or both, and if so, why are you choosing that particular research design? Why do you think that the particular research design you’ve chosen is appropriate/suitable for your specific research question, theory, and hypothesis?
    • Will you be using quantitative methods or qualitative methods or both (mixed methods), and if so, why are you choosing that particular research method? Why do you think that the particular research method you’ve chosen is appropriate/suitable for your specific research question, theory, and hypothesis?
    • Describe in detail where you will get your data
      • Will it be from existing datasets, records, transcripts, news articles, etc.? If so, describe from where you will get them, how you will get them, why you chose these particular datasets, and how these datasets are relevant to your research question, theory, and hypothesis
        • Describe the this existing data, the variables they cover, and which ones are the ones you will examine and why
      • Although existing datasets are good, you should also collect your own, brand-new data. Describe how you will go out to collect your own data (laboratory tests, surveys/questionnaires, interviews, observations in the field, etc.), from where will you get the data, from whom, and for how long? You need to describe in exhaustive and vivid detail as though you are making a comprehensive chronicle/journal of how you and your team will go out to collect the data. Be as descriptive as possible when discussing your…
        • Planned budget
        • Who your team will be and how many
        • Where you and your team will travel to to get your data
        • Your timeline (how long your research will take)
        • Your sample
          • How many people you want in your sample and why
          • How you will get your sample (detail the entire process of how you will recruit human subjects to participate in your research)
          • Describe in detail how you will protect your human subjects and uphold research ethics
            • Address things such as risk, harm, informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity, etc.
      • Describe in detail your research instruments
        • For example, if you are doing a survey questionnaire, please include it here (it should contain the directions that you created for the survey, your entire list of survey questions and answer choices, etc.)
      • Describe in detail your anticipated data analysis
        • OK, so you if you have your raw data, how will you analyze them to find relationships that will help to prove/disprove your theory and hypothesis?
          • Describe how you will create your dataset (spreadsheet), your codebook, how you will look for statistical relationships of statistical significance
            • For example, describe which variables you want to statistically analyze, how you will run OLS multivariate regressions (don’t forget to describe what it means first) on those variables, what types of coefficient/slopes (positive or negative) you hope to seefor each variable, and what kinds of p-values you hope to see for each variable, and what those readings that you hope to see will tell you about whether your theory and hypothesis are correct
      • Describe in detail any hurdles/challenges that you think you and your team will face and how you plan to overcome them

The most important thing is to provide as much detail and explanation as you possibly can. Your grade will be based on how detailed you are in explaining your project in all of the required sections of the prospectus, and how thorough you are in using (and applying) as many class concepts in each of the required sections. Explain everything and give every little detail about every possible thing that you plan to do for your project. Remember, this is just your proposal of what you plan to do for your project in the future, so you are free to be as imaginative/creative as you want.