Goal

This week you will draft another section your mock research proposal, the current background.

Remember, posting early in the week can provide time for your instructor and student colleagues to provide feedback that you can use to refine your work before you submit it for an assignment grade.

Get Write Directions

Post your initial draft by the end of the day on Sunday and provide feedback to at least one student colleague by the end of the academic week (Tuesday by 11:59 PM). Your initial post must include APA formatted citations in the body of the post and full references at the bottom of the post to acknowledge the source(s) of your information so you can practice APA formatting.

Refer to the Get Write rubric in the course Syllabus for more specific information about requirements and grading standards.

Get Write Topic

This week the first few sections of your mock research proposal are due. Hopefully the feedback on the research problem section last week was helpful.

By Sunday this week provide a draft of your current background section. In Unit 3 you identified and critiqued the credibility of various background sources related to your research problem. In the current background section, you will summarize appropriate credible references in your own words (with appropriate citations in the body of the text) to provide a coherent picture of what is currently known about the research problem that could contribute to identifying a solution to the problem. You will not include the analysis of the reference; just the summary is needed.

For example, if you are doing a paper about obesity, you could summarize diets and exercise programs that have previously helped people lose weight. You may have also found information that suggested that one specific ethnic group has a higher rate of obesity and the cultural habits that might contribute to the high rate. If you are focusing on a specific disease you may have found suggested causes of the disease and potential ways to intervene to prevent the disease or relieve symptoms. Or you may have found life style changes to help reduce symptoms or cure the disease. The focus of the current background section is on potential solutions to your research problem that might ultimately lead to a specific hypothesis.

However, if you have a new research problem, you might not find anything that suggests a cause or solution that could be tested. You would summarize the limited information you found and identify the gaps in information that you could use to develop a refined research question.

Based on what you summarize, analyze whether or not you believe you can develop a hypothesis.

Finally identify your hypothesis or if there is no solution suggested by the current information, state a refined research question. Remember that a hypothesis is a statement that suggests a way to overcome the problem. A refined research question is best stated as a question, although that is not mandatory.

In your post, include: