Start your assignment with an introductory paragraph about your research topic: Japan or Japanese foreign policy and why it is of interest and a research “puzzle”. End your paragraph with your research question.
While there are many ways to frame a research question, at the graduate level, your research questions should be 1) open-ended and start with “How,” “Why,” “What,” or “To what extent;” 2) should incorporate the variables you seek to assess and their relationship; and 3) should indicate how you intend to test the nature of that relationship. You want to make sure that your question has an appropriate amount of complexity so that it requires a significant amount of research and analysis. A simple Google search should not be able to answer your research question.
Unclear: How can the need for power be harmful?
Too simple: What is Hillary Clinton’s position on Obama Care?
Too simple: What is Hillary Clinton’s operational code?
Too broad: To what extent is Hillary Clinton different from Bill Clinton?
Appropriately Complex and Focused: To what extent is Hillary Clinton motivated by a need for power by comparison to Bill Clinton, and how might this impact access and control of information within the White House?
2. Next, provide a purpose statement that conveys your intentions about what you hope to produce. See the reference in your Lessons and review that it will usually be prefaced by some phrase like the following: “This paper examines . . .,” “The aim of this paper is to . . .,” or “The purpose of this essay is to . . .”. Remember that a purpose statement makes a promise to the reader about the development of the argument but does not preview the particular conclusions that the writer has drawn. Your purpose statement should demonstrate what you are hoping to find out, and also explain what you want your readers to understand (motivation or argument of the research).
3. You also need to include a preliminary design statement that identifies how you intend to carry out said research. This will allow you to get feedback early on from your thesis professor to help ensure that you are working towards the development of a solid research design. Your design statement needs to go beyond the unhelpful “this paper will use qualitative/quantitative/mixed methods research.” You need to be specific about the kind of data you will need to collect in order to answer your research question and note a specific method or set of methods you intend to use when carrying out this research.
4. Finally you will need to include a references page that contains at least 8 sources, 6 of which must be from peer-reviewed journals. These sources must be referenced within the body of your assignment. Please consult the Turabian Style Guide for the correct format for your citation. You may use either Turabian Bibliography format or Turabian References format. Just be consistent
