Works Cited

Use the following site to check the format.OWL

Conclusion & Analysis

This section is where the major analysis and knowledge of your topic should come through.  Answer as many of the questions below as possible in order to judge the usefulness of your research, as well as draw conclusions about what you’ve learned. Include the basis you have for each conclusion. If you have posed a conceptual problem, what further considerations must now be addressed? What specific further research might now be undertaken? If you have posed a practical problem, what action should now be taken? If your research were to be continued, what direction would you take? What would you like to discover or develop? This section will be two or three paragraphs or about a page.

      Questions to Consider:

• What conclusions can you draw from this research? 
• What basis do you have for these conclusions?
• What gaps did the research uncover? 
• Are there things that were assumed that may be considered invalid? Are there things that maybe were not considered that you believe might have a different impact? What leads you to believe this? Why should it be considered? 
• If the research were continuing, where would you go next? 
• What would you like to discover or develop?

This section should be the most critical to reveal a new and better understanding of the topic you chose. Analysis is the key theme in this section. You must show that you have truly thought about your essential question, its usefulness, and its relevance. What did you learn through this process that you didn't know when you started?!

The final draft of your paper should be complete no later than Wednesday, May 2!

Section IV: Research and Findings

Research and Findings:

This section should include the components you used to find the answers to your questions/problems. You will discuss the actual answers to your questions. Did you find anything unexpected in the research? Which ones were you able to answer? Were there any questions you couldn’t answer? Lastly, you will discuss any contradictory research/sources. You should mention areas of contention for people who study this particular topic, as well as research disputes, contradictory evidence or claims, and uncertainties in the field. 

*Remember, being willing to discuss these contentious areas shows reliability on your part as a researcher. You are presenting research not a “report” on your topic. Demonstrate that you have truly thought about the usefulness and relevance of your essential question and your secondary questions. This will be your longest section – about two pages.

A hard copy of Sections III & IV is due by the end of class on Friday, April 20.

Section III: Rationale and Essential Question

You should discuss your background with this topic, why you chose it, what you hoped to learn and why. Also, you will discuss in detail your essential question and major secondary questions. How did you come up with them? Did some of them seem too difficult to answer? Also, discuss what you thought the answers to your questions might be. Originally, what did you expect to find out while doing this project? You should discuss these particular topics in detail. Do not treat this section as strictly question and answer. Expand on your answers with discussion. This section should be about a page. 

IMPORTANT: Be cautious of making assumptions. You should continually seek peer evaluation to eliminate these assumptions about what the reader knows regarding your topic. 

A hard copy of Sections II and III is due at the end of class on Friday, April 13. Refer to Blackboard for a student sample.

Section II: Review of Relevant Literature

This section involves reviewing the literature you researched for this project. What is the history behind your topic? What has been studied previously? This section will include your main discussion of the sources you researched. Discuss the main points addressed in each source you researched. Evaluate the relevance of each work to your research. These questions are starting points. Obviously, within this section you should expand on these questions to give a complete overview of the relevant literature. Also, because you’re reviewing the sources you have read and researched, your discussion will include in-text citations of those sources. Evaluate the reliability of your sources (how, why the source was reliable). The review of literature will be two to three paragraphs, which is about a page.

A hard copy of Sections II and III is due at the end of class on Friday, April 13. 

Section I: Introduction

Brief Introduction:
This section will include a very brief overview of what your topic is and how it relates to the community in today’s society. This introduction should only be a paragraph or two, 1/2 to one page. A sample is included below. Please look at our Blackboard site for the proper format. Refer to the Online Writing Lab (OWL) in the valuable resources post for proper formatting standards. The elements of the paper should be composed on Microsoft Word and saved on your h:drive. A hard copy of the introduction is due by the end of class on Thursday, April 5.

     Why can’t we look away from car accidents? Why can’t we turn off tragedies on the news? Why are we so obsessed with murder movies? As humans we are compelled, for better or worse, by the bad and evil in the world. A specific type of evil that fascinates us is serial killers. For centuries people have been intrigued with the work of serial killers, because we want to read about or watch something that is completely different from our everyday lives. Over the years, television shows and movies have escalated in both number and gruesomeness in the representation of serial killers. The depictions have gone to extremes and make serial killers seem alluring without touching base on reality. While some works like Criminal Minds and Se7en investigate the psychological aspect, some are stuck on the myths and scary features.

       Most people believe that serial killers are a new, burgeoning type of criminal and that’s what makes them so interesting. However, serial killers have been identified since the 1700’s. They were simply lumped together in the category of mass murderers. Myths gained prominence in the late 1800’s with the widely publicized unsolved murders of “Jack the Ripper.” However, the Hollywood movies and television shows that have gained popularity have perpetuated the myths of serial killers as dysfunctional loners, insane geniuses, and psychopaths. Although some of the myths may be true, not every distinction can be traced back to every killer. As I delved into this Capstone Project, I became more interested in the psychological aspects of early childhood and home-life experiences and the impact on killing motives. Throughout this paper, I am going to focus on these points along with exploring the mythology of serial killers.

    

Valuable Resources!

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

http://www.easybib.com/