• Have a minimum 3.2 GPA in Communication (or minimum 3.0 with special permission from the department).

• Have taken at least 20 hours in communication plus Communication 280 & 290  

• Have taken at least one 300-level and preferably one 400-level Communication course

1. Topic Area and Research Question: State your topic area and research question as specifically as you can. What question or questions will your research project attempt to answer? Please be sure to formulate your question as a question rather than as a statement of what your research will be about.
2. Justification: Briefly explain why your question is worth writing about. Why is it important to you? Why should it be important to others? What will be gained by answering the question?
3. Theoretical Linkages: What theoretical perspectives, ideas, and questions will your project involve? What literatures do you expect to draw upon?
4. Method: Briefly describe how you will go about answering your question. What kinds of data will you gather and how will you gather it? What kind of analysis will you conduct?
5. Course Preparation: What courses have prepared you to do this research? List all courses that apply. Does the project derive in part from a seminar or class paper?

A Brief Comment on Method

When thinking about your research method, be sure to consider what kind of material or interactions you wish to study in relation to the kinds of questions you want to ask. For example, will you employ rhetorical analysis, participant observation, ethnography, etc.? Any method that you select to use should be driven by its fit to the questions of interest. Of course, all methods require your search for information combined with your motivation to investigate the particular communication topic. Some examples of potential methods include:

• *Qualitative Method (textual, ethnographic, etc.): Generally, this research relies on the researcher as the primary observer or data collector. For example, the researcher finds and analyzes primary sources, or for an ethnographic study is close to the context (or natural setting) for extended periods of time (e.g., days, weeks, months, etc.) in order to obtain in-depth experiences and insights of participants. Overall, inductive reasoning is utilized: familiarize oneself with research literature, determine purpose or problem, formalize the research questions (may be more broad than the quantitative), plan methods and procedures, gather data or evidence, analyze/interpret data, develop hypotheses in response to the interpreted data, develop theory, offer new questions (future research). Often research questions start with how or what (to explain, discover, seek to understand, explore a process of describe participants’ experiences).

• *Rhetorical Method: Like other methods of inquiry, rhetorical analysis seeks to apply rigor to the sustained investigation of communicative phenomena. Rhetorical examinations are typically guided by specific, insightful questions about the text(s)--spoken, written, or visual-- that is the object of examination. These questions usually will suggest to the rhetorical scholar an established or original rhetorical method through which answers may be developed. Such methodological approaches may include historical, close textual, postmodern, narrative, or genre, to identify just a few. At issue for the rhetorical critic, then, is the thorough examination of the intersection of text, audience, and context, and they ways in which these threads weave together public meanings and understandings of our culture's past, present, and future. Students interested in the rhetorical investigation of communication are encouraged to meet with an instructor to discuss in more detail the applicability of the methods named here to their proposed studies. Students might produce a major body of original written work that individually or collectively addresses one or more particular audiences. Such projects would demand a body of work offering proof of experience and creative skill, along with a letter of faculty supervisory commitment to the project.

• *Quantitative Method: Generally, this research relies on numerical measurement. When using observation, the researcher uses some agreed-upon coding format (or pre-existing tool) to record observations that are then quantified. Methods of data collection might include, for example, surveys, questionnaires, and/or lab experiments. Overall, deductive reasoning is utilized: familiarize oneself with research literature, determine purpose or problem, select appropriate theory(ies), formalize the research questions/hypotheses, plan methods and procedures, gather data or evidence, analyze/interpret data, report, offer new questions (future research). Research questions ask about relationships, effects, and differences. Ethnographic research may also be presented in documentary format where evidence of reflexivity and aesthetic theoretical linkages are made in the proposal and accompany the work produced. Such a project would demand a body of work offering proof of experience and creative skill, along with a letter of faculty supervisory commitment to the project.