1. Use APA Guidelines: APA Formatting & Style Guide
2. The components of your paper should include:
Purpose of Study
Justification for the Study
• Have you identified the specific research problem you wish to investigate?
• Have you indicated what you intend to do about this problem?
• Have you put forth an argument as to why this problem is worth of investigation?
• Have you made your assumptions explicit?
Research Questions or Hypothesis
• Have you asked the specific research question you wish to pursue?
• Do you have a hypothesis in mind? If so, have you expressed it?
• Do you intend to investigate a relationship? If so, have you indicated the variable you think may be related?
Definitions
• Have you defined all key terms clearly (and, if possible, operationally)?
Literature Review (your annotated bibliography already completed)
• Have you surveyed and described relevant studies related to the problem?
• Have you surveyed existing expert opinion on the problem?
• Have you summarized the existing state of opinion and research on the problem?
Procedures:
research design
sample
• Have you described your sampling plan?
• Have you described the relevant characteristics of your sample in detail?
• Have you identified the population to which the results of the study may legitimately be generalized?
instrumentation
• Have you described the instruments to be used?
• Have you indicated their relevance to the present study?
• Have you stated how you will check the reliability of scores obtained from all instruments?
• Have you stated how you will check the validity of scores obtained from all instruments?
procedural details
• Have you fully described the procedures to be followed in the study–what will be done, where, when, and how?

internal validity
• Have you discussed any feasible alternative explanations that might exist for the results of the study?
• Have you discussed how you will deal with these alternative explanations?

data analysis
• Have you described how you will organize the data you will collect?
• Have you described how you will analyze the data, including statistical procedures that will be used and why these procedures are appropriate?
Summary & Conclusions:
In this section, just reflect upon what you have learned, what you would need more information about to complete this study, possible issues that could arise, and what you would hope to accomplish by completing it. This is an added component just for your own reflection and for me to see how your thinking has changed from your initial proposal.