Pre proposal

Description

Prepare a 7- to 8-page maximum (title page, criteria page, worksheet page, and references

extra) pre-proposal for applied research in a criminal justice area of interest to you.
Students may further develop a previously completed research project, such as one
undertaken in an undergraduate or previous research methods course. The Pre-Proposal
should have a title page (CJ 705 Reader, p. 2), followed by the Pre-Proposal Worksheet
(p. 3), followed by the pre-proposal. The pre-proposal, itself, should contain four
sections: (a) a Background section in which you provide a brief introduction to the topic;
(b) an explanation of the Theoretical Framework from which the research problem
derives, including a brief review of at least five closely related scholarly sources; (c) a
statement of the exact Research Question, possibly including or substituting Hypotheses;
and (d) an explanation of the Methodology of how this research would be conducted.
Your pre-proposal will be evaluated on three criteria: (a) overall importance, degree of
difficulty, clarity, and feasibility of the research concept; (b) articulation of the
Theoretical Framework and Methodology; (c) prose style, grammar, punctuation,
adherence to APA, and appropriate usage and handling of sources. For this assignment,
you are encouraged to have friends or colleagues review it prior to submission.
Alternatively, students may submit and have accepted a proposal to present applied
criminal justice research findings or, in the case of an already accepted proposal, actually

Format:

MUST HAVE THE FOLLOWING:

(WITHOUT THESE, THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL/REPORT WILL BE

RETURNED FOR COMPLETION BEFORE READING):

______TITLE PAGE

______ABSTRACT

______TABLE OF CONTENTS (INCLUDING PAGE NUMBERS)

______CHAPTERS 1-5 (OR ALTERNATIVE APPROVED FORMAT)

______APPENDICES

______HUMAN SUBJECTS PROTECTION APPROVAL FORM

______REFERENCE LIST

CHECK FOR:

______ALL PAGES APPROPRIATELY NUMBERED FOLLOWING THE

ABSTRACT

______TITLE SAME IN ALL PLACES

______PAGE NUMBERS IN TABLE OF CONTENTS MATCH THE TEXT

______TABLES ON SEPARATE PAGES FOLLOWING FIRST MENTION IN TEXT

______DATE ON TITLE PAGES REFLECT THE GRADUATION DATE

______MARGINS—1 1/2 INCH LEFT; 1 INCH—TOP (1 INCH TO PAGE NUMBER),

RIGHT, AND BOTTOM

______REFERENCES IN APA FORMAT (OR ALTERNATIVE FORMAT)

______ HANGING INDENT (APA FIFTH ED.)

______ USE “&” NOT “AND”

______DESCRIPTIVE DATA IN TABLES—ONE DECIMAL POINT BEYOND

THAT OF THE RAW DATA

______GRAMMAR/PUNCTUATION

______USE .” NOT ”.

______ALL CITATION DATES MATCH REFERENCE LIST

______LAST NAMES ONLY IN TEXT

______REMEMBER:

Smith et al. (p. 45, 1996) said . . .

. . . (Dunn et al., 1981).

. . . (e.g., Guthrie, 1996).

. . . (as cited in Smith, 1996)

Please read :

The topic used in Pre-proposal worksheet needs to be refined and focus on one element of the training process, I think the average age for new recruits, or the average age of current police in for example : NYPD and London Police. Just focus on one topic,

Exclude using survey methods for this project due to the vast numbers of police between both agencies and the distance and focus more on available literature online

Unformatted Attachment Preview

The University of Tennessee at Martin
AN ASSESSMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY SATISFACTION WITH
THE POLICE CORPS PROGRAM
By
Karla McCary Pope
A Research Pre-Proposal
Submitted to Dr. Brian W. Donavant
of The University of Tennessee at Martin
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
CJ 705
Applied Research in Criminal Justice
February 10, 2023
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TITLE PAGE: 1” TOP & BOTTOM MARGIN
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COMMON RESEARCH PROBLEMS AND WEAKNESSES J.
1. The “Background” subsection of Chapter 1 is treated purely as a miniature literature review.
Instead, it should establish the background of your research by introducing how the problem or
need for the research evolved or developed. It is not just a listing of what other researchers
have said; rather, the other research is integrated with your discussion (interpretation, if you
wish) of the background of the research. 2. “Definitions” are not written in parallel structure or
are not in alphabetical order. 3. “Justification” fails to specify why the research needs to be
done. 4. “Justification” fails to specify who might benefit from the research and how. 5.
“Justification” fails to cite research which indicates that research on your subject is desirable
(where such research exists, of course). 6. Proposal or project does not adequately show how it
is related to your field. The “Background,” “Purpose,” and “Justification” are subsections where
the criminal justice, public relations, professional training, or other area “connection” can be
strengthened or emphasized. 7. The Literature Review chapter quotes directly without using
quotation marks, implying that the wording is the researcher’s own. This is plagiarism!
Alternatively, the lit review quotes too often, where summaries or paraphrases would be
preferable. 8. The Literature Review lacks an overall organizational structure. It often helps to
have subsections (with clear sub-headings) where previous research is divided and organized
thematically. Of course, the sub-sections must themselves have an overall thematic relationship.
9. The Literature Review lacks coherence from the discussion of one piece of research to the
next. Generally, more transitional devices showing the interrelatedness of the research are
needed. Otherwise, the lack of coherence makes the literature review read more like an
annotated bibliography. This chapter provides the greatest challenge from the point of view of
writing skills. 10. The Literature Review lacks a summary or discussion section which highlights
the major trends or findings of previous research. 15 11. The Literature Review fails to discuss
(usually in the summary or discussion section) how the previous research provides a context for
your research. Don’t let the Literature Review become a separate, somewhat unconnected,
entity. Connect it by showing how your research fills a research gap, fits in a research
continuum, or generally fits in the context of previous research. 12. The literature review does
not provide a theoretical framework in which your research fits. 13. The subjects of the study
are insufficient in number or are not representative. 14. The Procedures section of Chapter 3
does not provide adequate detail. This section should be detailed enough so that if someone
wanted to replicate your work, they could do so based on the information you provide in the
Procedures. 15. The scope of the study is so narrow that it has no applicability beyond those
subjects who took part. If the subject population is large enough and representative enough,
one should be able to make “educated” inferences about similar subjects. If your population is
from a single institution or agency, the design should be such that inferences could be made
about a similar population in a similar institution or agency. Some might argue that such
inferences would be inappropriate. Not so. That is the purpose of sampling: to allow you to
make some generalizations about the population of which the sample is representative. If you
could only make inferences about those who actually took part, then sampling would be
unnecessary, because you would not be saying (inferring) anything about those who did not
take part anyway. 16. The most salient findings are not sufficiently highlighted. This is
particularly true when there is a huge mass of data, involving an extremely long fourth chapter
and lots of tables. You and your reviewers, supervisor, or faculty mentor should have a serious
discussion as to the possibility of deleting some of the peripheral data, or at least organizing it
into a readable format. Some material could also be relegated to appendices. The emphasis
here should be on making sure that your main findings are not lost in the mass of datareporting. Discuss with your reviewers the appropriateness of placing a summary of major
findings at the end of Chapter 4 or the beginning of Chapter 5. It might also be desirable to
italicize and number the major findings. 17. The conclusions are simply re-wording of the
findings. Conclusions are the step beyond the findings. They explain the findings or interpret the
findings; they do not simply re-state the findings. They offer your best judgment as to why the
findings came out as they did, or what can be deduced from them. Being based on your
findings, they are empirically based; but they are still somewhat subjective and therefore
require thinking and judgment on your part. Quote from Adult Education Quarterly’s “Editorial
Policy”: “Conclusions and logical 16 inferences should be pertinent, clearly drawn and
convincingly supported by evidence.” 18. The conclusions and/or the recommendations are too
timid either in substance or number, or both. After all this research, you should be able to do
better than three or four non-committal, bland conclusions followed by similar
recommendations. If your recommendations are any good, somebody should probably feel
threatened! 19. The fifth chapter does not tie your research back to the literature. You should
show how your research relates to the research you reviewed in Chapter 2, and to do this you
will need to cite those studies closely connected to yours. You should also remind the reader of
the major theoretical works and show how your research fits with them. If you have avoided all
these, Congratulations!!!!
Defenses
1. Why are you proposing (or why did you use) the statistical procedure you have selected?
2. What databases did you use for your literature research? 3. What are the theoretical
underpinnings of your research? (Variation: What is the theoretical framework?) 4. What
are the three, four, or five primary conclusions (or trends or themes) from your literature
review? 5. How does (or will) your study contribute to the literature base? 6. Concisely,
what is your problem statement? 7. Why is the instrument(s) you have chosen the most
appropriate for this research, and what can you tell us about its prior usage, validity, and
reliability? 8. Based on your findings, what conclusions do you draw and what
recommendations would you make for improved practice? 9. Based on your findings,
what conclusions do you draw and what recommendations would you make for future
research? 10. Based on your findings, what conclusions do you draw and what
recommendations would you make for policy? 11. What have you learned about the
research process? 12. Knowing what you know now about the project, what if anything
would you change if you were to do it again? 13. Plus, a million possible questions about
specific statements you make, organizational choices, etc.
The purpose of the Pre-Proposal is to familiarize reviewers, supervisors, and other members of
academic or professional communities with an introductory overview of the research project
that a student intends to pursue in order for them to begin giving feedback for the purpose of
refining the student’s ideas at an early stage. In some cases, this may include an Institutional
Review Board (IRB). You will be required to submit a pre-proposal in this course. In general, as a
matter of protocol and courtesy, your research should not proceed until reviewers give you
permission to do so. Members may make suggestions which should be incorporated into the
formal proposal. The student must bear in mind that a favorable response to a pre-proposal is
tentative and non-binding; that is, the research topic is not officially approved until the formal
proposal is approved. Reviewers may still make major recommendations for change or may
disapprove the topic altogether, though submission of a pre-proposal should make that very
unlikely. The pre-proposal should have a title page, the Pre-Proposal Worksheet, a References
page at the end, and no more than 7-8 pages of narrative text to include these sections: 1.
Background This section should discuss in your own words the context or background of the
proposed research; essentially you are introducing your topic. You should include a few
comments about why this research needs to be done, and you should assume that your reader
is not familiar with the problem. 2. Theoretical Foundation(s) This section should provide an
explanation of the theoretical underpinning of the research problem. Every research idea has
some “genealogy,” some prior work and theory from which it derives. A theoretical foundation
is not synonymous with prior 5 literature, though the theory from which your research derives
obviously will have appeared in prior literature. The difference between a research report and
applied research is that in an applied project you are going beyond establishing some factual
information about a topic and instead extending the literature base and practical application. In
the field of criminal justice and its processes, such theories might include biological theories,
social conflict theory, rational choice theory, strain theory, learned behavior or environmental
theories, labeling theory, etc.; if you’re examining criminal justice organizations, your theoretical
basis might include bureaucratic theory, scientific management theory, behavioral management
theory, human relations theory, etc. You also might base your research upon peripheral areas.
For example, if you’re wanting to examine some aspect of criminal justice training, the field of
adult education could provide an excellent foundation and include such theories as stage and
phase developmental theories, andragogy, transformation theory, aging theories, learning
theories, etc. Most theory begins with some seminal work by an individual or individuals (of
course that work also has its genealogy), whether Baccaria, Blake and Mouton, Drucker,
Knowles, Skinner, Maslow, Lombroso, Locard, etc. This section could be the longest of the preproposal, it should articulate the theory from which the pre-proposal emerges, and it should
make reference to at least five sources to indicate that you have some knowledge of what has
already been done. 3. Research Question or Hypotheses The research question, also called the
research problem, could be as short as a single sentence. It should be a concise and clear
statement of what you perceive the research problem actually to be. This should follow
naturally from your Background and Theoretical Foundation discussions. By the word
“problem,” we do not mean the social problem—“How can we lower illiteracy?” or “how can we
reduce recidivism?” or “why this is a problem for the country,” but the research problem; and, it
should be stated in terms that are suitable for empirical investigation, such as “Is there a
relationship
between….” Major variables should be identified. Specific hypotheses may be given instead of
or in addition to a research problem. 4. Methodology This section should discuss, in as much
detail as possible at this point, what you feel would be a reasonable means of researching this
problem—in short, what you will do and how you will do it. Particular attention should be paid
(1) to the research subjects, including who they are, how they are to be selected, and how many
you expect to participate; (2) to your procedure for data collection (interview, questionnaire,
test, comparison of control and experimental groups, etc.); (3) to any research instruments you
are likely to use; and generally (4) to any other nuts-and-bolts matters—including potential
problems and how they might be dealt with—that you are aware of at this point. Of course, if
your reearch is biographical or historical, your procedures will be different. However, all
empirical research should involve some inferential statistics; purely descriptive studies (“how
many said or did this and how many said or did that, and the mean is….”) are not acceptable.
The act of preparing the pre-proposal should itself refine your idea and the method by which
you believe it can be carried out. It should also help organize your project at a very early stage,
thus providing a form of outline for the proposal itself. Obviously, it will also help your
respective reviewers immensely by giving them a reasonably clear idea of your project in its
incipient stage, and thereby allow them to provide better feedback which you can then
incorporate into the proposal itself. And if, of course, the reviewer(s) do not feel the project is
suitable or timely, it’s much better to find that out after writing only a pre-proposal than after
the full proposal itself. In short, the pre-proposal provides a background or context, a
theoretical framework, a concise statement of the research problem and/or possible
hypotheses, and as much of the methodology as you can give at this early point (it also provides
a great starting point for the executive summary for later dissemination of the research
findings). 7 Do be certain to make sure that the document, like all documents you submit, is
grammatically correct and that documentation of sources is accurate and in conformity with
APA guidelines. NOTE: Your pre-proposal and the instructor comments may be shared with
other faculty. ANOTHER NOTE: Based on previous pre-proposals, each of the following common
errors will be made by at least one person in the class—don’t let it be you! 1. Pages of the preproposal are not numbered. 2. Page numbers of quotations are not given. 3. Text has too many
short, choppy paragraphs. 4. References fail to distinguish between continuous pagination and
non-continuous pagination journals. 5. Too many non-scholarly references are used. 6. Research
questions are written in a merely descriptive way; how variables under investigation will be
measured is not clear. 7. The Theoretical Foundation does not provide the theory from which
the research derives but rather is treated strictly as a lit review of related studies. 8. The
document is not spell-checked.
PREPARATION: FINDING A SUITABLE TOPIC:
1. Look at other completed research. 2. Definitely read 3 or 4 issues of the major research
journal(s) in your field coverto-cover to get an idea of what kinds of research serious scholars
are doing and what methodologies they use. This should give you some ideas or may act as a
basis for comparing ideas you have which you feel are worthy of research. 3. Ask yourself: What
do I want to know that research could provide? 4. Ask yourself: Is this topic worthy of research?
Is it broad enough to be useful for your field or is it so narrow that it would be relevant to only a
single institution or organization? (This does not mean you are forbidden to base your research
on a single institution, such as one criminal justice organization; but your research should be
broad enough that your findings have implications for other like institutions.) In other words,
avoid a too-narrow focus, a common problem of many research projects. It helps to bear in
mind that a applied research represents professionallevel research on a topic of significance to
other professionals. It should advance knowledge, break new ground (albeit modestly), and
provide some previously unknown or unproven information useful to others in the field.
Remember also that good research is usually a first step in explaining or improving something,
or both. 5. Once you have answers to the questions “What do I want to know?” and “Is this
topic worthy of research?” you must now begin to construct a research design that will provide
a methodology for answering what you want to know. The key question here is “How do I go
about finding my answers? Questionnaire? Interview? An experiment, perhaps using a control
group? Some form of preand post-testing? Other means?” (These questions assume you are
doing an empirical study as opposed to a biography or history which depends more on library
and archival research as well as interviews with knowledgeable sources). Then you must ask
yourself, “Is it feasible considering my resources—time, money, and especially access to
research subjects and materials?” Finally ask, “Will it work—will the research design tell me
what I want to know?” If these answers are yes, you are ready to pursue your topic. If one or
both are no, you must seek out another way of finding your answers. If no substitute research
design or methodology can be found, you need to go back and ask, “What else would I like to
know?”
MUST HAVE THE FOLLOWING:
(WITHOUT THESE, THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL/REPORT WILL BE
RETURNED FOR COMPLETION BEFORE READING):
______TITLE PAGE
______ABSTRACT
______TABLE OF CONTENTS (INCLUDING PAGE NUMBERS)
______CHAPTERS 1-5 (OR ALTERNATIVE APPROVED FORMAT)
______APPENDICES
______HUMAN SUBJECTS PROTECTION APPROVAL FORM
______REFERENCE LIST
CHECK FOR:
______ALL PAGES APPROPRIATELY NUMBERED FOLLOWING THE
ABSTRACT
______TITLE SAME IN ALL PLACES
______PAGE NUMBERS IN TABLE OF CONTENTS MATCH THE TEXT
______TABLES ON SEPARATE PAGES FOLLOWING FIRST MENTION IN TEXT
______DATE ON TITLE PAGES REFLECT THE GRADUATION DATE
______MARGINS—1 1/2 INCH LEFT; 1 INCH—TOP (1 INCH TO PAGE NUMBER),
RIGHT, AND BOTTOM
______REFERENCES IN APA FORMAT (OR ALTERNATIVE FORMAT)
______ HANGING INDENT (APA FIFTH ED.)
______ USE “ &” NOT“AND”
______DESCRIPTIVE DATA IN TABLES—ONE DECIMAL POINT BEYOND
THAT OF THE RAW DATA
______GRAMMAR/PUNCTUATION
______USE .” NOT ”.
9 THE FULL PROPOSAL
Obviously then, a considerable degree of thinking should go into the research project before
you write the first sentence. It is also a very good idea to chat with other members of your
organization’s review committee or at least your supervisor to get their general response. The
more detail you can provide any actual or potential reviewers, the more feedback they can
provide. A rough, informal abstract might be particularly helpful. If you provide too little, the
more you run the risk of investing considerable effort into a project which might be unsuitable.
Close contact with your reviewers should prevent that. A green light at this stage, however, does
not completely insure the topic’s suitability. Only after a successful proposal defense is the topic
officially approved. For that reason, do not get ahead of the game by starting to collect your
data until after you receive official approval. The proposal of an empirical research project
generally is comprised of the first three sections or “chapters” or the full project.
Section/Chapter I — Introduction This section is rather easy to write, at least once your topic
and research question are in mind, because it is composed of several discrete components.
These are: A. Background. This section is likely to be the longest in the chapter (3-5 pages might
be a rough guideline). What you are doing here is discussing the context in which your research
will fit. You set up the background for your research and generally introduce the reader to the
problem by setting the stage and discussing any pertinent history. Assume that your reader is
not intimately knowledgeable about your subject. Think of this section as context, or “stage
setting.” B. Statement of the Problem. This section formulates the problem that you intend to
address in a succinct way. You might also include the variables applicable to the study. C.
Purpose of the Study. This section identifies your basic goal: What you intend to find out and
what you intend to do with the information, or at least what could be done. You may also have
sub-purposes or specific purposes as well. D. Hypotheses. This is a listing of the hypotheses you
expect your research to support or fail to support. E. Definitions. This is an alphabetized list of
any words or phrases central to the research, and especially any that you are using in a unique
way. Make sure the definitions are consistent in structure. For example don’t define X as “a
variable which . . . . etc.” and then define Y as “refers to the . . . etc.” Keep the pattern of the
definitions parallel in structure. 10 F. Delimitations. This section eliminates those areas of the
problem that will be beyond the scope of the study. It also specifies what is within the scope:
the variables addressed, the population used, the geographical restrictions, etc. It also itemizes
any inherent shortcomings of the research methodology. G. Assumptions. This section identifies
any significant things you are assuming but cannot prove. H. Justification. This section asks the
question “Why is this research worth doing and what can be done with it?” The Justification is
extremely important in that it lays the groundwork for the research. The focus should be in two
areas: citing other literature that recommends a study along the lines of yours; and a discussion
of who your research could benefit and especially how it might benefit them. This section is
often a stumbling block for students. Therefore, be prepared for such questions as “So what?”
or “Who cares?” by having a strong Justification. Section/Chapter II – – – Review of Literature The
Literature Review should be done after the general topic is in mind but before getting too far
down the road. The idea of a Literature Review is to provide a research context for the research
you plan to so. A search of the literature will tell you what has already been done, making you
more knowledgeable about your subject. It also may give you some ideas about how to refine
your own research. Pay particular attention to methodology, instruments, and conclusions. Your
search may even suggest a real gap or vacuum in the research area which you might decide to
fill, even if it means changing your original idea. Or it could show that your idea has already
been explored in depth by several others, thereby suggesting that you might need to come up
with a new angle or look for another topic. The literature review should include, at or very near
the beginning, a sub-section called Theoretical Foundation(s). This section is not so much a
discussion of empirical studies related to your topic but rather it provides the theory(ies) from
which the research question derives. In other words, what are the foundational ideas and their
proponents that your research builds upon? Your job is to synthesize the material in your
literature search into an organized and coherent literature review. The great challenge in this
chapter is to make the review into a readable whole with a thematic line of continuity running
throughout. You probably will have “sub-themes” as well, which probably should be labeled
with subheadings (especially true, the longer the lit review is). Generally, avoid including many
direct quotes in the lit review; instead, give a summary in your words of the main contribution
the reference makes. Some of your sources may contain only a single idea germane to your
topic, in which case, a summary of the whole article or book is certainly not needed.
Quantitative research should be in current APA style. 11 Be certain to use good transitional
devices when going from one reference to the next to add to the sense of continuity and
coherence. For example: 1. Another article. . . . 2. In the same vein. . . . 3. Contrary to Smith,
Jones noted… 4. Similarly. . . . Don’t overdo these, of course, but do be aware of the desirability
of showing the interconnectedness of the research. It is also usually desirable that you conclude
your lit review with a summary, or, better yet, a discussion of what the earlier research has
shown, and couple that with some indication of how your research will fit in with what has gone
before. Section/Chapter III – – -Methodology In the third and final section of the proposal, you
discuss the way in which you will conduct your research. This is a “technical” section. In this
chapter you specifically identify your research population, your methodological procedures,
(including, of course, how you will collect the data), statistical tests you will do on your data, the
instruments used, and the validation of the instrument used. If it is your own instrument, it is in
most cases highly desirable to do a pilot study in order to get the kinks out of the instrument
before submitting it to your subject population. Also remember that this chapter specifies what
you propose to do, so it should be written in the future tense. The first three sections or
chapters, then, coupled with the References and any instruments used, form the proposal to
conduct your research. Almost inevitably someone will recommend changes, and you should be
prepared to record any suggestions and incorporate them or articulate definitive reasons to the
contrary. Only when you have successfully navigated this process and completed these steps are
you officially approved to conduct your investigation. THE COMPLETED PROJECT After
incorporating whatever changes you and your reviewers found necessary in the first three
sections, and after you have collected your data, you are ready for the fourth section/chapter,
Findings. 12 Section/Chapter IV- – -Findings In the fourth section you report what you found.
This is a straightforward, empirical chapter, in which you do your statistical procedures and
reject or fail to reject your hypotheses. You will also design your tables, which should be placed
immediately after the narrative discussion which they summarize. This chapter asks: “What data
did the research design yield?” These data are your findings, which should be thought of as
empirical facts. For example: “The research found that the mean reading level of the junior
college freshman was 9.8, while for university freshman it was 10.7.” In this chapter “Analysis of
Data” refers only to the statistical analysis, not interpretation. You should treat each hypothesis
separately, giving all pertinent statistical information. If a statistically significant difference
between X and Y is found, be certain to indicate the direction of the difference, such as “the
scores of X were statistically significantly higher than Y.” Section/Chapter V – – – Discussion, or
Conclusions and Recommendations The two components of this chapter could be separated
into individual sections, but usually they form the fifth and final chapter. A good way to begin
the chapter, however, is with a brief summary of what has gone before, i.e., a brief “discussion.”
Some of your readers may be interested primarily in this chapter, and a summary is often very
helpful anyway. The section of this chapter dealing with conclusions asks the question, “What
inferences can be drawn from the data?”, and naturally flows from any discussion you provide. A
conclusion, then, is a judgment or interpretation based on the findings. For example: “The
relationship between formal educational level and online learning success seemingly indicates
police agencies employing officers with college degrees could use online training to realize the
greatest return on their traininginvestment dollar, while agencies employing primarily high
school graduates might better use more traditional in-person methods for training their
respective personnel.” Unlike findings, conclusions are arguable, and that is one reason this
chapter can be the most intellectually challenging. Conclusions require thought and logic–figuring out why the data came out as it did. A recommendation is one step beyond the
conclusion: It is a course of action suggested as necessary based on a conclusion. The
recommendations ask: “Based on the conclusions, what needs to be done?” Recommendations
enter the area of policy-making. For example: “Hiring preference for applicants with prior
military or police experience over those with a college degree should be re-examined and
perhaps modified.” You might even go a step further with specific recommendations as to how
they should be implemented: “A bachelor’s degree should become an employment requirement
for all 13 police applicants with this agency.” Or: “Police applicants with 5 years of full-time
police experience may be accepted for initial employment, but all promotional applicants must
possess a bachelor’s degree at the time of testing.” Recommendations also require a little
courage, since recommending change is likely to threaten someone. Another approach to this
chapter is to treat it as a discussion of your conclusions and recommendations. The focus is on
discussing and interpreting your findings. Be careful in this chapter not to treat it as a re-hash of
the findings; it’s about meaning, implications, and what might be done. Be certain to re-visit
your lit review; how does your work fit, confirm, or contradict previous research? Finally,
recommendations can be offered in the general areas of practice, future research, and policy. A
final note. . . . Please bear in mind that it is no reviewer’s, supervisor’s, nor faculty member’s
responsibility to be your grammarian. Any part of the research or proposal should be in
grammatically “clean” form when you submit it. All reviewers should be able to concentrate on
the content of your work, and anything to the contrary calls into question your professionalism,
attention to detail, and the overall quality of your work.

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