Presenting a Research Plan
SCENARIO: Your supervisor has approved your research question and plan for studying some aspect of diversity and/or collaboration in a community group. Now it is time to conduct your literature review and develop your hypothesis and research plan.
ASSIGNMENT: In Touchstone 1, you developed a research question and prepared a preliminary bibliography for your literature review. You will now conduct your literature review, formulate your hypothesis and research plan, and develop a set of notecards that summarize your work.
REQUIREMENTS: You must create 8-11 notecards using the touchstone template below. Your notecards will include:

introduction card
research question card
literature review (4–6 cards)
hypothesis card
operational definitions card (if needed)
research method card
Use the following Touchstone 3 template to create your note cards. When you have finished, submit this template.

A. Directions
Step 1: Revise Touchstone 1
First, return to the community group description, research question, and proposed bibliography that you submitted in Touchstone 1, and make any necessary changes based on feedback from the grader. You will likely want to refine your reading list based on the feedback you received and what you learned about diversity and collaboration in Unit 3.

Step 2: Conduct a Literature Review
Next, complete your reading for your literature review.

Reminder of attributes of good readings for your literature review:

They are academic, scholarly works about research findings or they are reliable journalistic reporting based on scientifically credible and reliable data.
They should have been published in the last 10 years—unless they are a landmark work on the topic and provide important background or as a comparison.
They look at different sides of the argument and a variety of perspectives.
As you complete each reading, take notes. Some of the questions you could ask about each reading include:

Who wrote this article? Is it the researchers themselves, or is it a journalist writing about their findings?
Where was it published? Is it a scholarly publication like an academic journal, or is it for a popular audience? If the publication is for a popular audience, how would you characterize the audience?
Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?
When was the research conducted?
What question were the researchers attempting to answer?
How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?
What methods did they use to study their question?
What conclusions did they draw from their results?
How do their conclusions impact my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?