Research Guidance

Overview of research effort:
ASIF was created to develop students’ ability to think. The process of writing the research paper is the vehicle for guiding thought applied to a specific business issue.

The Undergraduate Research Journal gives specific guidance for research papers:

The paper should not be a book review or a recitation of another authors’ opinion. Rather, the paper should present original ideas. This could involve insight obtained by conducting original research or could involve synthesizing sources in a new and unique way. … Either way, the author must offer some perspective or interpretation that is unique and that represents an original contribution to academic research.

Well written papers should connect the micro issue being discussed to some larger issue. Papers that do not offer insight into the relevance of the issue or connect the issue to something broader are not as effective as papers that do. Also, articles that are interesting or that relate to issues that appeal to a wide audience are scored higher.

Articles are expected to be comprehensible to all undergraduates in all disciplines and should be written with a well-read and generally educated audience in mind.

These requirements set the guidelines for the ASIF papers.

• The paper is limited to 15 pages, single spaced, using Times New Roman 12 point. The focus is thus on quality, not quantity. While 15 single-spaced pages may initially seem long, students find that space becomes a premium and that they must carefully edit to ensure that all of their points are included and supported.
• There must be a specific question that each group researches and a conclusion that each group makes concerning this question. The papers are not descriptive, so it is not enough to gather and summarize articles—there must be a major point that you are trying to make and an audience that you are attempting to win to that point of view. For example, your group may be evaluating whether the floating of the Chinese Yuan will be good for US investors in China. The group must gather and analyze information on this issue and craft a paper that comes up with a definite conclusion on this topic—a finding that this step will either help or hurt US investors.
• The writing must be a good mix of descriptive and analytical information. Your audience is not your supervising professors or necessarily other business students whom you can assume are familiar with the topic or business logic. You must provide a free-standing exposition that is accessible to non-business readers.
• Sources are important. Your argument must be able to stand up to external scrutiny and must be based on a firm foundation of information gathered.

Development of proposal: Each group must develop a research proposal. This consists of one or two paragraphs stating the specific question being addressed and the possible finding of the research. This is not a fixed statement and will likely be modified as the group’s research efforts progress. However, it gives the group and its supervising professor a coherent statement of what the group hopes to accomplish.

Conferences: The project is supported by several video and audio conferences. These conferences allow direct communication among the project participants and will aid in setting up the groups and in facilitating the detailed research efforts.

Course tasks: There are five important tasks that the groups must accomplish during the course of the semester. These tasks and their related deadlines are defined in the following document: Course tasks

Peer evaluations: The group members will participate in two peer evaluations. One, at mid semester, provides feedback on the group’s initial organizational and research efforts with the objective of making the group more effective. The second, final evaluation provides final feedback on the group’s efforts and input for the group member’s individual grades.