For each journal entry, you will write 1 to 2 paragraphs about the topic listed. This should be a way for you to think through your own potential research interests and free write about what you might study and how.  Your responses and entries should be written with enough care that they are understandable and coherent, but they do not need to be as formal as a paper or exam. (The research I was thinking about  for the jounral entries is the criminal justice system)

Journal Entry 1: 

Write about the topic or area that interests you the most.  Think about if there is a specific cultural or ethnic group, age group, or gender within this topic that is of interest or if you are curious about differences between groups in any way. Does your topic include any underserved or marginalized populations?  Explain why you are interested in this topic and group.

Journal Entry 2: 

Find 3 or 4 abstracts from peer reviewed journals that provide some information on your topic. You don’t have to read the full article but read the abstracts and include them (copy/paste) in your journal entry. Summarize what you learned from the abstracts and explain if they have shifted your interests or helped you to narrow them in any way.  If they have confirmed what your interests were, you can say that too and explain how. 

Journal Entry 3: 

Describe what your independent and dependent variables would be in your study of interest. Think about the most important factors and what kinds of outcomes or things you are interested in seeing at the end of your research. Which variables or things do you think influence the others? Are there any things that you think might get in the way of that relationship? Do the abstracts you read provide any guidance? 

Journal Entry 4: 

Describe the people you would collect data from. Where would you find them? Who would they be? Do you need to find people within certain groups? What are some criteria that would be helpful in selecting your people? Would you have any comparison groups? Also think about whether you would collect data at one time or more than one time over the course of a month, a year, etc.  Explain why.

Journal Entry 5: 

Think about what questions you would ask the people in your study.  i.e., if you are interested in depression what kinds of questions would you ask?  Would you look for instruments or tools that had already been used or would you make up your own questions.  Would you use mainly closed ended scaled or yes/no questions or open-ended questions or some combination of both. Provide a couple of examples of questions you might ask. Briefly discuss what your reasoning is.

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