Research Essay

In each module of the course you will be given several potential topics for your Research Essay. Use the Discussion Forum to bounce ideas around and get feedback and suggestions from your course instructor and colleagues about a topic that interests you. Narrow the topic and do some research to find good resources. Submit your topic and resource list via the Dropbox to receive feedback from your course instructor (see Assignment Schedule for the due date). It is important that you abide by the deadline for this submission in order to have enough time for further research, writing, and editing.

Introduction

The goal of the essay is to provide you with the opportunity to investigate the current status of a particular issue within human decomposition. To that end, you are encouraged to select a topic from the provided list below and to write an essay on the current status of an issue in human decomposition based on the professional literature.

Essay Requirements

The essay will be a minimum of 1500 and a maximum of 2000 words of text (12-point font, double-spaced). This word count is exclusive of references and any ancillary materials, such as a table, you may wish to put into your essay.

The referencing style to be used is the APA style.

Your essay will have the following sections:

Introduction: this section introduces the reader to the topic that will subsequently be discussed. It should contain a definition of area within decomposition research as well as state the particular issue(s) surrounding the topic. As your essay is not very long, keep your statements on target. A statement as to the implications of these issues to estimating the postmortem interval should be explicitly cited.

Previous Studies: this section provides the reader with a background describing previous research studies that have contributed to the development of the methodology you are discussing. You should feel free to summarize large amounts of information into a tabular form providing the categories of studies or relevant differences along with the proper citation.

Discussion: this section, as the name suggests, is a discussion by you of the strengths and weaknesses of the previous work that has been done. It should emphasize the limitations of the method(s) and how they implicate the application of this method to real casework. This is an opportunity for you to provide case examples from your own experience or at least from your own thoughts as to how the methodology may be applied.

Future Studies: this section is your opportunity to suggest how the area of discussion may be improved. What sort of study would be needed in order to enhance the technique, or possibly yield some improvement? This is your opportunity to suggest research scenarios to address the issues that you have found from your reading of the literature. You must ask yourself if the research you are thinking of is ethical, pragmatic, or even possible. What are the limits of such research? This will give you an important insight into how research is designed and why limits exist in the first place.

Literature Cited: this is the final section of the paper. Note that it is a listing of all the literature that you have cited in your paper and not a bibliography of everything you have read. There is a difference. Only those papers that you are citing are to be listed here using the APA format mentioned above. Most students ask how many references are required. The answer is simple, as many as are needed for you to complete the task at hand. There is no ideal number of references. When you examine the professional literature (these are refereed journals such as the Journal of Forensic Sciences) you will see how professional papers are put together and how that work is cited. Furthermore, you will also see that the references they cite will be important for you to consider using in your own paper.

Standards and Grading

Plagiarism

What should you cite? If it has been a while since you have written an essay, it is important to remember that you are to cite the origin of concepts and ideas that are not of your own making. Furthermore, you need not try to cite things that are considered to be common knowledge, such as the fact that the Earth revolves around an axis once every 24 hours or so. However, if you were to state that there is new evidence of a more precise measurement of how long it take the Earth to revolve around its axis, then you would need to cite that source. If in doubt, just ask the course instructor for guidance.

Professional Literature

The professional literature, or scientific literature, or scientific sources, essentially means work that has been published in a refereed journal. Journals are publications by professional societies or organizations that have a specific field of interest. For example, the Journal of Forensic Sciences publishes papers that are relevant to research in areas that deal with forensic science. However, those papers may not actually be in the same scientific discipline. In that journal you may find papers from engineering, physical anthropology, medicine, dentistry, and other areas that may seem unrelated to one another. However, the tie that binds them together is that they all have a forensic application. Such journals have an editor, and an editorial board, along with many professionals who are qualified to read over the papers that have been submitted to the journal to check the science and integrity of the research. This means that each paper that is published has been subjected to a degree of scrutiny prior to publication. This process, although not perfect, is to assure the reader that the paper being read has met certain standards in order to be published in that particular journal. This allows the reader to have some confidence in the paper being described. However, that is not to say that the paper is beyond scrutiny. Scientific literature is always being scrutinized and examined. That is how the scientific method works. Ideas are being challenged and new ideas that may be better come into the discussion.

In essence, your essay is your contribution to the overall scientific discourse.

Grading of Essays

The essays will be graded on the following:

1. Punctuation, grammar, spelling, and staying within the word limit. (10 marks)
2. Are all ideas and concepts properly cited, and are they cited using the provided standard? (10 marks)
3. Is there a clear statement of the problem being examined? How it is phrased? Is it too vague or has it been appropriately narrowed? (10 marks)
4. Is there a demonstrated understanding of the background pertaining to the topic? Is your discussion logical? Does it make sense? Does it impart that you have a true understanding of the limitations of the issue(s) you have chosen to present? Are the Future Studies thoughtful or vague? (70 marks)