Students are to write a research paper on Sampling and Ethics in media, establishing a research objective or hypothesis and exploring it using the appropriate tools (content analysis) in order to draw conclusions that follow from their research.

Papers should have the following criteria (in order of importance):

• rigour and attention in pursuing the research objective or hypothesis on the chosen theme or topic and persuasiveness in drawing the conclusions (whether these are definitive or indeterminate) from their research;
• relevance, use, and explication of academic sources, that is, how judiciously they choose and faithfully they reconstruct the scholarly literature on the chosen theme or topic, demonstrating that they have undertaken a studied engagement of the course material and/or external scholarship through quotes, paraphrases, etc.;