Write a short cover memo using standard memo format and address your proposal to your teacher. Summarize the key issues that you plan on researching for your final CMNS 1140 report and ask for permission to continue with this research. RESEARCH PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS Ensure that you address (answer) the following questions, and use these requirements as the basis for the headings of your proposal: 1. Identify the career area or field you will be exploring in you final paper for this course and describe the basic parameters (scope) that you will be researching. Use an extended definition to define the field. (Cite sources) 2. Describe some of the current issues that are part of your intended professional field. Are any of them controversial? What are the complexities? Etc. (Cite sources) 1. Identify a key international trend that is impacting or informing your prospective field. Define the trend what is it? What is its impact? Why is it important that you are aware of it now? What steps can you take to be prepared to leverage this international trend and make yourself more employable? (Cite sources) 4. Why do these issues interest you personally? (This is a personal statement, ergo, no citation required, and it is OK to use "I" in this section.) s. Introduce and list at least 8 questions about your field that you could potentially research in your final report. (No citation necessary for this section.) 6. From the above list, select at least two questions that you plan to address in your final paper, and list them in the order that you will structure them in your report. Ensure that these are all open-ended questions. For example: don't say Is sustainability important? Do say, Why is sustainability an important part of Marketing? (Explain WHY you chose those two questions. ("T" is OK in this section-No citation necessary) 7. Explain how each of these questions will benefit first year students in your field. Pretend that you would be presenting your report findings to these students at the end of the semester. Address the benefits to first year students for each question that you intend to research. (Some citation may be necessary, depending on the claims you make in this section.) Additional Assignment Requirements *. Integrate at least two visual elements (eg.. tables and figures) into your proposal. These visuals can occur anywhere in your research proposal, but one of them must relate to the International Trends section. a. Use at least three different sources of information: (try and interview a professional working in the field-primary source). 10. Attach a References page at the end of your proposal (Follow APA 7th edition guidelines.) 11. Write the cover memo, addressed to me, with a brief description of the proposal, and a request for permission to conduct further research. Your submission must follow APA guidelines throughout your assignment. BACKGROUND AND LEARNING CONTEXT This assignment is a natural extension of your previous Applied Communication learning opportunities. Throughout the course you developed a Message for a specific Audience, with a specific Purpose in a series of short, correspondence- based assignments, such as a letter or a memo. In this current assignment, you will be writing a short (three- to-four page) proposal to me, proposing your topic for the final assignment in CMNS 1140, the Career Research Report. We will apply the following critical communication skills and principles to research and write an INFORMATIVE, researched report. 1. APPLIED RESEARCH 2. CRITICAL THINKING 3. SYNTHESIS Collection, collation, and analysis of data from primary and secondary sources using appropriate referencing APA Review collected data and revise data so that it is appropriate to Context, Audience and Purpose Integration of text (facts, claims, statistics etc.) with visual elements, such as tables and figures to produce cohesive proposal The Research Proposal The research proposal is the first step in research report writing. It allows you to begin brainstorming and narrowing down your research topic, generate ideas relating to the research topic, structure the order of your ideas, frame boundaries for your research report, and formulate questions you may wish to consider when writing your paper. Consider the proposal as an exploration of your research interests, your initial ideas for exploration, your personal reasons for exploring this area, and an opportunity to identify the sources you will need to complete the report. While the proposal is not set is stone, since effective research necessarily implies a shifting of attitudes as you gather new information, it should give you (and the instructor) a clear idea of whether your research idea is feasible. Looking Ahead to the Final Project The purpose of this proposal is to help you formulate a research topic for your final research paper. For your final project for CMNS 1140, you will write a four-to-six-page report that evaluates or makes a claim about some aspect of your career interest(s) that you feel would be useful and interesting to first-year students in your field. This current assignment (Research Proposal) sets up the research that you will be doing for your final project. In short, you will be asking for permission to research a career that interests you. The career can be associated with your current major or it can be a profession you might pursue after you graduate. The goal is for you to learn about the potential career and make recommendations which first-year students can follow to ensure they are well positioned to enter that profession/career when they graduate. CHALLENGES The main challenge for this proposal is to define research parameters in the context of an Audience and Purpose, research and collate some useful and interesting facts (or claims), integrate the qualitative and quantitative data into visuals, and present this information concisely and precisely. LEARNING OBJECTIVES The key learning objectives include the following: -learning general research principles, with a focus on electronic (web-based) research -learning basic principles of gathering data from primary sources (e.g., by interviewing someone) -learning the basic principles of effective source documentation and citation styles, including when to paraphrase and when to quote. KPU's library and our Moodle site provide resources of APA citation styles. If you think you need more help with APA, please seek help from the Learning Centre and the KPU library. Click/download KPU's APA Guide to learn more about APA. SOME ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS DEVELOPING A LIST OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS The research for this assignment will focus on your current (academic) field or future (applied) fields. Generate or develop several questions about your field that pique your interest and curiosity. For example, if your field of study and intended career is Interior Design, you may want to address questions such as these: What is the average starting salary for a Registered Interior Designer in BC vs. the rest of Canada or the US? What kind of career potential lies in the field of Interior Design for the health care industry? Ensure that the questions you select are specific enough so that your research parameters will evolve naturally, and that you can present precise, focused and useful information. Ensure that your two research questions are complex enough so that the data you gather will give you the opportunity to integrate at least three visual elements (at least one table and one figure) into your report.