HBCU Secondary Data Research
LENGTH: Between 5-7 pages double-spaced. This includes cover sheet, tables, charts, appendices or reference section. Do not exceed 7 pages. SOURCES: Minimum 8 (5 must be academic journals or scholarly books) Wikipedia and blogs cannot be used as sources. Use of blogs or Wikipedia will reduce your grade. FORMAT: 1” margins on top, bottom, and sides; 12-pt. Times New Roman or similar type.
2. It should provide a synthesis of information from a minimum of eight different sources. Five of the sources must be peer-reviewed academic and the remaining 3. I will review them for suitability and difficulty. I will suggest you choose a different topic if I think you have chosen something that is too difficult.
3. CONTENT: Your project should consist of a report using secondary data relating to your topic (i.e., Statistical data from peer-reviewed journal articles or books). Periodicals are not considered peer-reviewed journal articles.
SOURCES: Sources for this project may include books, journal articles, etc.
The databases most likely to provide journal articles that cover your topic are ABI-Inform and The Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, but the entirety of the Aladdin data base set may be helpful. Check out other databases, such as government documents, which may be available through the Bowie State University library since there may be other useful sources, depending on your topic. The library has many resources, including:
Web page on using the World Wide Web to find sources.
Web page with useful information on its resources.
Catalogue of all books available in the BSU library.
Make sure that if you cite only authoritative web sources. When evaluating websites to determine whether they are authoritative, try these credibility tests: