BA 7070 Research Paper

Research Paper

Each student will write a research paper in the course. The final paper will run from 5 to approximately 8 pages long, double spaced. The paper is written with the Turabian (sometimes called Chicago) citation style, using footnotes -- not endnotes, and not parethetical references -- and will include a cover page and a references (i.e., bibliography) page. The cover page and the references page do not count toward the minimum 5 page requirement.

Step One: Student Proposal of Five Possible Issue Questions

Topic.

To find potential topics, peruse the textbook, including the index in the back. The journals listed below are also an excellent resource for ideas. Students who work might also ask around at their place of employment for ideas.

Submission of Proposed Issue Questions. Each issue question will be submitted in the form of a carefully constructed, full and complete question. The components of each proposed issue question will follow this format:

Opening construct: "What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on. . ."

This opening construct calls upon the student to identify the exact point at which something ought not be done, both from the standpoint of ethical theory and, separately, from the standpoint of legal parameters.

Topic, such as, for example:

not hiring or promoting a pregnant women, or a woman thought to be (or -- as in the case of a newly married wooman -- expected to soon be) pregnant

Context: describe the for-profit or not-for-profit organization affected by the legal and ethical limitations (such as automobile manufacturers, health care organizations, etc.), or the individual affected (such as employees of multinational corporations).
Closing Construct: Epistemology. Include "and how are those limitations or restrictions determined."

This closing construct calls upon the student to provide a solid and precise theoretical framework for the ethical and legal claim(s) that arise from the student's analysis.

Example: "What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on the raiding of employees by former co-workers or other business associates, despite non-compete clauses and the heavy use of contract workers in fields such as IT and MIS, by high-tech companies in the U.S., and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?"

Note that the full question is written out completely. Each of the student's five proposed issue questions should be written out completely in this manner.

Here are some more examples:

What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on marketing, distributing, and selling products, which are banned in the U.S., to foreign counties and its citizens and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal limitations or restrictions on companies requiring a health screening or reviewing prior health records of a potential job candidate before offering employment to an individual, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on corporate information disclosures by employees to outside companies, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal limitations or restrictions on US companies that use grease payments to influence business in the transportation/logistics industry and the effect on business decisions based on these payments and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal limitations or restrictions on research companies performing safety test on animals and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on hiring two or more of the same family members into an organization, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?”
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal limitations or restrictions on the decisions by American automotive companies to disband or reduce the once-guaranteed pensions and benefits for its older and retired workforce, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal limitations or restrictions on the firing of professionals and managerial employees who are found to display unprofessional behavior while communicating outside of work on the internet (e.g., on blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Second Life, etc.), and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on hiring and employing undocumented immigrants in the service industry, knowing that their purported documentation is false, and how are those limitations and restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on non-entertainment companies hiring practices based largely on physical appearances, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on allowing and encouraging nepotism in a non-public, family owned business and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations on not hiring or promoting a pregnant woman (or a woman who is likely to become pregnant) at a large corporation in the US and how are these limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on advertisements for alcoholic products, and on the images portrayed in such advertisements (especially in regard to ads targeted toward adolescents) and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on e-commerce or brick-and-mortar businesses collecting information on their customers/clients with and without their knowledge and using that information for different reasons and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on housing wild animals, or animals owned by kennel or animal hotel customers, in order to use them for testing on food products and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on the use of company owned equipment and or services for personal reasons (specifically web internet/ company vehicle / company plane, etc. ), and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on violent media produced by corporations, specifically music videos and computer games, and should there be any internal regulation by the corporation with regards to the societal impact on such products, and if so how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations restrictions on firing professionals and managerial employees who are found to display unprofessional behavior by while communicating outside of work on the internet (eg blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Ect.) and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on misleading marketing techniques when no untruthful material claim has been made about the physical product in fields such as telemarketing or door to door sales, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on utilizing temporary workers in an essentially long-term capacity by cycling temporary workers though long-term assignments, as a means to avoid paying benefits or of preventing membership in a labor union, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and separately, the legal, limitations or restrictions on the decision by a pharmaceutical corporation to run a chemical plant -- that is banned in the U.S due to environmental restrictions -- in a foreign country knowing, the long term effect of harmf toward the environment, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?
What are the ethical, and seperately, the legal, limitations or restrcitions on employee break policies in regard to the amount of time spent on break, as compared to the amount of hours worked, for smokers versus non-smokers of the same work status, and how are those limitations or restrictions determined?

Five Questions, Ranked in Order of Preference.

Step Two: Student's Receipt of Assigned Topic

Assign one of the five issue questions as submitted; or
Assign one of the five issue questions as edited by Prof. Spalding; or
Require the student to try again with five new issue questions. This can happen when:

All of the issues submitted have already been assigned to other students on a first-come first-assigned basis; or
The student did not properly submit five issue questions constructed in the manner carefully described above.

Reasons for non-selection of proposed issue questions proposed by students include:

The question is too broad, and would require a doctoral-level of research; or
The question is too "legal" and does not contain a significant ethical component; or
The question is easily answered by reference to the text or other secondary materials, and would not lead to a good research experience (or a good research paper grade).

Step Three: Research

An Interview with a Responsible Business Person. As part of the student's research for the paper, the student shall identify a manager, entrepreneur, accountant, or other business person who faces (or has dealt with, or is responsible for dealing with) the student's issue. The student submit, as a confidential Digital DropBox assignment, the name of the individual, the individual's title or role in the business organization, the name and address of the business organization, and at least five questions that the student proposes to ask the individual, on the dates indicated on the Schedule of Assignments.

The interviewee should be a person with responsibilities. expertise or experiences that have some connection to the student's issue.

A spouse or employee of the student will not qualify.

A professor or instructor will not qualify.

Someone who works for the student, or otherwise reports to or is accountable to the student in the workplace, will not qualify.

This requirement is intended to allow the student to demonstrate his or her resourcefulness. Resourcefulness is not demonstrated by simply asking other professors or students for names of prospective interviewees. Students who are unable to "network" their way to a person whose responsibilities or expertise include the student's issue, often make "cold calls" to companies until they are able to speak to someone with some responsibilities or expertise that include the student's issue.

The name and identifying information is submitted on the Digital DropBox as required in the Schedule of Assignments, but if the interviewee requests or requires anonymity, the interviewee is not actualy identified in the paper or on the Discussion Board.

Each of the five questions should directly address some aspect or facet of the student's issue.

Plan to use the Turabian (sometimes called Chicago) citation style for citing unpublished interviews, to cite your interview in both your footnotes and your bibliography.

A Law Review Article. The student should read and make specific reference to at least one article from a law review. Law review articles are available at the Arthur Neef Law Library, and are also available online from the Law databases at Wayne State University Libraries. When "All" law databases are taken into account, many additional law reviews are included.

Note: If an article is comprised of fewer than twelve pages, or has fewer than 40 footnotes, it is not a law review article. For example, articles from publications designated as "Law Reviews" in the Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe or the Index to Legal Periodicals qualify as law review articles unless they have fewer than twelve pages, or fewer than 40 footnotes.
Generally speaking, articles included in the Hein Online collection qualify as law review articles.

A Feature Article from a Business Periodical. A reference to a feature article in Fortune, Forbes, Barron's, the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, a Crain's Communications business periodical (such as Crain's Detroit Business), one of the American City business journals, or a similar periodical, will fulfill this requirement. Business periodicals are indexed by several of the Business and Finance Databases that may be used by students on-site at the Wayne State University Libraries. The referenced article should have a publication date during the current semester, or a publication date no older than one year from the first day of class of the current semester. Students may also the WSULS Proxy Server to access these databases directly online from home or elsewhere.

An Ethics Article from a scholarly Ethics, Philosophy, or Management Journal. The student will also locate a scholarly ethics article. NOTE: Do not expect to find an ethics article that will directly address your topic. Instead, think carefully about the underlying ethical theory that informs your analysis of your topic. Then, find an ethics article that develops, addresses, expands on, or articulates that aspect of ethical theory.

The most reliable source of scholarly ethics articles would be a scholarly ethics journal, such as Business Ethics Quarterly, Ethics, Journal of Ethics; Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Moral Philosophy, Journal of Value Inquiry, or the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (or another academic journal with the word "ethics" or "moral" in the name of the journal) indirectly and theoretically related to the student's topic.
The second most reliable source of scholarly ethics articles would be an ethics article (i.e., an article on the subject of ethics) from a scholarly philosophy journal.

Note: If the article is not contained in one of the philosophy databases, it is probably not a scholarly philosophy journal.
Even if the article is contained in one of the philosophy databases, it should be longer than12 pages in order to qualify.

The third most reliable source of scholarly ethics articles would be an ethics article (i.e., an article on the subject of ethics) from a scholarly management, business or finance journal.

Note: If the article is not contained in one of the management, business or finance databases, it is probably not a scholarly philosophy journal.
Even if the article is contained in one of the management, business or finance databases, it should be longer than 12 pages in order to qualify.

Note Regarding Ethics Articles. Don't expect to find an article on your assigned topic. That is not the point of an ethics article requirement. Instead, think carefully about the underlying ethical issues raised by your assigned topic. Then, plan to spend some time reading ethics articles, in an effort to find articles that articulate and address the essential moral and philosophical principles that underly your issue. Your ethics journal article(s) should augment the theoretical foundation of your ethical claim. In short, the ethics journal article helps to provide the ethical theory. You yourself will provide the application of that ethical theory to your own issue.

A Scholarly Article from the Internet. Among the minimum of seven separate sources, the student's research paper will include at least one scholarly or otherwise well-researched article from the Internet. Any Web-based article from another category on this list, above, such as an article from Barron's Online, the On-Line Journal of Ethics, or an On-Line Law Review Article, can also "double up" to fulfill this requirement. Articles from the WSU Restricted Databases do not fulfill this requirement: the internet article(s) must be generally browser-accessible on the internet proper, without special access to a restricted database.

As a general rule, articles obtained by using Scholar.Google.com are scholarly, but nonpeer-reviewed articles (such as Wikipedia entries) obtained by the main Google or similar search engines are not.

Do NOT cite Wikipedia, dictionary.com, online encyclopedias, "high school level" tertiary sources, or similar web pages in your research.

Other Sources. The conscientous student will discover that other primary and secondary sources of information, including (but not limited to) feature articles in major newspapers, other Web-based sources, professional and trade journal articles, interviewees, and news magazine articles, often address the student's topic. These other non-required sources should be used in addition to the above required sources--and properly cited--as the conscientous student sees fit, in the student's effort to produce a quality research paper.

If you wish to look up a court opinion cited in a law review or elsewhere, try using LexisNexis Academic at the Wayne State University online library system:

First, make a note of the citation to the case. For example, the full citation to the Pettit case described at Case 7.1 of the Shaw and Barry textbook ("Unprofessional Conduct") is: Pettit v. State Board of Education, 10 Cal. 3d 29, 109 Cal. Rptr. 665, 513 P.2d 889, 78 A.L.R.3d 1 (1973).
Browse to LexisNexis Academic, and find your way to the Case Law section of the Legal Research area. Enter the first citation (10 Cal. 3 29) exactly as listed to retrieve the case.
For information understanding case citations, see:

You might also try looking up the case on Findlaw.com. For example, the Pettit case is available on Findlaw.com. (You may need to create an account for yourself on Findlaw.com prior to viewing the case.)

Step Four: Submission of Bibliography .

Research Summary Works Cited Information.

Schedule of Assignments.

Law Review Articles (1 minimum)
Business Periodical Feature Article (1 Minimum)
Ethics Journal Articles (1 Minimum)
An Article from the Internet (1 Minimum)
Other Primary and Secondary Sources (no minimum)

Step Five: Oral Presentation of Research Results

Presentation of Research with Handout.

Schedule of Assignments

In Person. The student's five minute oral presentation will consist of a recitation and explanation of the issue, a description of the rationale and logic used in responding to the issue, a summary of the student's research efforts and results, and, separately, a summary of the student's conclusion(s).

The presentation, including the five minute time limit, should approximate the presentation that would be made if the student had been hired as a consultant and was given five minutes to summarize the findings before the organization's board of directors. No Powerpoint slides, overheads, or other graphics or other features are required or permitted.
The student will also be prepared to answer questions from the instructor and from other classmates regarding the issue and the research.

The questions (and answers) should approximate the type of questions that might be asked by members of an organization's board of directors (e.g., the questions should not inquire about research or matters outside the very narrow confines of the student's topic as presented).

The presentation should be confined to the ethical issues and analysis. The paper itself should involve 75% ethical analysis and 25 % legal and other analysis, but limit your presentation to a fallacy-free ethical analysis of your issiue -- as assigned -- that reflects Toulmin argumentation.
The student should arrive at the presentation with enough copies of his or her handout for the other students in attendance. Prof. Spalding will email the suggested number of handouts to the in-person presenters approximately one week prior to the presentation.

Video Presentation. Alternatively, the student may produce his or her own digitized five- to ten-minute presentation and upload it as a attachment (in addition to her or his handout), on the Discussion Board prior to the date and time noted in the Schedule of Assigments.

The content of the video presentation is identical to the content of an in-person presentation (above), and should run between five and ten minutes. Closer to five minutes is preferred.

The video should only show the student speaking. No Powerpoint slides or other graphics or other features are required or permitted. The video should provide the same thing that an in-class presentation would provide: the student speaking. Any graphics or other creative devices should be confined to the one-page handout.

The presentation must be uploaded in a "movie" format generally compatible with Windows Media Player or RealMedia (e.g., .mov, .mpg, or .avi). If you are not sufficiently familiar with this technology (or are otherwise unable to produce a simple five- to ten-minute video recording of your presentation), simply plan to attend and make your presentation during the in-person presentations as scheduled in the Schedule of Assignments.

Many ordinary digital cameras (and even some camera-equipped cell phones) have the capacity to make a five minute video recording. No special equipment is necessary: a simple recording produced with an ordinary digital camera will suffice, so long as the file can be viewed with Windows Media Player or RealMedia.
The video file must be less than 65 mb in order to be uploaded onto Blackboard.
The .wmv format seems to be the most Blackboard-friendly, so long as the file is less than 65 mb. Some students find software such as the Blaze Media helpful as they attempt to produce or compress a .wmv file so that it is less than 65 mb.

As a general rule, a ten minute video presentation recorded on a standard digital camera at 15 frames per second, recorded with (or converted to) a resolution of 160 x 120 pixels, will result in a file size well below the 65 mb limitation. (If you are unfamiliar with this terminology, find your way to someone who is more familiar with digital cameras.)

When all else fails, students (who don't mind having their presentation available for the world to see) may, if they wish, upload their presentation to YouTube, and provide a link on the Discussion Board. However, this approach is not optimal.

This optional video presentation provides an opportunity to demonstrate your resourcefulness. Graduate students in this course who were initially unfamiliar with producing and uploading a video presentation have found themselves consulting a variety of sources, including lab assistants at the School of Business computer labs (or other Wayne State University computer labs), the instruction manual for any fairly new digital camera, salespeople at places like Circuit City and Best Buy, and, well, just about any teenager (or 12 year old) who has grown up with this technology.

Due to the extra work and resourcefulness required to produce and upload a video presentation (as compared to simply showing up to present in person), students who instead produce and upload their presentations by the deadline will earn a maximum of twenty (20) points extra credit.

Students who upload their presentations to YouTube, and provide a link, will earn a maximum of ten (10) points extra credit instead of the maximum of 20 points.

Research Presentation Handout (All Students). Prior to the presentation, as scheduled in the Schedule of Assignments, the student will provide a one-page handout (only one page, but both sides may be used, making it a maximum of two pages within Word) by uploading that handout as a Discussion Board attachment for the discussion for which that upload is scheduled in the Schedule of Assignments. The student's handout is an MS Word document (or .pdf file) that will include:

The student's name at the top.
The student's issue question as assigned.
Any additional information the student wishes to add.

Some students provide an outline of their paper; others provide supplemental graphic or tabular information; others insert a page from the internet (after adding their issue as assigned); others provide a one-page handout of Powerpoint slides (saved as a Word document or .pdf file). Be creative! The student will not, however, read from the handout while making her or his presentation of her or his research. Those students attending the in-person presentation of research papers should bring copies of their own handouts to pass out. Prof. Spalding will email the suggested number of handouts to the in-person presenters approximately one week prior to the presentation.

Step Six: Submission of Final Research Paper

Final Research Paper. The final term paper is submitted twice, that is, in both of two separate formats: (1) first, electronically by the time and date indicated in the Schedule of Assignments, by way of the "Student Drop Box" section of the "Student Tools" area in the Blackboard Site for This Course; and also (2) second, in hard copy faxed (313-577-2000), or physically delivered to the Department of Accounting, 100 Rands House, 5229 Cass Avenue, 1st Floor, during business hours so that it can be placed in Prof. Spalding's campus mailbox.

With regard to the Student Drop Box submission, the file should be in Microsoft Word (not, for example, Works or WordPerfect). To be safe, save the file in a format no higher than Microsoft Office 2003. That is, when you go to save your final version of your paper, "Save As" Word 2003, not Word 2007.

You will upload your file onto the Blackboard system by "Sending" it to Prof. Spalding via the Student Drop Box function at the Student Tools area of the Blackboard website for this course. Name the file as follows: lastname-paper.doc.

Be sure to select the button in order to get the file to Prof. Spalding on time.

Enter "Research Paper from <your name> " in the Title section of the file information and the Comment section of the file information, and add the section number for this course in the Comment section of the file information.

Do not submit the file in a .ZIP format or similar compressed format.

Again, be sure to select the button in order to get the file to Prof. Spalding on time (do NOT click on "Add File"). Enter "Research Paper from -your name-" in the Title section of the file information and the Comment section of the file information, and add the section number for this course in the Comment section of the file information.

Also fax or deliver a hard copy of your paper.

The delivery location is the Department of Accounting, 100 Rands House, 5229 Cass Avenue, on Main Campus during business hours. Ask a student assistant or administrative person to place your paper in Prof. Spalding's mailbox. Do not shove your paper under an office door.
The fax number is (313) 577-2000. If you plan to fax your paper, do not ask for, and do not expect, a confirmation of the receipt of your fax; if you are unsure about sending a fax, choose another delivery method (e.g., hand delivery, Fedex, etc.). Also, if you plan to fax your paper, do not wait until the last minute to fax your paper, as the fax line will likely be busy and you will miss the deadline.

The final term paper should be neat and professional in appearance.
Use 12 point courier type, double spaced, with one inch margins all around.
The final paper should generally run from 5 to 8 pages long, double spaced. There is no problem with longer papers, but be sure your writing is succinct, tightly packed, and scholarly.
Footnotes should be used for all references. In addition, a list of references or works cited should be included at the end of the paper.

The style guide for the paper is the Turabian footnote citation style with a references page at the end. There are many sites available on the Internet that offer assistance with the Turabian citation style: a Google search (or other search engine search) for the words Turabian and Chicago, for example, will turn up many such sites. For example, the Georgetown University Library provides an online style guide.
Refer to all outside sources with a proper reference citation. Also add a references page at the end of your paper, and properly cite - in Turabian citation format -- any outside web pages, articles, or other resources that you draw from in your paper.

For legal references not covered by Turabian guidelines, use The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, 17th Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law Review Association). A more recent addition (than the 17th Edition) may also be used. Known as "The Harvard Citator," this book is the style guide for basic legal citation format for citations not covered by Turabian guidlines. The Harvard Citator is available for purchase at most college and law bookstores, and is available for use at the Neef Law Library. As a general rule, the Turabian guidelines cover all of the types of journals required for the paper in this course. If court cases, statutes, or regulations are cited, the Harvard Citator format should be adopted.

Pages should be numbered. A cover page should include paper title, issue question as assigned, student's name and student number, course call number (CRN), and date. The following suggestions will help students enhance their grade on the research paper:

Develop your topic so that your conclusion provides "new information," that is, an understaning about something new that is the result of your carefully constructed analysis, regarding your topic.

Consider an opposite conclusion that could also be reached with regard to your topic, and address the opposing arguments that could lead to that opposite conclusion.

Emphasize reason and ethics, and ignore appeals to the emotions.

Use pro-and-con charts or other supportive devices drawn from the text of Writing Argumentative Essay article as you deem necessary and appropriate.

The Research Paper itself will be more similar in form to the Thesis/Support Essay format than the Argumentative Essay, and will serve as a more highly developed (and more rigorously researched) paper than an Argumentative Essay.

The qualities and characteristics of the last five paragraphs, above, such as the use of headings and subheadings, should also be included in the Research Paper itself.

The paper should reflective rigorous inductive and/or deductive reasoning, and should therefore NOT constitute a "reduction" (the mere simplifying, paraphrasing, or summarizing of the thoughts and ideas of others) or a "seduction" (the diversion or conversion of the paper into an unsubstantiated poltical or personal polemic).

The paper should reflect both legal and philosophical considerations. To understand excellent legal analysis, carefully study the law review articles selected for your paper (as well as any other law review articles you find interesting). To understand excellent philosopical analysis, consult Zachary Seech, Writing Philosophy Papers [2000, Wadsworth], ISBN 0-534-52096-0, and also consult A Brief Guide to Writing Philosophy Papers.

The final Research Paper should be well-written. For example:

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