Your final paper will consist of an 6-8-page paper answering a question that you ask about juvenile delinquency. The first step is to select a question that can be answered using empirical research. Once you have done so, you will want to find and read research that can help answer the question you ask. Your paper should be 6-8 pages long (not including the cover page or references), and it should answer a question that you ask about juvenile delinquency. How to develop a question: What interests you from this course? What do you want to spend a significant amount of time reading and writing about? That is how you start to develop a question. A good question begins with a “wh-“ or “how” stem, as it can lead to a more complex and interesting answer than a question that can be answered with a “yes” or a “no.” In addition, a good question is clear; each word is easily understood. Finally, a good question is answerable using research. Here are some examples of appropriate questions. What are the consequences of transferring youth to adult court? What is the most effective intervention strategy for youth who are in gangs? How do youth form their attitudes about the police? How do neighborhoods influence juvenile delinquency? Why do most youth desist from delinquency by early adulthood? How does brain development make youth susceptible to delinquency? How are youth competent or incompetent to make legal decisions in the juvenile justice system? What are issues of measurement in understanding how many youths engage in delinquency? How are youth susceptible to police investigations and interrogations? How does disproportionate minority contact influence the juvenile justice system? How well can the juvenile justice system predict who will desist and who will persist in juvenile delinquency? What factors predict persistence in juvenile offending, leading to adult criminal behavior? How does childhood victimization relate to juvenile delinquency? What are the effects of bullying on juvenile delinquency? Once again – this is not a comprehensive list – just a starting point to get you interested in thinking about what you might want to ask and answer. Empirical, scholarly, or peer-reviewed research: Empirical/scholarly/peer-reviewed papers derive knowledge from findings, study and logic, not from emotion or anecdote. Your primary source citations should come from “peer-reviewed” journals – meaning that these papers were evaluated by other experts before they were published, allowing them to have more credence. Everything provided under “connecting it to research” throughout this course meets these criteria. As such, these articles could provide a good starting point for your paper. However, they are not comprehensive, and it is expected that to do well on this paper you will need to find additional primary sources. You can find these articles through the ASU library or google scholar – both have selection criteria for only showing results that are peer-reviewed. This means that if you choose to include additional sources, such as case studies, news articles, documentaries, or non-peer-reviewed papers, they cannot be primary sources or evidence. You can use these other secondary sources to supplement your writing, but most of your evidence should come from primary sources which are peer-reviewed, or scholarly, journal articles. Structure of the paper: Your paper should begin with an introductory paragraph where you introduce the topic of examination. Somewhere in that paragraph, you will want to explicitly state the question you aim to answer, as well as an outline for what you will cover in your paper. The body of your paper should assess what the state of knowledge is, based on research that you read and summarize, to help answer your question. Your paper should conclude with an original evaluation of the state of the field. What is the best answer to the question you ask, currently? How clear is this answer? Is there conflicting evidence or dissent? What still is unknown? What are future areas for research on this topic? It is not enough to conclude by restating what is known – your conclusion should summarize and expand on what you’ve learned.
