Project 2: Find Trends in Your Profession Start Here Step 1: Conduct Research to Identify Top Trends Step 2: Choose an Issue to Research Further Step 3: Writing Your Research Paper Step 4: Submit Your Paper and Share Your Research Experience Project 2: Find Trends in Your Profession Step 1: Conduct Research to Identify Top Trends First, review this summary of the project and open the template that you will use for this project. The summary provides instructions and the timeline to submit your draft (at the end of Week 2) and your final paper (at the end of Week 3). The template is the "roadmap" for your paper and will guide you through the requirements to be successful. In this step, you will start with a plan to find the information you need. This should enable you to create a search strategy to find resources that will help you identify the top trends in your industry. Once you have identified the top trends, you will choose an issue in one of the three top trends and conduct more research to provide an analysis of the issue, its effect on the industry, and how an organization would address this issue-whether to avoid or make use of it—to its own advantage. A trend could be something well-known in the industry, a new development, or something you consider unrecognized or disputed. You will conduct research for trends to complete the first part of your project. Review resources that you find in periodicals, journals, newspapers, industry blogs, and other websites speciifc to the industry or area of study to find the best references to inform your choice of trends. Use industry-specific keywords, and take notes on your reading because you will be building on this research in the next step as you choose an issue within one of the trends. Searching for relevant and timely sources and gathering citation details may take up to three hours. Remember that not all information that you find will be useful. It is important to evaluate resources that you find. Once you decide what resources you will use to support your paper, be sure that you provide complete citations in APA format on a References page. For help, see the APA formatting resources in the UMGC Library Citing and Writing Portal. Be diligent in your choices about the resources you choose. Here is an eight-minute video that will help you set up your References page in APA style. Check out some common examples of APA citations also available in the library. After you have identified the top three trends in your industry, draft the first part of your paper using the project template. You will complete the cover sheet, write the introductory section, flesh out the headings for the rest of the paper, and add complete reference citiations for your resources on the References page. Submit your draft for review by the end of Week 2 and move on to the next step to investigate a specific issue. Milestone In the past, many students had to resubmit their papers for this project. We hope that the template that we have provided will help you to organize your paper and take the guesswork out of APA formatting. This milestone submission is an opportunity for you to get ungraded feedback from your professor on your first draft to make sure that you are off to a good start. Use your professor's feedback to refine your trends section and inform what information you will need to develop the issue section, to include headings that are properly formatted in APA. By the end of Week 2, submit a draft of your paper in the template for a review, to include: • a complete cover sheet [this is already created for you in the template]; an introductory section that briefly describes the industry, field, or area of interest you are researching, the top trends you identified, and the issue of interest that you will expand on in your final draft; headings for your three trends with draft text for each trend. Please include citations for the references (sources) you use for that section so your professor can make sure that your in-text citing is correct. draft headings to organize the issue section [the template suggests ways to organize this information]; and, a draft References page. You will add more resources to this as you continue your research [the template will direct that the References page will start on its own page]. When you submit your draft, your professor will provide feedback on your trends section and the direction of the paper. The professor will also comment on citation formats so that you can master this requirement for your final draft. Use the feedback to improve and refine your work. If you have questions about the feedback, ask for clarification or request a call or a session on Zoom. You can always rely on UMGC writing tutors for a review of your drafts for any project. You can leave a draft or schedule a live session by accessing Tutoring on the Resources or Academic Support tab on the top navigation bar in the classroom. Submit your draft to the assignment folder that is named "draft". Your work will not be graded, but you will receive valuable feedback from your professor. While you wait for that feedback, continue research on the issue of interest, as described in Step 2. Project 2: Find Trends in Your Profession Step 2: Choose an Issue to Research Further You have now researched the top trends of your industry or area of study, and submitted a draft of the first section of your project. Now you will conduct research on an issue of interest within a trend or your industry in general that you think is noteworthy. But first we should review how you will cite your sources accurately and manage information ethically, giving credit where it is due. Next, think of the issue of interest as a research problem, and consider drafting a simple research question or statement of the problem to inform your research and keep your focus tight. Remember: the more focused the question, the better your search results will be. Remember that in academic work, you will normally avoid normative or open- ended questions, which start with the words should or would, or any question that can be answered with a yes or a no. It might help to think about the scientific method. You must first identify the problem. Then, when you have researched a bit more, you will form a reasonable assumption (a hypothesis) of a potential resolution or answer. You will look for more information that reflects different viewpoints on the issue and use analytical thinking to arrive at a well-reasoned conclusion. This conclusion may or may not bear out your original assumption; however, your goal is to arrive at an answer that is well-supported and based on facts. Remember, you are considering the impact of this issue on your industry, so your analysis may be a step toward a practical solution for your organization. In the project scenario, you are trying to prepare your search committee to interview and select a senior leader for your organization. That team must be well-informed of the current and emerging state of the field. Choose an issue that has potential for great impact on the field. Your research should reveal if the question has already been answered or if there is enough information on the topic. Consider your statement of the problem and ask yourself, "so what?" Will your answer contribute to knowledge about the issue you have selected? Once you have chosen your issue and completed enough research to provide a well-reasoned answer or solution, move on to the next step, in which you will draft this section of your paper and begin the editing process for your final project. Project 2: Find Trends in Your Profession Step 3: Writing Your Research Paper In the previous two steps, you performed research, first to identify industry trends, and then for information about an issue in one of those trends that you consider to be important to your industry. Now it is time to draft your complete paper.