1. Your may choose your own topic that can be either a type of crime or criminals. Your whole purpose here is to make arguments why one theory (or a school of similar theories) is better than another one (which should be also a good one for the type of crime or criminals) in explanation why the chosen type of crime/criminals were committed. In other words,

1. Your may choose your own topic that can be either a type of crime or criminals. Your whole purpose here is to make arguments why one theory (or a school of similar theories) is better than another one (which should be also a good one for the type of crime or criminals) in explanation why the chosen type of crime/criminals were committed. In other words, both theories (or schools of theories) are good ones for explanation of your chosen crime/criminals and you utilize some empirical studies’ findings to support your explanations. Furthermore, you will argue why one theory is better than the other one due to certain factors (i.e., evidences from the empirical study findings). 2. Empirical studies used to support your paper arguments should retrieve from Lamar University Library Quick Search located on the page of http://library.lamar.edu (more directions are in the end of this guide). Please keep in mind: do NOT use news media articles to support your arguments, nor use some specific individual cases to illustrate your points since they are more likely to be biased/edited by the media. To know if your found article is an academic journal publication, you should find if it has sections such as literature reviews, data or method session, results/findings of their studies, and conclusion/discussion. Media reports usually do NOT have these sessions. Your paper may contain the following five sections: 1. Introduction. The first part is to discuss some general terms the phenomenon (crime/criminals) you are intending to study. In other words, you should state what you intend to do in the paper. For example, you can a. briefly describe the issue you chose for the paper. b. briefly describe the opposing views that you are going to present in the paper. State your position. c. Or, why have you decided to examine this phenomenon? Copy rights preserved. This article is prepared for Dr. Cheng-Hsien Lin’s courses ONLY. Users other than Dr. Lin need to get a permission for reproduction and/or partial adoption of this guideline sheet. 2. Descriptive Summary of applied theories. For selected theories that will be applied to explain your topic of crime/criminals, you should briefly explain how each theory is applied on factors that lead to the crime/being a criminal (of certain type). You should especially cover the following points: a. What are the key elements of each theory offered for explanations on the selected crime/criminals? Why each theory is a good fit in explaining the crime/criminals? Your own reasoning can be important here. b. Among your references, be sure to state how they provide information that is relevant to your topic? How are theories or reasoning/evidences each provides in their arguments related to your selected topic? Try to be concise and right up to the point. 3. Literature Review. You should cite at least Four academic articles (textbook or novels do not count) which related to the topic you chose (so their empirical findings could be useful for your arguments). In this part, you should discuss how other studies have examined or discusses the phenomenon you wish to examine? What have they found? And how do their findings could be supportive to either theory? Are their findings strong enough to support your application of the selected theories? In your review, you may consider to discuss: a. What does the literature have to say about the dependent variable (crime/criminals) in your topic? b. How has it been studied (very briefly)? (e.g., who are the subjects? The research design and methods has been used?) c. What have been the key findings that can be related to your topic? d. Can these findings support your selected theories (both or either one?)? e. How well theories you selected is applied to your focused crime/delinquency? ** You may also use non academic article (generally, they should be official government reports). However, you will have to cite the non academic articles (as additional ones) in your reference list. 4. Discussions and Implications. Next, you should express your own points. You should make your own arguments as the following suggestions: a. What is your reaction to the arguments presented by each author? Be sure to briefly state your opinions on the strength or weakness of the arguments made by each author from the text. b. Summarize briefly how do your arguments supported by the literature that you discussed in the paper? Do not just copy-paste prior sentences. c. Where do you think future work on this topic should be directed? d. What remains to be done in this issue? e. What other empirical evidence may be needed to clarify future arguments between your chosen theories? 5. Reference List (bibliography) a. Reference uses APA format (you may Google it online, or get it from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ ) . You should have AT LEAST SIX academic papers as your references. You are encouraged to have Copy rights preserved. This article is prepared for Dr. Cheng-Hsien Lin’s courses ONLY. Users other than Dr. Lin need to get a permission for reproduction and/or partial adoption of this guideline sheet. more references from Lamar University library’s electronic database for research journal articles. Please keep in mind, at least four journal references should come from Lamar University library’s electronic database and need to be academic journal articles. Articles from news journals (Newsweek, Times, etc.), popular journals and magazines (Psychologists Today, Reader’s Digest, etc.) are NOT accepted. It is highly advised to avoid direct quotations. Please try to rewrite an idea and cite its source instead. Ideas and research findings from your references are important information for the assigned paper. Format & Length.  b) Font type: “Time New Roman” (the same type as this guideline). c) Font size: 12 point (the same size as this guideline). d) Space: double-spaced. e) Margin: 1 inch on four sides. f) Length: 5-7 pages (without counting cover page and the references). a. Introduction 1 page b. Theoretical Summary 1-2 pages c. Literature Review 2-3 pages d. Implications and Discussions 1-2 pages Grading This term paper contains four parts of grading: a) You should collect reference articles supporting your paper arguments (pro and con). You are encouraged to share your reference articles with your classmates to increase your exposure to academic studies. You can then form your own arguments based on the literatures you collected from library and your article partners. b) Your term paper will be evaluated based on your writing style and theoretical applications, formation, selection of literature and your understanding of these articles, and your comments and arguments. c) EVERY paper will be electronically examined by a special program for plagiarism. Paper that cannot pass the examination (over 20% of the main text copied from some online sources) may receive ZERO point on the assignment and the student may receive an F as the semester grade.  ************************************************************************************** First go to the Home page at Lamar University at http://library.lamar.edu/ (press control and click on the web address to open the web page). If you enter the homepage from Copy rights preserved. This article is prepared for Dr. Cheng-Hsien Lin’s courses ONLY. Users other than Dr. Lin need to get a permission for reproduction and/or partial adoption of this guideline sheet. http://www.lamar.edu/ , you may click on LIBRARY tab on the top of the page. Next, you will click on Cardinal OneSearch under the Quick Search box Type in your topic key words (such as domestic for searching journal articles. Try to use one key word first and then add few more key words if it turns out too many articles are found for your draft reviews. Also, please mark both to limit your search on academic works that provide good sources of detailed research findings. “ Full Text” “ Peer Reviewed” You will be asked to type in your MyLamar Lea ID and password to entry the dataset when click Search You may click Advance Search under the top key word search box in the search result page. It will show multiple selection boxes. Among Search Options, mark the following items: Search Modes and Expanders: mark “find any of my search terms” Under the “Limit your results”: mark “Full Text,” “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals” “Location: ALL” “Publication Type: “Language: English” Other boxes you may leave them blank. Your search results will include title, author, brief abstract of the articles, and year/issue and page numbers of the journal(s) in which it was published. If your search results show too many articles to browse, narrow it by selecting the source (journals) or add more key words in the search boxes. NOTICE, you should make sure the articles you are going to search need to be with full text and a peer-reviewed journal articles. The brief abstract of each article will help you determine if it is something that you would want to read and use for your paper. You may want to download articles of your interest for you convenience. NOTICE, news journals are not considered reliable sources for the assignment.  (Please let me know if accessing The Lamar Data Base is going to be an issue.)