COMMUNICATIONS 448T
RESEARCH PAPER
Electronic Copies Only
1) Use Subheads (sports teams (or professional sports league, brief history, trendsetters, et cetera)
2) All papers must be typed and double-spaced (7 to 10 pages). Most papers are about 7 pages long.
3) Left, right, top and bottom margins must be 1 inch.
4) Each page must be numbered in the top-right corner or centered at the bottom.
5) Please use Times Roman, Courier or Arial font and it must be 12 point.
6) Title page, bibliography, notes, appendix, etc. DO NOT count toward the page count. Please only list on your bibliography the sources that you used for your paper.
7) Please use citations correctly. Not citing properly (i.e. not citing all your sources) is considered plagiarism. You will receive an automatic zero for improper citations.
8) If you do not understand these guidelines, please see me after class or in my office hours.
Introduction:
1) Briefly identify the sports league (or team) and describe the history of your topic. When and where did the league begin? Who were some past two or three trendsetters that helped to popularize the sport (10 points)?
Body:
1) Who currently regulates this sports league or organization? What changes has he/she made to the league? What are a couple of their responsibilities? (10 points)
2) What’s the league revenue? What is the average team value? If you are writing about a team, what’s your team’s value? (5 points)
3) What teams (or individual players) are some of key current figures in this league (i.e. who generates the most endorsement and/or merchandising revenue)? (5 points)
4) Does your league have a salary cap? What type of salary cap is it? What is the amount of the salary cap? Are teams punished for going over the salary cap? How does the league handle the re-signing of star players? (10 points)
5) How does free agency work? What changed the league’s free agency (i.e. famous court case)? If a union exists, how strong is the union? Has the league had recent labor issues? (10 points)
6) How does the league handle live gate revenue? What are some of the key venues throughout the league (i.e. historic or largest)? In terms of construction costs, what are some of the most expensive venue? What’s the current trend in terms of building venues? (10 points)
If you are writing about a team, what’s the team’s current venue? Do they own the venue? Did they recently move into a new venue or renovate their venue? How much did the venue cost to build? (10 points)
7) What are some of the key televised events or games? What are some your team’s national (or local) media deals? How much media revenue are they generating? What type of revenue do they keep and what type of revenue is shared with other teams? (10 points)
Conclusion:
1) What are three future challenges that your team or sports organization will encounter on the horizon? (10 points)
Grading:
1) Correctly answering each of the questions in the introduction. This portion is worth 10% of your grade.
2) Correctly answering each of the questions in the body. This will encompass 60% of your grade.
3) Knowledge of future trends and challenges. This portion will be worth 10% of your grade. You must be thoughtful in order to receive full credit.
4) Quality of your research (20 points):
. You can use a variety of journals (peer-reviewed), books (peer reviewed – generally speaking), newspaper articles, websites, or magazine articles.
. You must use a minimum of ten sources. Of your ten sources, five sources need to be peered-reviewed scholarly articles or books (You already have four articles from your proposal). The class reader does not count as an academic source because I want you do to your own research.
. If you use only non-academic sources, you will receive no credit for research (-20 points). Sports Illustrated, ESPN.com, or the Los Angeles Times are not examples of academic publications.
. You may use Wikipedia once. Wikipedia is accurate normally. Wikipedia, however, is not an academic resource. It is an online encyclopedia and random people can change its content. Be careful!!
. You may use one interview. That being said, I will only count an interview as one “non-academic” source. If you are having problems finding information, please come and see me far in advance. Please do not wait until the day before the assignment is due.
5) Hyperlinks: If you decide to use links for your works cited page or bibliography, you will receive no credit for research. I DON’T HAVE TIME TO BE CLICKING THESE HYPERLINKS. Furthermore, who told you this was an accurate way of writing a bibliography?
6) Grammar: If you have problems with sentence structure, please use the writing lab or someone, who has good grammar skills. Let’s put some effort in writing this paper. I do hope that I am reading a second draft.
7) Spelling: I will deduct three points for every obvious spelling error on find on your paper. For example, if I see a red line underneath the word, I will know that you did not even bother to look at the word you just typed or you don’t know how to spell the word. Be careful with typos because they are also spelling errors. Please proofread your paper or find someone who will read your paper. I should not be the first pair of eyes to see this paper.
8) Citing: Please remember to cite all your sources properly! Remember that you must cite your source when you use their book or journal article as a source. That means when you either quote or paraphrase a source you must cite the source. For every reference that is not cited in your paper, I will deduct 10 points. More than three improper citations or no citations (i.e. uncited paraphrasing) will result in an automatic zero and I will report you to the Judicial Affairs Office. Please be careful!! Do not throw away an entire semester of work by not citing your sources properly. Please see a librarian or me if you need help with your citations.