14-20, including the list of references and excluding
any appendices. The paper should include numerous references. at least 10 references
(5 of the references should be new materials, i.e. not assigned for reading in class). Of course, including more references
than the number specified would be preferable and would enhance your paper. References should be published work, not
online websites such as Wikipedia, etc. Published work could be an online article with a specified author, publication date,
place of publication, and publisher, not merely a website.
You may do a library-based research paper, examining, for example, the literature on variation in child and adolescent
language. Or you may take on a small research project, e.g. interviewing and recording the speech of a speaker or more
and analyzing some variable patterns in his/her/their speech. Your recording of one or more people should be at least a
total of one hour. Then, you will have to transcribe the data and do quantitative or/and qualitative analysis, report the
findings, and write it up with reference to the appropriate literature. Or you may write a full-fledged research proposal you
intend to carry out in the future with an introduction to the topic you seek to investigate, then an elaborate review of the
literature related to your research proposal topic, your hypotheses/research questions, your expected findings and results,
and then a conclusion.
