CONTENTS OF MY RESEARCH PAPER

Topic: Social Security Administration (SSA): Enhancing the Social Security Disability

Determination Process

For this topic you are going to argue for the implementation of certain techniques to help improve the determination process. Not only will you likely discuss existing issues with the SSA determination process but you will likely examine some prominent techniques used and then potentially provide your own or someone else’s analysis of how these techniques could be transitioned to the SSA.

Below I provided an Outline to further clear up any confusion. This is the outline I submitted to my professor but use it as you see fit. If you want to use different subtopics by all means, do as you please.

Abstract:

Introduction:

I. The Social Security Administration

1. The SSA’s background

2. The SSA’s mission and objective

II. Existing Issues with the SSA

1. The fairness and validity of applications

2. The wait time for decisions

3. Reconsideration of applications

III. How to Improve the Process

1. Reform the initial determination level

2. Reestablish the reconsideration level

3. Reform the administration funding

Conclusion:

Technical Requirements:

● 10 pages in length. Reference pages do not count towards the 10 page total.

● Times New Roman & 12pt or smaller font.

● Standard MS Word margins 1” top and bottom and up to 1.25” right and left.

● Double spaced.

● APA format.

● A minimum of 8 sources; four of these must be peer-reviewed academic journals. Please note that you need to cite at least four peer-reviewed academic journals in the paper. If you quote material from a source, then you should provide a citation for that source. However, be careful with quotations. Your paper should not just be a series of quotes from other works; nor should it include lengthy quotes to substitute for you actually writing material. Instead, you should normally be paraphrasing.

Title

Centered at the top of the first page.

Abstract

Should be 150 to 250 words. Centered, single-spaced, and italicized on the first page below the title. The abstract is not the introduction. The abstract states what the paper is going to talk about and then

summarizes what the paper found or concluded.

Introduction

Should start on the first page following the abstract. Optimally, the introduction should be one to two paragraphs in length or somewhere between a half and a full page. The introduction should usually start with an anecdote or some sort of hook to get the reader interested in the topic and should then very explicitly say what the paper is going to cover. By saying what the paper is going to cover, it should mention the elements of your short outline. At some point in the introduction, you should have an explicit statement to the effect that “In this paper I am going to discuss <a>, <b>, and <c>.” Where <a>, <b>, and

<c> are the headers from your short outline. This helps the reader to know explicitly what will be covered in the paper. It may not be the most interesting reading but it makes for clearer reading.

Paper Body Section 01, 02, 03, and so on

This section is where you take your first major body point and its three to four sub-points from your detailed outline and turn it into the actual first section of your paper. This section should be about three pages long (double spaced). Provided you have three sub-points to your main point, if you write two half-page paragraphs for each of your three sub-points you will have this section completed. You should write all of the paper body sections first before the introduction, conclusion, abstract, and even the title.

Conclusion

Should be written next-to-last. The conclusion should be one to two paragraphs in length or somewhere between a half and a full page. The conclusion should summarize the key aspect of each major body point in the paper and should then point out the relevance of what the paper discussed and/or found – that is, it should answer the “Why is this important?” question.

Reference Page(s)

The reference page should start on its own separate page and be titled “References” at the top. The reference page is an alphabetized list of the full citations that correspond to the abbreviated citations used in the text. There should be an entry on the reference page for each unique citation mentioned in the body of the paper. You need a minimum of eight citations overall. Four of these can be most anything but should be relevant, e.g., a government report, website, magazine or newspaper article, books etc. Four of these must be academic peer-reviewed journal articles.