Alan Abelson Endowed Scholarship in Business Journalism

The project may be pursued as a long-form textual composition of at least 2,500 words (this could be expanded to 5,000), a documentary of between 5 -7 minutes (this could be expanded to 8-10 minutes) or a multimedia equivalent of either form. It must be based on an original idea and include deep reporting elements including but not limited to current and historical data, in-depth interviews and observation. The text format must be double-spaced, 12-point font size and follow AP Style guidelines.

The proposal must be between three and five pages in length and must answer the following questions:

1. What is the story? This must be a concise rendering of the idea in the form of a standard pitch of 250 words that summarizes the story and identifies the platform (i.e., text, documentary, multimedia) through which it will be told.
2. What is the scope of the story? What are the universal elements as represented via information such as data and the particular as represented by anecdotes that combine to support the idea and tell the story?
3. Why is the story important? Address why an audience would be informed and enlightened by the story and how it represents the finest in the tradition of business journalism in revealing something that the audience did not know prior to reading or viewing the piece.
4. What are the sources and methods of reportage? Create a preliminary list of datasets and human sources that will form the backbone of the piece and explain how each enhances the idea.
5. What problems could hinder the completion of the project? Explore the potential for failure in pursuit of the story (i.e., access to sources) and how problems can be overcome.
6. Who will serve as mentor for the project? The work requires a mentor or co-mentors. Please identify the professor or professors who have agreed to mentor the work.

The project must be a textual composition of 25 pages based on original qualitative or quantitative research into an issue connected intimately to business journalism. The paper must include the elements common to academic research papers including title, abstract, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion/conclusion, and references/bibliography. The text format must be double-spaced, 12-point font size and follow the American Psychological Association (APA) style 6th edition per the requirements of the Journalism & Mass Communications Quarterly.

The proposal must be between three and five pages in length and must answer the following questions:

1. What is the topic? This must be a concise rendering of the idea in the form of an abstract of 250 words that posits and summarizes the question the research seeks to answer.
2. What is the scope of the topic? Identify keywords and present examples of academic journals that have published similar work in the realm of academic research into business journalism.
3. Why is the topic important? Address why the practice of business journalism broadly
   considered would be informed and enlightened by the research and how it advances existing academic research into the topic.
4. What are the Research Methods? Identify how a review of existing academic literature on the topic will be pursued and now the original research will be qualitative, quantitative or both. Include a brief statement on the methodology of data collection and analysis and whether that work will require Institutional Review Board approval.
5. What problems could hinder the completion of the project? Explore the potential for
   failure in pursuit of the research (i.e., data collection barriers, access to analytical software) and how problems can be overcome.
6. Who will serve as mentor for the project? The work requires a mentor or co-mentors. Please identify the professor or professors who have agreed to mentor the work.