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A Guide to the Advanced Placement Research Paper Rubric
- 6-minute read
- 18th July 2023
It’s that time of year again! Soon, students will pick up their pencils and books (or more likely, their laptops) and start another academic year. In the US, many high school students will enroll in Advanced Placement (AP) courses . The AP program enables students to take rigorous, college-level courses while still in high school. If you take an AP course, you’ll start earning college credits before you’ve even graduated from high school. One of these courses is the AP Research project .
What Is AP Research?
AP Research follows AP Seminar in the two-year AP Capstone program, which focuses on building skills you can use in any discipline. When doing an AP Research project, you’ll dive deeply into an academic topic, problem, or issue you are personally interested in. During the year-long process, you’ll design, plan, and conduct a research-based investigation. At the end of this process, you’ll write an academic paper of 4,000–5,000 words detailing your research and give an oral presentation summarizing it.
How Is the Research Project Graded?
Both your paper and your presentation count toward your project grade, with 75% of the grade coming from the paper and 25% of the grade coming from the oral presentation. The paper and the oral presentation each have their own grading rubrics.
How Does the Research Paper Rubric Work?
For the paper, you’re given a score of 1–5 (1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest) on 6 different aspects of your paper. The aspects are your topic, your literature review, your method, your results and analysis, your communication, and your citations .
Let’s break each of these components down.
Choosing your topic is the first and arguably most important part of your project. You know what interests you – the hard part is narrowing it down to a single topic. You’ll want to find one specific aspect to pursue – in other words, one specific question to ask – and focus on that throughout the entire project.
Problems occur when your topic is overly broad; either you try to answer too many questions, or the questions you ask can’t be answered within the scope of the required 4,000–5,000 words. Problems can also arise when your research gets off track. Your topic should be the entire focus of your paper from the introduction to the very last line.
Your Literature Review
To plan your research, you need to know what research has already been done. Your topic needs to focus on a gap in that research. In other words, ask a question that nobody else has answered yet. The only way to know what questions have already been asked (and answered) is to collect and review the literature that already exists. You’ll need a wide variety of scholarly sources that explore all aspects of your topic.
To truly study an issue, you need to understand both sides of it, and you’ll need to collect sources that give varying perspectives.
Finally, you’ll need to explain how there’s a gap in these sources (that’s the question that you’re trying to answer) and draw a clear line between the knowledge that already exists and your topic of inquiry.
Your Method
In research, your method consists of the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyze data. If you’re doing scientific or primary research, this might be the steps of your experiment. With secondary research, this might be a meta-analysis or content analysis.
Provide clear documentation of your method so that anyone reading your paper will be able to reproduce what you’ve done. You’ll also need to demonstrate how your method was used to collect and analyze data directly relating to your topic of inquiry. If your method is vague, non-replicable, or only questionably related to your topic of inquiry, you’ll have points deducted.
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Your Results and Analysis
Here it is – the whole purpose of your research. This is, in simplest terms, the answer to the question your paper asked.
Make sure that your results present new data – don’t just summarize or repeat existing knowledge. Avoid making your analysis section a repeat of your literature review. You must convey a new understanding or conclusion and ensure you can make a reasoned argument for that understanding based on your data. You should also avoid making grand, overreaching conclusions based on limited data. Your conclusion should flow logically from your literature review through your method and results.
Your Communication
This is where you polish your paper. You don’t want typos, spelling mistakes , grammar errors , and formatting issues to distract your audience from the awesome job you’ve done researching. If you have an amazing project but your paper is not well organized, your audience is going to have a hard time seeing it. Take some time to go through the fine details to make sure all your points are laid out clearly without any errors to sidetrack your audience.
Your Citations
Remember all that literature you reviewed at the beginning of your project? This is where you let your audience know what sources you used. Make sure to cite your sources both in the paper and at the end in a bibliography. You’ll need a citation style guide appropriate to your particular discipline, and you’ll need to follow it. There are a lot of fine details involved in citing sources, so go through your citations with a fine-tooth comb and make sure the formatting is right.
So, who’s grading these papers?
The College Board (the organization that administers the AP program) scores your research paper. Your teacher scores your oral presentation.
Are there examples of previous papers to follow?
Yes. The AP research website offers sample papers in several disciplines. This is particularly helpful since they include the score of each paper and a comment on why that score was given.
A Word of Caution
The AP Research program takes plagiarism very seriously. Students are prohibited from using any AI tools or essay-writing services in any part of their research paper. While AI can be useful for certain academic pursuits, AP Research is not one of them. The AP Research paper is all about your research and what you’ve learned conducting it.
In Conclusion
The AP Research project is a chance to dive into a topic that you’re passionate about. When the proper steps are followed and the rubric is properly applied, that passion will shine through in your paper for everyone to see.
Need some helpful tips for putting your paper together? Check out our Writing Tips and Academic Writing Tips blogs.
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Class Information
Parent Letter
Course Detailed Syllabus AP Course Description / Standards
Course and Exam Description.pdf (from CollegeBoard)
AP Research Summer Work
Research Paper Rubric.pdf (2018-present)
Course Proficiencies Rubric Outline.pdf (2017-present)
Presentation and Oral Defense Rubric.pdf (2017-present)
Oral Defense Questions.pdf (UPDATED)
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com
Cambridge Core: https://www.cambridge.org/core
Oxford Journals: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/en
Springer: http://link.springer.com
ERIC: https://eric.ed.gov/?advanced
Wilson Center: http://wilsoncenter.org
National Center for Biotechnology Information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
100 Search Engines For Academic Research .pdf
Research Design Textbook.pdf
Research Website Guides
USC Libraries Research Guides: http://libguides.usc.edu
Purdue OWL Research: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/research
Social Science Statistics Home Page: http://www.socscistatistics.com
Citation Style by Discipline
University Library: American University
USC Libraries: Citation Guide
Subject-Specific Resources: Purdue Online Writing Lab
Types of Educational Research: Website
Statistics (Videos)
Annenberg Learner Website: Against All Odds: Inside Statistics
AP Central - AP Research Course Home Page: http://bit.ly/2aPAqsi
TED Talks: https://www.ted.com
Educational TED Talks: http://ed.ted.com
Types of Methods.pdf
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/stat_t.php
Harry Potter Example Paper.pdf
T-Test Link #1 T-Test Link #2
Class Readings and Handouts
Why so many people sleep in McDonald's in Hong Kong - CNN.pdf
Greenland Has The World's Highest Suicide Rate...: NPR.pdf weblink: http://n.pr/1TkUCT5
Time trend by region of suicides and suicidal thoughts among Greenland Inuit.pdf
Facing History webpage for Race and Membership Book (scroll to the bottom of the page)
AP Research Topics for 2016.xlsx
Vaccines and Autism Article.pdf
Jenny McCarthy Article YouTube Video
Do these sources work with PAARC? Which one is best source?
• Why do Koreans prefer apartments over private houses? PDF Version
• Why dream of a high-rise apartment? PDF Version
• After Decades of Economic Growth, South Korea is the Land of Apartments PDF Version
Beginning Your Research.pdf
Understanding the IRB.pdf
Inquiry Proposal Form.docx Inquiry Proposal Form.pdf
Training Sample Papers
Training Sample 1.pdf
Training Sample 2.pdf
Training Sample 3.pdf
Training Sample 4.pdf
Training Sample 5.pdf
Student Research Paper Samples
Student Sample #1.pdf Sample #1 2017.pdf
Student Sample #2.pdf Sample #2 2017.pdf
Student Sample #3.pdf Sample #3 2017.pdf
Student Sample #4.pdf Sample #4 2017.pdf
Student Sample #5.pdf Sample #5 2017.pdf
Student Sample #6.pdf Sample #6 2017.pdf
Student Sample #7.pdf
Student Sample #8.pdf
HHS Research Paper Samples
NOTE: Your name is never on the paper when it is submitted. On the title page is only your title and word count .
1- High School Foreign Language Education.pdf (survey example)
2- Food Deserts.pdf (content analysis, defining)
3- ADHD and Comorbidity.pdf (content analysis)
4-.Speech,Gender,Politicspdf.pdf (content analysis, and video research)
AP Digital Portfolio Student User Guide for AP Capstone
Find what you need to study
Academic Paper: Literature Review
7 min read • march 13, 2023
Dylan Black
Introduction
Your Literature Review is the first formal part of your paper. It is the section that is the most detached from your actual research project because you most likely will not bring up your actual research question/topic until the end when you situate your gap in the body of knowledge relating to your topic of inquiry.
The point of your literature review is to explain what is already known about your specific topic of inquiry and establish that the gap you have chosen is truly a gap in the body of knowledge. Coming out of your introduction, your reader will be aware of the broader context of your work and the general idea of what it is you'll be talking about. The literature review takes that context and blows it up into what will eventually become approximately the first 1200-1500 words of your paper (though word count varies across discipline and paper format).
How to Write a Lit Review
The goals of your lit review.
The first goal of your literature review is to, as the name implies, conduct an extensive review of the literature through little-r research. This involves more than just listing the sources and their content because you will be explaining connections between them whether they be agreements in data, disagreements in conclusions, etc.
The biggest mistake students make in their Lit Review - and we'll discuss this in more detail in a later section - is that they just list what sources say and do little to analyze what is actually known about a certain subject. This leads to a weak review of the literature and a murky, undeveloped gap. By connecting your sources, you are able to incorporate multiple perspectives, establish credibility, and at the end of the day, simply have a better reading lit review that truly explains the body of knowledge surrounding your topic.
The second goal of your literature review is to establish your gap and explain how:
it hasn't been covered by researchers before (this is justified through the fact that you just explained what is already known!)
why it is relevant to your discipline/topic
This part of your lit review is crucial to your research paper. This part of your paper connects your literature review - all of the known stuff - to what you are doing. This goal basically addresses the question, "ok so we just looked at aaaalllll of these sources, now what are you going to do", answering it with something along the lines of "well, we see that these sources have established [something] about my discipline, but no one has addressed [your gap], so I plan on researching it."
Using phrases like "This paper provides new insight on..." and "However, [researchers, be specific!] have overlooked [your research gap]" can make this especially clear, which is important because your gap is what lays the foundation of everything to come!
Clearing the Gap , Image From GIPHY
Varying Perspectives
An especially important part of your literature review is establishing and explaining, as the CollegeBoard puts it, "relevant scholarly works of varying perspectives". This means that your lit review cannot just be a bunch of summaries of random papers strewn across a page at random, despite the content being somewhat similar.
When writing, and more specifically when planning your lit review, understanding the perspectives of each of your papers, and being able to connect them in a way that they join hands , or naturally lead into one another in a logical chain of succession is invaluable.
To use myself as an example, in my literature review I focused on three sections: "Marxism and Labor", a section about the economic foundations of my topic, "Applications of Marxism to Film", in which I described how the previous section connects to film in a broader sense, and finally "Marxist Film Theory and Moon", which took the previous two sections and explicitly connected them to my film of interest. In building my Lit Review throughout these 3 sections, not only was I able to split up topics in a meaningful way, but each section built on itself, connecting to points made by previously mentioned sources.
Connecting Your Sources To Your Topic of Inquiry
When writing your literature review, every source you mention at some point or another will have to connect to your overall topic of inquiry, otherwise what's the point? Why would they be used? Thus, when you include a source, not only do you want to explain the content and what the source actually says in terms of the literature but you want to be explicit in explaining the relevancy and credibility of the source in connection to the content of your paper.
This will help you better connect your sources to each other. This is important because the quality of your literature review hinges on how it presents the known information to your readers and helps them understand why your project A) is connected to these sources and B) is a new addition to them.
When you're explicitly building on sources to connect them to the topic of your paper, you more effectively accomplish goal A because your reader doesn't have to do much guesswork. Then, when you move onto your gap, the fact that all of your sources are established as relevant will help you effectively justify your gap.
A sample structure of a literature review. Image from the University of Hull
What Not To Do: The Source Spaghetti
We've mentioned this a few times throughout this guide, but it needs repeating. There is one thing, and one thing only, that you should never do in your literature review, and that's something called "the source spaghetti". Basically, this is a method of writing a literature review where instead of planning or connecting sources to each other, you essentially list out your sources with a brief summary, quickly moving from source to source with very little rhyme or reason making your lit review muddled and unfocused, like reading a bowl of spaghetti.
While this certainly gets some information on the page, it is not an effective way of writing a literature review for the simple reason that you won't be able to have the level of detail that a good Lit Review requires.
Image from GIPHY
Rubric Points and Logistics
Now that we've gone over some tips and tricks, let's take a look directly at the rubric and see what the CollegeBoard explicitly states are the expectations for a lit review. For reference, the full rubric can be found here , and is the source for all the following rubric screenshots.
Seen above is the row of the AP Research scoring guidelines that best correspond to your literature review. Let's move from a one to a five and see what differentiates each point.
A literature review that earns a one and a two is marked by a single perspective, that is to say, it does not cover a wide variety of sources and does not effectively describe the body of knowledge surrounding a topic of inquiry. Papers that earn a one for the literature review typically use non-scholarly works as opposed to scholarly works in their research. For example, news sources do not count as scholarly, whereas research papers that have been peer-reviewed (that bit is important) do.
Moving into the three-point category, we see that a paper with this score does have varying perspectives and scholarly works, but lacks in the connections department. A paper with this score may have done some solid little-r research, but did not structure their lit review in such a way that the sources were able to be in discussion with one another. This is why a paper that uses a spaghetti sources way of organization will not be successful. Remember that connections between your sources are just as crucial as the content of the sources themselves.
The four and five categories meld into one. In fact, the text in the rubric is exactly the same. What separates a four and a five is a degree of sophistication in your writing. Where a 4 may hit all the points and do it well, a five does that and goes above and beyond. It's a very fine line and frankly, it's pretty subjective on the part of the reader. The easiest way to figure out what separates these two is to read sample fours and sample fives to see the difference for yourself.
Final Thoughts
Congratulations! If you've made it this far you have all the skills to get started on your literature review. Your next steps from here are to get started on your little-r research, start collecting sources, and get connecting. You got this!
Key Terms to Review ( 3 )
Non-scholarly works
Peer Review
Research papers
Stay Connected
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IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Assessment Overview. In AP Research, students are assessed on the academic paper and presentation and oral defense of research. The academic paper is 4,000-5,000 words, and the presentation and defense take approximately 15-20 minutes. Encourage your students to visit the AP Research student page for assessment information and practice.
2018 Rubric v1.0 The response… Score of 1 Report on Existing Knowledge of 2 on Existing Knowledge with Simplistic Use of a Research Method Score of 3 Ineffectual Argument for a New Understanding f 4 Well-Supported, Articulate Conveying New Understanding f 5 Rich Analysis of a New Understanding Addressing a Gap in the Research Base
2016: Through-Course and End-of-Course Assessments. Download sample Academic Papers along with scoring guidelines and scoring distributions. If you are using assistive technology and need help accessing these PDFs in another format, contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 212-713-8333 or by email at [email protected].
AP Capstone is a trademark owned by College Board. Visit College Board on the web: collegeboard.org. AP Central is the official online home for the AP Program: apcentral.collegeboard.org. 2023 ... P ® Research cademic Paper 2023 Scoring Guidelines. Created Date:
The paper identifies the topic, purpose, and focus of the inquiry and explains why further investigation of the topic is needed. 4 . The paper articulates the significance of the topic of inquiry by connecting it to the larger discipline, field, and/or scholarly community. It defines its scope by specifying the parameters, limits, or
AP® RESEARCH 2017 SCORING GUIDELINES Performance Task Rubric: Academic Paper. The paper identifies a broad topic of inquiry The paper identifies a focused topic of inquiry and The paper explains the topic, purpose, and focus of the and/or a purpose. describes the purpose. inquiry and why further investigation of the topic is needed by ...
AP Research Academic Paper 2018 Rubric v1.0. The response… Score of 1 Score of 2 Score of 3 Score of 4 Score of 5 . ... AP Capstone Research . TABLE OF CONTENTS. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 3 Research Question 3 United Arab Emirates's Energy Summary 3
The paper describes in detail the approach, method, or process. 5 The paper provides a logical rationale by explaining the alignment between the chosen approach, method, or process and the research question/project goal. 7 . 5 Establish Argument . The paper presents an argument, conclusion or understanding, but it is simplistic or inconsistent,
AP Research teachers use a scoring rubric designed by the AP Program. AP Research teachers also take part in mandatory training from the AP Program in how to score these components. College Board Scored Components. After you submit your academic paper online through the AP Digital Portfolio, it is scored by trained, experienced educators called ...
Describes a replicable research method, with questionable alignment to the purpose of the inquiry. Conveys a new understanding or conclusion, with an underdeveloped line of reasoning OR insufficient evidence. Competently communicates the student's ideas, although there may be some errors in grammar, discipline-specific style, and organization.
research oversimplified description of a method • • • Supports a sufficient eOR f underdeveloped evidence. , student's ideas, although may be some errors in discipline organization. AND/OR attributes in of a Aof AND • AND attributes sources, • AND attributes sources, with specific style. 2018AP Research Academic Paper Rubric v1.0 ...
How Does the Research Paper Rubric Work? For the paper, you're given a score of 1-5 (1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest) on 6 different aspects of your paper. The aspects are your topic, your literature review, your method, your results and analysis, your communication, and your citations. Let's break each of these components down.
College Course Equivalent. AP Research is an interdisciplinary course that encourages students to demonstrate critical thinking and academic research skills on a topic of the student's choosing. To accommodate the wide range of student topics, typical college course equivalents include introductory research or general elective courses.
This AP Research lesson will provide a review of the Academic Paper rubric by breaking down the language of the rubric into workable parts. This lesson shoul...
AP® Research — Presentation and Oral Defense 2021 Scoring Guidelines. NOTE: To receive the highest performance level presumes that the student also achieved the preceding performance levels in that row. ADDITIONAL SCORES: In addition to the scores represented on the rubric, teachers can also assign scores of 0 (zero). A score of. A score of.
Course and Exam Description.pdf (from CollegeBoard) AP Research Summer Work. Research Paper Rubric.pdf (2018-present) Course Proficiencies Rubric Outline.pdf (2017-present) Presentation and Oral Defense Rubric.pdf (2017-present) Oral Defense Questions.pdf (UPDATED)
AP RESEARCH 2018 SCORING COMMENTARY . Academic Paper . Overview . This performance task was intended to assess students' ability to conduct scholarly and responsible research and articulate an evidence-based argument that clearly stated research question. More specifically, this performance task was intended to assess students' ability to:
Letter of Introduction to AP Capstone Research 3 . Required Course Texts 6 . Summer Assignment 1 7 . Summer Assignment 2 9. 3 . May 31, 2022 . ... Submit Academic Paper as Final (75% of AP Seminar Exam Grade) Prepare and Deliver Presentation & Oral Defense (25% of AP Seminar Exam Grade)
AP Research 2017-18 Academic Paper Rubric Author: The College Board Subject: AP Research 2017-18 Academic Paper Rubric Keywords: AP Research; 2018; Academic Paper Rubric; scoring information; exam information; teacher resources; AP Capstone; Created Date: 7/28/2017 9:24:24 AM
A score of 0 is assigned to a single row of the rubric when the response displays a below-minimum level of quality as identified in that row of the rubric. For Rows 1 to 4, if there is no evidence of any research (i.e., it is all opinion and there is nothing in the bibliography and no citations or
Introduction. Your Literature Review is the first formal part of your paper. It is the section that is the most detached from your actual research project because you most likely will not bring up your actual research question/topic until the end when you situate your gap in the body of knowledge relating to your topic of inquiry.
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AP Capstone is a trademark owned by the College Board. Visit the College Board on the web: collegeboard.org. ... exam practice; exam scoring information; exam preparation; course preparation; AP Research Academic Paper Scoring Guidelines from the 20 ·l[P× sSw QÊ5Ǩ¼5 4¸ 91 ¥% .8·ò+>ÊÏ}ón Ñ Created Date: