Phase V: The Publisher

Phase V: The Publisher

Duration: Weeks 15 to 17 (Book Part V: Inference and Publication) Assemble and publish your research as a white paper

Reading this page for MC 501? Use the Graduate edition control in the lower corner of the page. The final deliverable differs between the two courses, and so does the rubric. MC 451 students should leave it off.

Learning Objectives

By the end of Phase V, you will:

  • Assemble a complete IMRaD research report from the work of the previous four phases
  • Render your report from source, with no pasted numbers, to both a PDF and a live web address
  • Manage citations in APA 7th edition
  • Deploy your paper to GitHub Pages
  • Write honestly about what your study could and could not establish

Phase V Overview

Every assignment this semester has been a building block. The reading journals sharpened your thinking. The librarian visit confirmed your data source. The prospectus gave you a roadmap. The codebook gave you a rulebook. The R assignments turned raw codes into tables, charts, and tests. Now you assemble all of it into one coherent paper, published from source as both a PDF and a live website.

Read Chapter 14, The one-click report, alongside this phase.

The IMRaD contract

The white paper follows IMRaD: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, in that order, with a short abstract in front and references at the close. The structure is a contract with the reader, who knows where to look for the question, the procedure, the finding, and the meaning.

Your paper reports a two-part study:

  • Study 1, qualitative: how you immersed yourself in the data, identified themes, and developed your coding variables
  • Study 2, quantitative: descriptive statistics, visualizations, and the inferential test appropriate to your research questions

Timeline

Week Focus Deliverable
15 Ch 14: The Publisher; assemble your paper
16 Work session: open lab and support
17 Finals week White paper due

Due: Friday, December 18, 2026 at 11:59 PM.

What You Build

A Quarto project that renders to two outputs from the same source files:

  • A live website hosted on GitHub Pages
  • A print-ready PDF submitted to Blackboard

A paper nobody can open scores nothing, so both are required for the submission to count. Test your URL in a private or incognito browser window before you submit.

Project structure

File Content R code?
index.qmd Abstract and landing page No
01-introduction.qmd Framing, theory, research questions No
02-methods.qmd Design, data source, codebook, sampling, reliability, wrangling No
03-results.qmd Study 1 themes; Study 2 descriptives, figures, the test Yes
04-discussion.qmd Interpretation, limits, conclusion No
references.qmd Auto-generated bibliography No

Choosing your statistical test

Your research question compares Use this test
Two categorical variables (for example, tone by outlet) Chi-square
One categorical (two groups) by one continuous (for example, tone by word count) Independent t-test
Two continuous variables (for example, word count by shares) Pearson correlation

The starter project includes pre-written R code for all three. Keep the one that matches your variables and delete the other two.

Submission (MC 451)

Submit both to Blackboard by Friday, December 18, 2026 at 11:59 PM:

  1. PDF file, renamed to Lastname_WhitePaper.pdf
  2. Live URL, your GitHub Pages link
Warning

Both must be present for the submission to be considered complete.

White Paper rubric (250 points)

Component Points Full marks means
Introduction 30 States the question and why it is worth asking. The theoretical lens is doing work, not decoration, and it sets up something the study can actually deliver.
Methods 60 Says exactly what was done, in enough detail that another researcher could repeat it: the codebook, the sampling procedure, the reliability check, and the wrangling steps.
Results 50 Reports what was found, plainly and without interpretation: distributions, group means, the test statistic with its degrees of freedom, its p-value, and its effect size. Figures are labelled and captioned.
Discussion 50 Says what the results mean, answers the question the introduction asked, and states the study’s limits honestly. Effect size is characterised accurately rather than inflated.
Abstract and references 20 The abstract summarises all four sections. References are complete and in APA 7th edition.
Reproducibility and publication 25 The document renders from source with no pasted numbers, and is live at a public address.
Reflection 15 One specific paragraph naming what proved harder than expected, where a rule was ambiguous in practice, what the data could not answer, and what a second attempt would change.

The reflection is graded on candour and precision, not on whether the study went well. A researcher who can say exactly where their study is weak is a researcher who understands it.

The graduate deliverable (MC 501)

You produce a white paper plus an academic conference poster. The white paper is a formal Quarto Book carrying:

  • an executive summary in front of the abstract
  • a structured literature review drawing on 15 or more sources
  • an explicit limitations analysis, not a limitations sentence
  • professional formatting suitable for conference submission or client delivery

The paper carries the three transparency markers a reviewer looks for: a data provenance statement, an intercoder reliability report giving the kappa value with the training protocol and the threshold applied, and the pre-registration disclosure with its OSF URL.

The conference poster

The poster is a separate requirement shared with MC 500, rendered at 36 by 24 inches from the Quarto Typst poster template. It is assigned in Week 13 alongside the white paper and worked in the Week 15 studio session.

Submission (MC 501)

Submit to Blackboard by Friday, December 18, 2026 at 11:59 PM:

  1. PDF file, renamed to Lastname_WhitePaper.pdf
  2. Live URL, your GitHub Pages link
  3. Poster PDF, renamed to Lastname_Poster.pdf
Warning

All three must be present for the submission to be considered complete.

White Paper rubric (200 points)

Component Points Full marks means
Introduction and framing 25 States the question and why it is worth asking, and situates it in the theoretical literature rather than gesturing at it.
Methods 55 Repeatable in detail, and carries the three transparency markers: a data provenance statement, an intercoder reliability report giving the kappa value with the training protocol and threshold applied, and the pre-registration disclosure with its OSF URL.
Results 40 Reports the findings without interpretation, including effect sizes and the power statistics behind the design. Figures are labelled and captioned.
Discussion 40 Interprets the findings, situates them within the theoretical literature, distinguishes statistical significance from practical size, and states the limits.
Abstract and references 15 The abstract summarises all four sections. References are complete and in APA 7th edition.
Reproducibility and publication 15 The document renders from source with no pasted numbers, and is live at a public address.
Reflection 10 One specific paragraph naming what proved harder than expected, what the data could not answer, and what a second attempt would change.

The paired conference poster is graded as a separate requirement shared with MC 500.