for professor washington

Sheila Student

COLL 300

Research Proposal

Background/introduction: Infrastructure is essential to the successful transportation of goods and services. Without one you cannot have the other. Infrastructure in America is aging and is unfit for the modern transportation requirements in our current economy. Bridges, highways, railroads, airports, and seaports must be upgraded to support the increased amount of traffic which traverses them in the millions of tons daily.

Description: My concern is that America’s transportation infrastructure is in dire need of quality control inspections. These inspections are a critical step in requisitioning major improvements, leading to our nation’s success as a world power. Businesses of all sorts rely on moving their goods and services from point A to point B in a safe and timely manner.

My main questions are, What types of problems exist in all types of transportation infrastructure? Who is responsible for maintaining and repairing the faults? My secondary questions include, How does the quality of infrastructure affect the marketplace? What role does private ownership of infrastructure play, and what role should it play? What dangers are involved in private ownership of infrastructure? How will long-term funding help alleviate this problem? The thesis statement for this research will look something like this: In today’s highly competitive, fast paced, and changing global marketplace, it is the responsibility of the American public, through government funding, to improve the transportation infrastructure of pipelines, bridges, highways, railroads, airports, and seaports to facilitate the free-flow of commerce.

Plans, methods and procedures: I plan to investigate specific problem areas within each type of transportation infrastructure. Researching this topic will take me to various federal, state, and local departments of transportation websites, as well as approved journals and articles on the deep web. I will utilize quotes from experts in the field of logistics and engineering, which will be used to identify the specific problems

that exist and what should be done to remedy those. The tools I plan on using
most is the EBSCO Academic Search Premier, Lexis Nexis, and the APU Ebrary because they are all jam packed full of great peer reviewed sources, very easy to use the citation help, and I really liked the advanced search functions to narrow my searches down.

Secondary sources:

Fixing America's foundation. (October 23, 2011 Sunday). The Washington Post, Retrieved from http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/hottopics/lnacademic

Herabat, P., & McNeil, S. (2004). Impact of reduced vertical separation minimum implementation on airport system infrastructures. Journal of Transportation Engineering, 130(6), 716-724. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-

947X(2004)130:6(716)

Reid, R. L. (2008). Report warns U.S. economy depends on transportation infrastructure and land use planning. Civil Engineering (08857024), 78(8), 28-30.

Schedule: My proposed schedule for composing my research paper and submitting it for grading is listed by each week as follows:

Week 2: Submit proposal, draft thesis statement, and create outline.

Week 3: Identify primary and alternate bibliographical resources. Start taking notes. Week 4: Complete drafting of all paragraphs.

Week 5: Conduct further analysis and research. Add additional quantifying information to research paper.

Week 6: Ensure all citations and formatting are accurate and precise according to the APA style I plan on using. Possibly submit paper to two friends, family, or classmates for peer review.

Week 7: Refine research paper based on peer review.

Week 8: Submit final research paper to instructor for grading.

Approval request: With your permission, I would like to continue with my plan to identify problem areas in America’s transportation infrastructure and solicit ways to impose a revolution in repairs and improvements. It is a rather large issue in all, but in isolating specific problems and proposing solutions to those that exist, in the future, I will be better prepared to solicit assistance through my local authorities for making changes to our infrastructure needs. The bottom line is that it is important to have a good infrastructure in place for safety purposes and is paramount to shipping goods and services in a timely manner to stay competitive in today’s global marketplace.

Instructor/Professor________________, please approve my plan and include any needed feedback to improve my research essay.