Feel free to use this as a starting point for your project proposal. Remove the first page with instructions and submit the rest filled out.

1. Select a business/corporation or industry that you are interested in or would potentially like to have a career in one day.

2. Identify a specific variable of interest (the one dependent variable – Must be Numeric!) for the business/corporation/industry of your choice. Think about what other variables (independent variables…at least 9 more) you believe would affect, predict or have a relationship with your chosen variable. Select a minimum of 10 total variables to examine: 2 to 4 must be categorical and at least 2 must be continuous (numeric).

3. Develop a point of view and articulate it…”I am working with a group of investors that want to invest in corn farms, so we will do some data analysis to find out what state would be the best state to start farming for corn.”

4. Find a resource(s) where you can gather data points about your variables for your chosen business/corporation/industry. These data points cannot be time points or over time – they must be the same year (or close) for all the variables you are using for your project.

5. Write up your Project Phase I paper.

a. The paper should be a ONE PAGE paper and written for a decision-maker of the business/corporation/industry you selected (Dear corn farmers association…)

b. Include a description of the business/corporation/industry you chose for your project.

c. Include a brief description of all your independent variables (minimum of 9, this would be great as a chart) and your dependent variable (the most important one you care about).

d. Please make sure to use proper grammar and punctuation

e. List your resources (where you found information and that will be used for data collection – use correct APA style). There must be at least 3.

In each place, remove the instructions/examples and put in your own work.

Project Proposal

Subject: In this section write a bit about what you see as the subject of your project.

Audience: Who is receiving the results of your analysis.

Point of view: Why are you producing your analysis? Why would the audience above care?

Proposed Variables:

Name	Dependent orIndependentOne dependent at least 9 independent	TypeNumerical orCategorical orBinary	DescriptionDefine what this variable is and what it measures.

Observations: What will each row represent. Think states or companies or countries or some something of the like. You will need 50 of them. They should not be 50 points in time.

Sources: (one place where you can get data and at least 2 places you used to learn more about your topic) List in APA style for web sites/data sources. Here is a cool web site for web citations.

Project Proposal (Filled in Example)

Subject: Poultry farming by state in the US

Audience: This report will be for the Poultry Farmers Association (I made this up).

Point of view: By learning about poultry farming in the various states of the united states, the Poultry Farmers Association will be better able to help potential farmers choose the best place to start a poultry farm.

Proposed Variables:

Name	Dependent orIndependentOne dependent at least 9 independent	TypeNumerical orCategorical orBinary	DescriptionDefine what this variable is and what it measures.
Total value of Poultry produced	Dependent	Numerical	The dollar value of all poultry produced
Number of poultry farms	Independent	Numerical	A count of all the poultry farms
Population	Independent	Numerical	Size of the state population
Region	Independent	Categorical	What part of the country is the state in
Costal	Independent	Binary	Does the state have an ocean coast
Size	Independent	Numerical	Size of state in acres
Political Affiliation of Governor	Independent	Categorical	Republican, democrat, or other political party for governor
Value of corn produced	Independent	Numerical	The dollar value of corn produced in the state
Acres of farmland	Independent	Numerical	Size of all the farmland in the state
Average Rainfall	Independent	Numerical	Average rainfall for the state

Observations: Each row will be a state in the United States. They will be labeled with the state name (the label is not a variable)

Sources:

United States Department of Agriculture (2018). National Agricultural Statistics Service, All Poultry