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For the project, students identify a problem or ask an important question, solve the problem/find an answer, or complete a creative project. The project is practical, assisting students in their current position or enhancing their career aspirations.

The project must be written for a specific audience. For advertising, marketing and public relations projects, the target audience is your client. For journalism projects, your audience is your readership – either the general public or a specific niche audience like that of a particular magazine. If your project is an educational project, your audience is those who will decide to offer the class and/or teach it. Some topics, such as social media, are technology-driven, but are still directed to a specific audience or client.

The sequence of required courses gives you the tools you will need from start to finish. In MCOM 705: Introduction to the Master of Mass Communication, students learn what others have done and begin to consider project topics. In MCOM 710: Cross-Platform Storytelling, they develop the topics further.

In MCOM 786: Conducting Professional Research, students get serious about researching their topics. Then, at the end of their program, they enroll for MCOM 788: Master's Research Project credits and work on their projects with their advisers until they are ready for their final presentations.

Five Types of Professional Projects

Generally, projects fall into one of five main categories, but they all:

• Start with a question, a problem, something that needs to be done, or something that could be done better.
• Search for what others have written or done related to the topic or issue.
• Use some type of research (literature search, interviews, survey, focus group, etc.)
• Create a final “product” that explains how the student answered the question, solved the problem, made something better and so forth.

Professional Project Report Outline

(Project report must be formatted in APA style 7th edition)

• Title page – name of project, type of project, student name, institution and date.
• Abstract - (approximately 100 words), plus no more than six keywords.
• Introduction/rationale - supported with appropriate citations from peer-reviewed academic journals and relevant industry publications.
• Overview – what the project entailed (if IRB approval was required, discuss that briefly).
• Results – the project outcome; (including how you measured success, if applicable).
• Future plans – next steps (if applicable).
• Connection to MMC coursework – a course-by-course overview of how you applied knowledge from each class to your project (and how you’re using it in your daily work, if applicable).
• Connection to MMC student learning outcomes - how your project fulfills each of the 11 outcomes
• References – Sources gathered to demonstrate best practices of project design and implementation as well as data analytics and other sources where applicable.
• Appendix – supporting materials (survey questions, tables and figures, communication messaging, screenshots of social media, photos, etc.).

Suggested Length: 12-15 pages minimum (not including title page, abstract, references, appendix) – but varies from project to project.

Project Presentation

When students finish their project, they record a video presentation for their committee, including a professional representative, whose role is as a “referee” and “quality control.”

The video presentation is especially important in an online program, as it requires students to demonstrate their understanding of their online coursework and validate their participation in those classes. In the video, students discuss their project and describe how they applied their coursework. They also prepare a final report about their project.