The Funeral Industry

The New Face of the Profession

Funeral service has traditionally been a male-dominated profession. It also has been a “family” profession, with firms being passed down from one generation to the next. Today, people who didn’t traditionally choose funeral service as a career are joining the profession and finding it very rewarding. In fact, many of today’s mortuary school graduates do not have family members working in funeral service and have decided to join the profession as a second career. There are many opportunities for people thinking about joining funeral service.

Today, more than 60% of mortuary science students in the United States are women. Many of these women have discovered and are attracted to the skills and traits needed as a funeral director, including communication skills, compassion, a desire to comfort those coping with a death, as well as organizational and event-planning skills.

Research Presentation Guidelines

Presentation Guidelines:

In 8-10 slides, plus a Works Cited slide at the end, present your topic and some of the interesting research you used for your Research Project.

You have a lot of creative freedom here. Decide what you think will interest your classmates about your research.

Requirements:

8-10 slides, plus a Works Cited slide at the end
Present your research question and thesis
Present at least one piece of information from each of your sources
include a slide that discusses what you found informative and interesting about your research, and why you think this project was important, useful, and/or relevant

You will not be graded on creative skill (though a few images never hurt anyone) but on the inclusion of the above information.

Research Project: First Draft

Choose one of the following uptions:

1) Topic Essay

4+pages

3-5 sources

In this essay, you’ll choose a topic related to your profession and write a 4+ page essay, with an additional References page at the end, exploring your topic. Consider topics in your other classes, or use resources like https://www.nfda.org/news/trends-in-funeral-service (Links to an external site.) to generate a topic that interests you.

You’ll need:

An introduction that introduces your topic and includes an attention-getter (anecdote, statistic, quote)
a thesis (appearing in the introduction) that answers a research question (this does not have to appear in your introduction).

Example research question: Why are funeral directors integrating green funeral service technology into modern services, and what challenges do they face in doing so?

Example thesis that answers the question: Funeral directors are integrating green funeral service technology to meet evolving customer standards and to address growing environmental concerns despite the challenges involved in learning a new practice.

Body paragraphs that begin with topic sentences and use 3-5 outside sources correctly in APA format
A conclusion that closes the essay and leaves the reader with a sense of “so what?”
A correctly-formatted References page
To proofread carefully, keeping in mind our previous grammar and syntax lessons.