Term paper

erm Paper Rationale

Instead of a cumulative mid-term and final exam you will complete a paper on a psychology

related topic of your choice. This project is designed to

Identify early interests in specific psychology topics

Expand your scientific understanding of intrinsically awarding psychology topics

Practice independently searching for and identifying peer reviewed empirical studies

(chapter 2)

Practice writing and summarizing science

Develop your critical thinking skills

Requirements

Each student will be responsible for reviewing 2 peer-reviewed studies related to psychology.

You are also required to incorporate course material from the lecture or textbook. Thus, you will

have at least 3 total sources (2 peer reviewed empirical studies + lecture/book).

Students will choose their own topics and their corresponding studies to review with the

approval of the instructor. Students will write a 3-4 page paper (double-spaced, Times New

Roman, 12pt font, standard margins, APA format) which contains the following:

(1) Introduction paragraph

(2) Summaries of the main findings of the studies

(3) Discussion of how the articles relate to concepts discussed in the course

(4) Implications of the findings

(5) How the studies relate to material in the book

FAQs

I need help with APA formatting

o https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_s

tyle_g uide/general_format.html

What is an empirical article? What is a study? What types of papers are accepted?

o Dissertations, theses, and review papers will NOT meet the requirement for a

study in this paper. You can include them in your paper but they will not count

towards the required 3 empirical article source requirement.

o Review articles will state, in the abstract, that it reviews/provides an overview of

the results. What we will describe as traditional review articles are not permitted

because no study is conducted. Again, the authors review already completed

research without completing a new experiment.

o Empirical articles collect data, form a hypothesis, generate results from the data

collected, and form conclusions based on the results. Expect to see a methods,

results, and conclusion section.

o Dissertations are between 80-500 pages (no one is reading this), an empirical

article, in general, wont be more than 15-20 pages

Can you clarify what a review paper is?

o A review paper reviews, in totality, all recent research in a field. For example, a

review of the relationship between authoritarian parenting and childrens alcohol

abuse, would detail every study, within a 5-10 year period, which has measured the

correlation between parenting and childrens alcohol use. This large

overview/review of research tells other researchers what the current scientific

understanding of knowledge is in the topic and what still needs to be learned

through future studies

o Because review articles review dozens of empirical studies, you can skim them

and mine their References for sources

How do I find empirical papers?

o Use your library resources. Specifically, look to use PsycInfo found in library

databases.

o Google scholar is useful but at times, the article is not free to view. DO NOT pay for

it. Contact me. Also, sources are often not experimental/empirical studies

published in peer review journals. Tread cautiously.

I found an interesting study I want to use on Google Scholar, but its behind a paywall,

what do I

do?

o Never pay for it, your college pays publishing companies for access to peer

reviewed journals

o Contact me with the name of the study and authors and I will get the study to you

What about this blog from an organization I found using Google? Does that meet the

2 source criteria?

o No, besides the textbook or lectures, the two sources must be from peer

reviewed journals.

How do I read an empirical study? Im a newbie help!

o Generally, a study will contain the same sections in the same order they

include introduction/literature review, methods, results, conclusions

o Introduction is designed to tell the reader about previous research. It puts the

reader on semi equal footing. It also tells the reader what is not known about

the topic and thus why the study you are reading is being conducted. It provides

justification for the existence of the study you are reading. Its like a scientific

introduction paragraph but longer.

o Methods tell the reader how the study was designedhow many participants,

race of participants, how much money the participants make, what specific

surveys/questionnaires were administered by the researchers, where the

participants are from.

o Results are the stats jargon. Skim this for parts you understand, skip the parts you

dont

o Conclusions translates the stats jargon results into English. The section also

reintroduces some of the previous studies reviewed in the introduction. This

allows the researcher to explain if their results were consistent or different from

older studies and offer a global takeaway message to the reader.

This study talks about limitations does it suck?

o No. All studies are required to list limitations because every study in world

history has had limitations. As you gain more expertise you will be able to

better identify which limitations are most meaningful.

Theres a ton of information here? What do I do!?

o Pick and choose which parts of the study are most applicable to your paper. You

cannot include everything. The practice in science jargon is called trimming.

o Include only parts you understand otherwise your summarizing will not be

specific enough and make less sense

Can I include quotes?

o No, put it in your own words to the best of your ability. The point is to

practice communicating science. Imagine this paper like you are teaching a

reader who has no familiarity with the studies you are summarizing.

Should I include an abstract?

o No

Is APA like MLA?

o Kind of. See the OWL link provided above. In general, Id say APA is simpler. Do

not include the title of the article in the text of your term paper. In text citations

should only include the author(s) last name and year of publication.

Do I have to type out the entire citation in my References section?

o No, copy and paste it from Google Scholar or the library database (click cite).

No one types these things out

What about the results section? Most of the stats I cant understand

o Only take from the results what you can understand. Skimming the

section for correlational breakdown and explaining what it means in

the term paper is recommended

What is due 7/19? Sources?

o Upload the two PDFs of the studies you are going to summarize. I will let you

know if they meet the criteria of the study. That way, when it comes to writing

the paper, you earn full credit for the sources.

Whats the Turnitin score requirement?

o Approximately 15%, this is excluding the wrongly flagged material (e.g., sources, titles).

I manually rescore every submission. Any AI modified work will be heavily deducted

and or given no credits.

How old can the sources be?

o In general, the source should be published no later than 2009. Exceptions can be

granted with a rationale for inclusion.

Can I use AI, what about Grammarly?

o No AI is permitted. This includes Grammarly. If you have the Grammarly add on turn it

off while writing. If you are flagged on this assignment, you likely will not have time to

resubmit with a significant deduction due to the course size. AI will be checked through

Turnitin, but you will not see the results of this check when you submit the assignment.

o Be mindful of writing in Google Docs, plugins can be activated without your knowledge

which can be flagged

Any more questions?

o Contact me. Im happy to help!