Posted: December 2nd, 2014

General Psychology Research and Writing Project

Disorders

Order Description

General Psychology Research and Writing Project

Project Overview

(4-6 pages)

Due December 1st

This assignment will introduce you to the publications that psychologists use to
communicate research findings to one another. Reading and analyzing articles from
scientific journals will give you an idea of how psychologists have investigated your
topic of interest: specifically how they have narrowed the topic into a research
question and created a specific testable hypothesis to address that question.

Your goals for this assignment are to:

• Choose a psychology-relevant topic to research.

• Find two relevant studies from psychology journals.

• Analyze these articles to develop some background knowledge of the topic.

• Use your analysis to brainstorm ideas for your own research question.

Instructions:

The article must be typed, double-spaced, with one inch margins on all sides, 12 pt font in times new roman. The assignment will be turned in via blackboard.

Step 1: Choose a topic and conduct an article search on the topic.

Go to google scholar and search for articles relevant to a topic of interest. This will give you immediate access to online psychology journals. You can then click on

a journal and search for relevant articles.

Suggestion: Choose psychological disorder you are interested in (e.g., depression, autism, eating
disorders), or any core topic in psychology listed on the syllabus/in the textbook (e.g. stereotypes, memory, intelligence, emotion, language).

• “Browse” will list journals by name. You can choose a journal that sounds interesting
and see the most recently published articles. If you find an article that is particularly
interesting, take note of what key terms are listed for it (each article’s record will
include this). Then search using these terms for related articles, search for more
articles by these authors, or look up articles cited by the authors in the introduction.

• If you need more help, talk to/email me!

Step 2: Choose 2 related FULL articles to analyze.

For this assignment, make sure you select articles that are peer-reviewed reports of
original research in psychology journals. Articles that are peer-reviewed are critically evaluated by other researchers before being published. Articles that report

original research present the methods and findings of a new study or set of studies that were conducted by the authors. Other articles you might come across are review

articles—articles that summarize the body of research conducted on a particular topic. Provide me with a copy of the two full articles you are analyzing.

Step 3: Annotate and analyze the articles.

As you go through the assignment, for each article it’s a good idea to highlight or underline the key information that answers each of the
following questions, and write in the margins what you have identified (e.g. “Research Question” or “Testable Hypothesis”).

When writing your paper devote sections to answer the following questions for EACH article under the following headings:

Research Topic:

• What is the author’s general research question? [This will usually be near the
beginning of the introduction.]

• What does the author say he/she is doing to extend what is already known about
the topic? Why does this study matter? [ID as “importance of study”]

• What is the author’s specific testable hypothesis (prediction)? [This is commonly
found at the end of the introduction or the beginning of the study description.]

Methods

• Who are the participants? [Highlight “Participants” in text]

• What kind of study is this (experiment, correlational)? [Highlight study summary
sentence(s) and write your answer in the margin]

• What are the main variables in this study? There may be more than one of each.
If it is a correlational study, there may be several variables being observed/measured so just label the major ones that you find.

Analysis/Results

• Highlight the sentences(s) that describe how the authors tested their most important hypothesis. [ID as “Analysis”]

• Highlight the most important results that test the author’s hypotheses, not the
descriptive or preliminary analyses. [ID as “Analysis results”]

Discussion

• Do the results support the author’s hypothesis? [Look for a simple statement of this near the beginning of the discussion section. ID as “Results summary”]

• What is the boldest claim the author makes when discussing the results? [Highlight as “Author interpretation of results”]

• What are the main strengths and weaknesses of the study? [Highlight and ID as
“strengths” or “weaknesses”]

• What does the author recommend as the most interesting or important direction for future research? [Highlight and ID as “Future directions”]

Step 4: Submit a paragraph (approx. 200 words or less) describing three ideas for your own research question.

Based on the studies you analyzed and your own personal experience/thinking about this topic, describe the general phenomenon you are interested in studying (e.g.

causes of depression) and list three possible research questions for the next part of this assignment (e.g. How does stress influence depression? Can caring for a pet

prevent or reduce depression?

Step 5: Create a reference list at the end of the paper listing the your two articles in the following order:

Author(s), Year of publication, Title of Article, Title of Journal it was published in.
Assignment Checklist

Before you turn in any written work, be sure you ask yourself the following:

When is it due? ______________________________

Is it typed and double-spaced?

Did I answer all of the questions?

Are my answers complete and thorough?

Did I explain answers in my own words and avoid copying text from my textbook or other sources? (Plagiarism will result in an F) and may be reported to the

administration.

If I needed to take information directly from another source, did I use quotation marks and cite my source (including the textbook), by indicating the author,

publication date, and page number?

When I provide my opinion, belief, or idea about something, did I also explain why and support my answer?

Is my work proofread and free from grammatical errors?

Do I understand what I wrote?

If someone who did not know much about the topic I’m writing about, understand it better after reading my paper?

PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT 🙂