Course Paper Instructions with Resources Summary of Course Paper Assignment Soci

Course Paper Instructions with Resources
Summary of Course Paper Assignment
Social psychology is full of random and interesting concepts. For this assignment, you will choose a concept (or vocabulary word, or theory) that interests you and do further research on it. Your goal for this assignment is to tell the reader about the current state of research surrounding your concept – what is “going on” in the social psychological research world with your topic right now?
In order to complete this assignment you should first choose a topic. You may want to do so by looking through the index at the back of our textbook and see what interests you. Or you may choose something from chapters that we will not be covering. Once you have found your topic, use the databases on the Library website in order to find at least three primary sources – peer-reviewed articles that pertain to your topic. In your paper you must summarize the findings of these articles, thus letting me know the “current status” of your topic.
A primary source is an article written by a person who conducted a research study (i.e., gathered data and is now presenting their findings). To summarize an article, we need to include the hypothesis, the methods (including information about the sample such as demographics and where they are from), and the results (in English). Many students do not understand the results of an article, so they simply take a direct quote from the paper telling what the results are. This is not sufficient. If you don’t understand the results, review the Discussion section of an article, ask the Librarians for help (they even have live chat on their web page), or ask your instructor. See the Resources below for a link to how to review an article. Students may use up to 3 direct quotes for this paper, but each direct quote must be 10 words or less (and correctly referenced). My suggestion is to avoid direct quotes all together.

What should be included in the review of each article?
The hypothesis (or hypotheses if multiple) of the authors
A summary of the sample
Who was the sample
Where was it obtained
Demographics
A summary of the methods
What type of method (experiment, survey, interview, online survey…?)
Summarize how the data was gathered
The results (in ENGLISH your classmates can understand – if you don’t understand it, ask!)
Do the results support or refute the hypothesis?

Requirements
Your paper should be at least two complete pages, but not more than five pages. Your paper should be double-spaced in 12-point Times New Roman (not a font that changes your paper to be longer). Your margins should be 1 inch on each side. Your paper needs to be double-spaced. Any papers that do not fit these formatting requirements will be sent back to you for revision and re-submission (and not graded until they are correct). You should have a reference page (and this page does not count towards the page requirement) and you should have a cover page (which also does not count toward the page requirement). Make sure your paper has an introduction and a conclusion paragraph – in the conclusion you will compare and contrast the results from the three studies you reviewed. Be sure to use in-text references whenever you are describing research or theory from a text or article, and put the references you use on your reference list. Use the APA Style Guide to create the in-text references and reference list correctly. Papers must be submitted as .doc or .docx – others cannot be opened. Do NOT include a Running Head or Abstract. Students may use up to 3 direct quotes for this paper, but each direct quote must be 10 words or less (and correctly referenced). My suggestion is to avoid direct quotes altogether.
References/ Articles
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247916
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(08)60522-X
https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3406998