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Instructions for Paper I Study One Literature Review Instructions
Instructions for Paper I: Study One Literature Review Instructions (Worth 25 Points)
Ryan J. Winter
Florida International University
Purpose of Paper I: Study One Literature Review
1). Psychological Purpose
This paper serves several purposes, the first of which is helping you gain insight into research papers in psychology. As this may be your first time reading and writing papers in psychology, one goal of Paper I is to give you insight into what goes into such papers. This study one-lit review will help you a). better understand the psychology topic chosen for the course this semester (Terror Management Theory), b). learn about the various sections of an empirical research report by reading five peer-reviewed articles (that is, articles that have a Title Page, Abstract, Literature Review, Methods Section, Results Section, and References Page), and c). use information gathered from research articles in psychology to help support your hypotheses for your first study this semester (Terror Management Theory). Of course, you’ll be doing a study two literature review later in the semester, so think of this Paper I as the first part of your semester long paper. I recommend looking at the example Paper V, actually, to see what your final paper will look like. It might give you a better idea about how this current paper (as well as Papers II, III, and IV) all fit together into your final paper of the semester.
In this current paper (Paper I), you will read five research articles, summarize what the authors did and what they found, and use those summaries to support your Terror Management Theory hypothesis. IMPORTANT: Yes you need five references, but keep in mind that you can spend a lot of time summarizing a few of them and just a sentence or two summarizing others. Thus spend more time on the more relevant summaries!
For this paper, start your paper broadly and then narrow your focus (think about the hourglass example provided in the lecture). My suggestion is to give a brief overview of your paper topic in your opening paragraph, hinting at the research variables you plan to look at for study one. Your next paragraphs will review prior research (those five references required for this paper). Make sure to draw connections between these papers, using smooth transitions between paragraphs. Your final paragraphs should use the research you just summarized to support your research hypothesis. In other words, this first paper will look like the literature reviews for the five research articles you are summarizing for this assignment. Use those articles as examples! See what they did and mimic their style! Here, though, you will end the paper after providing your hypothesis. In Paper II, you will pick the topic up again, but in that future paper you will talk about your own study methods and results.
2). APA Formatting Purpose
The second purpose of Paper I: Study One Literature Review is to teach you proper American Psychological Association (APA) formatting. In the instructions below, I tell you how to format your paper using APA style. There are a lot of very specific requirements in APA papers, so pay attention to the instructions below as well as Chapter 14 in your textbook!
3). Writing Purpose
Finally, this paper is intended to help you grow as a writer. Few psychology classes give you the chance to write papers and receive feedback on your work. This class will! We will give you extensive feedback on your first few paper in terms of content, spelling, and grammar. You will even be able to revise aspects of Paper I and include them in future papers (most notably Papers III and V). My hope is that you craft a paper that could be submitted to an empirical journal. Thus readers may be familiar with APA style but not your specific topic. Your job is to educate them on the topic and make sure they understand how your study design advances the field of psychology.
Instructions for Paper I: Study One Literature Review (Worth 25 Points)
Students: Below are lengthy instructions on how to write your study one literature review. There is also a checklist at the end of this document, which I recommend you print out and “check off” before submitting your final paper (we are sticklers for APA format, so make sure it is correct!)
Title Page: I expect the following format. (5 Points)
You must have a header and page numbers on each page.
If you don’t know how to insert headers, ask your instructor or watch this very helpful video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pbUoNa5tyY.
The header goes at the top of the paper and it is left justified.
Use “Insert Headers” or click on the top of the page to open the header. Make sure to select the “Different first page” option so that your title page header will differ from subsequent pages
The R in Running head is capitalized but the “h” is lower case, followed by a colon and a short title (in ALL CAPS). This short running head title can be the same one as the rest of your paper or it can differ – the choice is yours, but it should be no more than 50 characters including spaces and punctuation
Insert a page number as well. The header is flush left, but the page number is flush right.
Want an example header? Look at the title page of these instructions! You can use other titles depending on your own preferences (e.g. TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY; MORTALITY SALIENCE; DEATH AND PROGRESS; PRIMING DEATH; etc.).
Your Title should be midway up the page, with your name (First Last) and the name of your institution (FIU) beneath the title. For this class, only your own name will go on this paper. Double space everything!
Again, see my “Title” page above as an example
You can also refer to Chapter 14 in your textbook
This Title Page section will be on page 1
Literature Review Section (12 points)
First page of your literature review (Page 2)
Proper header with page numbers. Your running head title will appear in the header of your page WITHOUT the phrase “Running head”. To insert this header, use the headers program.
The title of your paper should be on the first line of page two, centered. It is IDENTICAL to the title on your title page. Just copy and paste it!
The beginning text for your paper follows on the next line
Citations for the literature review
Your paper must cite a minimum of five (5) empirical research articles that are based on studies conducted in psychology. That is, each of the three citations you use should have a literature review, a methods section, a results section, a conclusion/discussion, and references.
For this first paper, you MUST use at least three of the five articles provided in the blackboard folder. You can use four if you like, but your must use three at minimum – however, you cannot use all five. For that fifth article, you must find it using PsycInfo. There are some other conditions for this fifth article that you must follow:
First, remember that the fifth article cannot be any of the five found in the blackboard folder.
Second, for your fifth article, it can be based on a wide variety of topics, including general Terror Management Theory, Mortality Salience, priming, autobiographical writing, optimism bias, pessimism bias, social cognition, bio- or neuro-psychology literature, confirmation bias, research assessment, etc. Trust me, there are TONS of topics that can help you in your paper. Just choose one that will help you support your experimental hypothesis for your Terror Management Theory study. That is, it has to help you justify your study one hypothesis (all students are using this same hypothesis, so make sure to read it. You can find it in the researcher instructions along with the questionnaires you are giving to participants. I actually suggest copying and pasting that hypothesis into this first paper at the end).
Finally, you can have more than five references if you want, but you must have a minimum of five references.
Proper citations must be made in the paper – give credit where credit is due, and don’t make claims that cannot be validated.
If you use a direct quote, make sure to provide a page number for where you found that quote in the citations. Do not directly quote too often, though. You can have no more than two direct quotes in the whole paper (though no quotes would be even better). Instead, I would like you to paraphrase when possible.
Requirements for the information in your literature review
Your study one literature review should use prior research as a starting point, narrowing down the main theme of your specific project – think about the hourglass example I gave in class.
The last part of your literature review should narrow down your focus onto your own study, eventually ending in your study hypothesis. However, DO NOT go into specific details about your methods. You talk about your specific methods in Paper II in a few weeks.
Again, to make it clear, at the end of your paper you will give an overview of your research question, providing your specific predictions/hypotheses.
The literature review must have minimum of two (2) full pages NOT INCLUDING THE HYPOTHESES. It has a maximum of five (5) pages (thus, with the title page and references page, the paper should be between 4.5 and 7 pages). If it is only two pages and a half pages (again, including the hypotheses), it better be really, really good. I don’t think I could do this paper justice in fewer than three full pages, so if yours isn’t at least three pages I doubt it will get a good grade.
References (6 points)
The References section starts on its own page, with the word References centered. Use proper APA format in this section or you will lose points.
All five references that you cited in the literature review must be in this section (there should be more than five references here if you cited more than five articles, which is fine in this paper). However, at least three must come from the article folder on blackboard while the remaining two can come from either the last blackboard paper or two new ones from psychinfo. Only peer-reviewed articles are allowed here (no books, journals, websites, or other secondary resources are allowed for paper one).
For references, make sure you:
use alphabetical ordering (start with the last name of the first author)
use the authors’ last names but only the initials of their first/middle name
give the date in parentheses – e.g. (2007).
italicize the name of the journal article
give the volume number, also in italics
give the page numbers (not italicized) for articles
provide the doi (digital object identifier) if present (not italicized)
Writing Quality (2 Points)
This includes proper grammar and spelling. I recommend getting feedback on your paper from the Pearson Writer program prior uploading it on Blackboard.
Between the title page, literature review, and reference page, I expect a minimum of 4 pages and a maximum of 7 pages for this assignment. But like I said, the shorter the paper, the less likely it is to get a good grade, so aim for 5 pages minimum.
The above information is required for your paper, but I wanted to provide a few tips about writing your literature review as well. Students often struggle with the first paper, but hopefully this will give you some good directions:
First, remember that you need 5 references, all of which MUST be peer-reviewed (three coming from the blackboard folder and one or two that you find on your own using PsycInfo).
Second, I don’t expect a lengthy discussion for each and every article that you cite. You might spend a page talking about Article A and a sentence or two on Article B. The amount of time you spend describing an article you read should be proportional to how important it is in helping you defend your hypotheses. See if there is a prior study that looks a lot like yours (hint – there is at least one, which I based this study on, but you’ll have to find it on your own!). I would expect you to spend more time discussing that prior research since it is hugely relevant to your own study. If an article you read simply supports a global idea that ties into your study but has very different methods (like “frustrated people get mad!”), you can easily mention it in a sentence or two without delving into a lot of detail. Tell a good story in your literature review, but only go into detail about plot elements that have a direct bearing on your study!
Third, this paper is all about supporting your hypotheses. Know what your hypotheses are before you write the paper, as it will help you determine how much time to spend on each article you are citing. My suggestion is to spend some time describing the nature of the Terror Management Theory, and then talking about studies that looked at this area. Use those studies to help defend your own study hypothesis. That is, “Since they found X in this prior study, that helps support the hypothesis in the present study”. Do you remember your two hypotheses? Okay, I’ll be really helpful here. BELOW are your hypotheses. In your paper, support it! Just remember that the rest of your paper needs to be at least two pages NOT INCLUDING the hypothesis below. In other words, including the hypotheses below, your actual text for your paper should be at least two and a half pages!
First, we predict that participants who wrote about death should complete more word-fragments with death-related words (e.g. SKU_ _ with SKULL, COFF_ _ with COFFIN, and DE_ _ with DEAD) than participants who wrote about dental pain or getting into college (who will complete the same word fragments with neutral words, like SKUNK, COFFEE, and DEAL). Second, we predict that participants who wrote about death will disagree with the pessimistic position of the human progress essay author more than participants in the other two conditions.
Finally, make sure to proofread, proofread, proofread! Use the Pearson Writer for help, but note that their suggestions are just that – suggestions. It is up to you to make sure the flow of the paper is easy to understand. Good luck!
Checklist – Paper One: Study One Literature Review
Use the check sheet below to make sure your paper is the best it can be! Make sure you answer “Yes” to all questions before submitting your paper or you will lose points!
General Paper Format
Yes No Is everything in your paper (including headers, the main body of your study one literature review, and references) in 12 point Times New Roman font?
Is everything in your paper double spaced, including references (here I mean the spacing above and below each line, not the spaces following a period)?
Do you have one inch margins on all sides of the paper (one inch from the top of the page, one inch from the bottom, and one inch from each side)
Are the first lines of all paragraphs indented roughly ½ inch?
Are your paragraphs aligned left? (That is, text should be flush left, with lines lining up on the left of the page, but text should NOT line up on the right side of the page – it should look ragged)
Do you need help figuring out how to configure a word document in APA format (inserting headers, page numbers, proper indents, etc.)? If YES or NO, I highly recommend watching this video which walks you through setting up an APA formatted paper! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pbUoNa5tyY
Title page
Yes No Header
Do you have the phrase “Running head” in your header (with a lower case h)?
Is the rest of your Running head title in ALL CAPS?
Is your Running head in 12 point Times New Roman font?
Do you have a page number that is flush right (also in 12 point Times New Roman font)?
Title / Name / Institution
Is your title 12 words or less (as recommended by the APA)?
Do all title words with four letters or more start with a capital letter?
Are your name and institution correct?
Are your title, name, and institution elements centered and in 12 point Times New Roman font?
Literature Review
Yes No Header
Is your header title present and identical to your header title on the title page?
Is your header title in ALL CAPS and 12 point Times New Roman font?
Does your header on this second page omit the phrase “Running head”
Do you have a page number starting on page 2
Title for the literature review
Do you have the identical title you used on the title page rewritten at the top of your literature review?
Is this title centered?
Literature Review Continued
Yes No Main body of the literature review
Does your literature review start broadly, giving a brief overview of the paper to come?
Does your literature review start to narrow down toward your hypotheses?
Do your paragraphs transition from one to the next? (That is, avoid simply listing studies you read. Tie them together. How does Study A in paragraph A relate to Study B in paragraph B?)
Does your paper end in your hypotheses?
Is your paper at least two pages long (not including the hypotheses)?
Citations for the literature review
Did you cite a minimum of 5 citations? (Note that you can give a lot of detail for some articles you cite but only a sentence or two for others. How much detail you go into depends on how important the article is in helping your support your hypotheses)
Are your citations in APA format (That is, ONLY the last name of the author(s) and date of publication)?
Note that you do NOT include first names, initials, or the title of the article the authors wrote when citing. That information belongs in the references pages only.
Also note that you only use an ampersand – the & symbol – when it occurs within parentheses. In other instances, use the word “and”
If you quoted, did you provide a page number for the direct quote?
If you paraphrased in any way, did you cite the source of that information?
References Page
Yes No Title for the references page
Do references start on their own page?
Is the word “References” centered?
References – Make sure these are in APA format!
Are references listed in alphabetical order (starting with the last name of the first author listed)?
Are all citations from the literature review referenced?
Is the first line of the reference flush left while subsequent lines are indented (Note: Use the ruler function for this. DO NOT simply tab)?
Did you use the “&” symbol when listing more than one author name?
Did you include the date of publication
For article references, is the article title (which is not italicized) present, with only the first word and proper names starting with a capital letter?
For article references, is the name of the journal present with all major words starting with a capital letter (Note: this journal title is italicized)?
For article references, is the volume number italicized
For article references, are the page numbers present (not italicized)
For article references, is the DOI present
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