Psychology 445: Advanced Research Methods

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Psychology 445: Advanced Research Methods Below is the grading scheme that I will use for your final papers (although absolute point value I will leave to my discretion.) Spelling, grammar and general flow of the paper do count. You can work in partners on the data analysis (in fact, I encourage it!), but each partner should write his or her own paper. Introduction (25 points): 1. Has the general theoretical or conceptual area of interest been presented? 2. Is there an adequate review of the relevant literature? (6 points given for mentioning a required three references). 3. Are the research question(s) clear and explicitly stated? 4. Has the value and implication of the study been discussed? (4 to 5 points). Methods (10 points) 1. Are the…show more content…
This format is the official writing format of the American Psychological Association (APA) and is the format you will see used in articles published in psychological journals. The following are brief definitions and explanations of each of these six sections: Abstract: The keyword in writing an abstract is brevity. The abstract appears after the cover page, and it is there to give the reader an idea of what question or problem the experiment was designed to investigate; what the results were; and how they were interpreted. An abstract should be brief, concise and clear. Generally, they are about 150 words long (or less). The abstract is written in the past tense. Abstracts may appear difficult to write at first -- two hints; always write the abstract last, after you have written up the results and discussion sections (this will help you edit down your results to a few sentences); and if you find yourself having difficulty, just keep practicing. An abstract "style" becomes apparent. One example of a research project abstract is the following: (explains what study focused on) (indicates what hypothesis was-and that it wasn't supported) (indicates results) (indicates what else is in discussion section) "This study examined the amount of information one subject could take in and later…show more content…
The final paragraph (s) should include a more specific definition of your variables (independent and dependent) and a clear statement of the predictions based on the background information that you have presented. A note on how to cite references: Reference citations at any point in the test include the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication. If you want to quote directly from an article, include the appropriate page numbers after the year of publication. For example: Smith (1970) reported that... In a recent study of earth worms (Smith, 1970),... Jones and colleagues report feeling devastated at the lack of results (Jones, Smith and Yearley, 1970, pp.20) ... Method: This section can be thought of as the "cookbook" section of the paper--the idea of the methods section is that any other reader, by reading this section, could duplicate (or in research terms, replicate) your study. Therefore, it should be complete, detailed and clear enough to allow another investigator to understand how you ran your experiment. To some extent, you can't have too much detail! The method section is written in past tense. The methods section is divided into

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