Directions for doing the paper assignment
and
How to find research articles for the paper
Required paper format
Paper should be about 6-8 pages (include work cited page) on a topic of your choice within the field
of psychology.
You must use two relatively current research articles from peer-reviewed journals.
Basic format:
• Introduce your topic, use textbook supporting details/ information (can be more than one paragraph)
• Describe the first article research method and findings (two paragraphs).
• For method paragraph include textbook definitions and comparison to article
• For findings paragraph you must give some specifics and explain type of statistical analysis.
• Describe second article research method and findings (two paragraphs).
• For method paragraph include textbook definitions and comparison to article.
• For findings paragraph you must give some specifics and explain type of statistical analysis.
• End with a conclusion as to what you learned.
What is a research article?
A research article follows a specific format:
1. It starts with an Abstract (summary) and then an introduction (of many paragraphs).
2. Next is the section marked Method describing how the research was conducted.
• usually includes headings like Participants (or sample) and Procedures and sometimes Measures
3. Next is the Results heading and this section has the charts, graphs, and statistical analysis.
4. The article ends with a Discussion (or Conclusions) heading and this part summarizes the results.
Finding a research article
1. On the Library main page go to Collections, and click on Library databases, this will take you to a
page that says A-Z databases….
2. At the databases page enter Psychology in the subject box, then select: Psychology and the
Behavioral Sciences Collection
3. Clicking on the database takes you to the main page of EBSCO and from there click on: Advanced
Search
4. Type in the words that describe your topic and hit search, it will produce a list of articles, but you
must use only pdfs (do not select an article that says request through interlibrary loan).
5. Download your two research article pdfs and send to me via blackboard message for confirmation.
6. Do not send links.
Having trouble matching an article to your topic?
Adding search terms will increase your options but, you may have to change your topic to better fit
what you can find.
For example: The search term “memory” produces thousands of possible articles but let’s say the
search for “memory and the elderly” did not produce many useable options. You could change from
“elderly” to “children, preschoolers” to see if that produced more useable articles.
Work cited page must have at least 3 references:
the two research articles and
your textbook.