Psychology 242; Research in Psychology
Dr. David J. McKirnan

The Paper Assignment: Requirements

The paper
The body of your research paper must be a maximum of 12 pages, including a separate title page and abstract (thus, 10 pp. of actual paper text). References, tables or figures, and appendices are outside the 12 page limit. The content of your Appendix is given below. The paper must be typed in 12 point font, double spaced, on 8 ½ by 11 in. paper, using American Psychological Association (APA) style. See your book for examples and discussion.  Do not include plastic or cardboard binders, folders, or other paraphernalia.

Follow these links to:

• A crib sheet for APA writing guidelines. 
• An electronic guide to writing in APA style is here.
• The overall structure of the paper.
• Instructions for research citations and headers.
• The informed consent document.  
• Frequently asked questions about the paper. 
• Examples of final course papers are here and here (do not just copy these).

Relevant research
The paper will be the description of an actual or hypothetical experiment. Do not base your paper on a correlational or measurement study. I provide data during Week 12 as part of your statistics (t-test) assignment: Most students base their paper on those data. You can also collect real data, or make up data that fits a specific experiment you have in mind.

However you structure your data, you will specify two variables, appropriate measures, and a number of research participants, and plug in a data set. You must append all your hypothetical measures (experimental observation sheets, interviews, etc), your "raw" data, and statistical calculations to the paper.

If you have real data available -- either through another project, or that you can collect during the course -- you may use that, but must discuss it with me or your TA before you collect it.

References in scientific journals
All papers must have at least two references to scientific journals, used and formatted in APA style. Your TA will spend time on this during discussion group. Copy the Abstract page from the article and append it to the paper. Instructions for research citations are given here.

General UIC reference materials are at: http://www.uic.edu/depts/lib/ .  For electronic journals available at UIC go here.  The UIC electronic journals are very comprehensive, and most have full text articles.

You cannot use Wikipedia or any similar electronic encyclopedia for references: you must use a regular scientific journal. We will be covering this in the Week 5 discussion groups.

Two ways to search for Psychology articles.

The OVID search service no longer carries PsychInfo (the primary source for Psychology articles).  PsychInfo is now carried by “CSA Illumina”.
1.  Using a UIC machine, go to “Library”.
2.  Point to “Resources” and click on “Electronic Resources – Alphabetical list”
3.  Click on “P” in the alpha list, then click “PsychInfo”
The direct link is: http://www-ca1.csa.com/ids70/advanced_search.php?SID=a5d3893192f448143b9910fb04dceaa5

For another search service (that I prefer) you can use “Web of Knowledge.
1.  In "Library" point to “Resources”, click “Electronic Resources – Alphabetical”, then click “W” in the alpha list.
2.  Click "Web of knowledge."  This will take you to: http://portal.isiknowledge.com/.
3.  On the opening page click on "go" for "Web of science" and you will be in a search engine that covers the Social Sciences Index, which includes Psychology. 
4.  Click “General Search” for options to make your search more focused.
The direct path to the web of science is: http://portal.isiknowledge.com/?DestApp=WOS&Func=Frame

 Search using key words by topic or author.  Both search services allow you to combine different key words, limit the years searched, etc.  Most references available through these services have the full article available, typically in "PDF" format.

Late papers
You will lose 20% of the available points each work day the paper is late.  This works out to about a full letter grade for each two days the paper is late.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism in any form is a serious offense.  Even minor plagiarism will cost you points.  If we determine that you have plagiarized a major part of your paper you will receive a ‘0’ on the paper.  In serious cases you will also fail the entire class, and I will file official judicial charges against you with the Dean of Students, who will place a notice about the incident in your permanent record.

Plagiarism includes copying the words of a fellow student or any other author in your papers, copying even short phrases from written work that you are using as a reference (even if you cite it properly), handing in work that you have handed in for another class, or handing in papers you've gotten from the internet or from other students.  Read the web section on reference citations carefully and follow it.  We will be using a paper-checking service in Blackboard to check for plagiarism.

Comments on your paper
If you want your TA to provide comments on your paper submit it with a return envelope (no stamp necessary). TAs will provide comments only on papers that are submitted with a return envelope.

Go to page 2: The paper structure

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