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PSY 150/241 - Grieb & McElvaney

Resources for PSY 150/241 students
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There are two parts to this written assignment:  A Journal Article Analysis and a Topic Overview. This project will be based on a topic that is chosen in class. The topics will be assigned at the beginning of the semester.

The entire project will be combined and turned in together. You MUST include a cover sheet that states your name, the date you turn in your review, and the title of your project. You must also include the written project Rubric, as well as a copy of the entire journal article that you reviewed. Your cover sheet, topic overview, journal analysis, rubric, checklist, and a copy of the full journal article must be contained in a folder or report cover.

The first part of the project is an introduction to your topic.  This part is the “TOPIC OVERVIEW” and should be a minimum of 3 pages.

You need to have at least 2 sources for this information, and you will cite them at the top of the page.  This citation MUST be in MLA format. If your topic is explained in your textbook, you may use that as one of your sources.  However, many of the assigned topics are not included in the text, so you will have to find two sources if you pick one of those topics.  This part of the project is a basic explanation of your topic....a definition, list of symptoms or elements of the disorder or phenomena.  You must include statistics (if applicable) and facts about the topic.

This overview should be an explanation of your topic in your own words.  However, if you find unique information that you cannot paraphrase, be sure to cite that information in quotations, with the page number following.  You must use a reliable source for this information.   Remember, Wikipedia is NOT a valid source.  After your explanation of your topic, write a brief paragraph as to why you chose that particular topic.

For the next part of the project, each student will create a “JOURNAL ARTICLE ANALYSIS” from an article published in a professional/scholarly psychological journal.  These are called “peer reviewed” sources.  We will talk about these in class, and I will show you where and how to find them.

For your review, you must give a complete description of the article IN YOUR OWN WORDS.  This article must be an EXPERIMENTAL STUDY.  You cannot use a case study or literature review.  You cannot use direct quotes on any part of this review.  If you copy directly from the article without citation, it is considered to be plagiarized.  Your papers will be checked for plagiarism.   Follow the guidelines in the handout “Format for Journal Article Review”.  After giving a summary of the information, you must critique the article.  You can explain what you agree with or disagree with, if the outcome was what you expected, and finally what you learned from the article.

The Journal Article Analysis should be a minimum of 2 pages.  The article citation must be cited at the top of the first page in MLA format.  A full text copy of the article must be turned in with your paper, with the information that you used highlighted.

Format for Journal Article Review

Cite your source for your Scholarly article here….make sure you use MLA format.

Introduction- Give a brief introduction (1-3 sentences) to give the necessary background to the study and state its purpose (in your own words). Why was the study conducted? What is the question being addressed in the article?  Is there a hypothesis?  What was it about?

Procedures- In your own words, describe the specifics of what this study involved. Who were the subjects? How were they grouped? What did they have the subjects do? Under what conditions? For how long? What was measured? What was being compared?

Study Findings- In your own words discuss the major findings and results. How useful or significant is this (what did the author(s) say about it?) Conclusions - In your own words, summarize the researchers’ conclusions. What was the major outcome of the study?

If there was a hypothesis, was it supported?

Personal Critique- Give your reaction to the article.  What did you think about what you learned?  Do you think the results were accurate?  What other areas of research on this topic do you think would be interesting?

You MUST include with your article review a complete highlighted copy of the entire journal article.  The article summary must be in this exact format with these headings

REMINDER: Any information which is word for word from the article, must be in quotation marks with the page number identified, for example: (p. 52).  If you do not include quotation marks, it is considered plagiarism.