Research paper assignment: Research beyond the textbook This project has been modified from an original assignment by Dr. Amy Masnick, used with her permission . For this assignment, you will write a 4-5 page paper about four research articles on a particular topic discussed in your textbook. (Use 12 point font, double spacing, and 1- inch margins.) You will also post some of the preliminary planning for this project on the class discussion boards.  The project grade will be out of 100 points: 80 points for the paper and 10 points each for the discussion board components.  I describe the paper first, and then the earlier components, so you know where you’re going with the assignment. Textbooks in psychology are meant to summarize the state of the field at the time of publication for students just starting out in the field, but it is not the primary literature of psychology.  The primary sources, the base of the pyramid, consists of individual research articles about studies or experiments.  The next level up consists of review articles explaining of a lot of research articles; this is considered a secondary source.  Your textbook uses both these kinds of information, plus other sources: it is therefore the third level up, or tertiary. It can only cover a limited amount of the topic.  Your job is to dig down to the primary research articles at one stone at the base of the pyramid. Paper assignment (1) Identify a major topic covered in the textbook, whether we cover it in the course or not. You can't cover too big of a chunk for a 5 page paper, but you'd like it to be big enough for a good paper.  In Lightfoot, Cole & Cole (2012),  choose a heading in  green, .  On page 130, for example, " Sensing the Environment ," in magenta   is too big, and on p. 135, " Color Perception" in blue is too small, but Vision, in green , on p. 133 is just right.You may use any topic, in any chapter covered in the course as a topic, but you will run it by me first. Choose at least one refernce from the section to look up in the back of your book; 3 or more articles must come from PsychInfo (see below). (2) Briefly summarize in your own words what the text says about the topic.  What do we know? What research is described?  You don’t need to go into specific details about the studies they describe in detail, but give a broad overview, as best you can. (3) Find three closely related scholarly research articles on your chosen topic. How do you know if the articles you’ve chosen are scholarly? Find the articles via a search in PsycInfo, the main psychology research database, and check the box to limit your search to peer-reviewed articles. Don’t expect to find articles from a typical web search, via Google or other search engines.  They are often not scholarly enough. Cut and paste jobs from the internet is plagiarism and is forbidden; they will likely be caught by turnitin software, and you will fail the assignment . How do you know if the articles you’ve.

1. Research paper assignment: Research beyond the textbook
This project has been modified from an original assignment by
Dr. Amy Masnick, used with her permission
.
For this assignment, you will write a 4-5 page paper about four
research articles on a particular topic discussed in your
textbook. (Use 12 point font, double spacing, and 1- inch
margins.) You will also post some of the preliminary planning
for this project on the class discussion boards. The project
grade will be out of 100 points: 80 points for the paper and 10
points each for the discussion board components. I describe the
paper first, and then the earlier components, so you know where
you’re going with the assignment.
Textbooks in psychology are meant to summarize the state of
the field at the time of publication for students just starting out
in the field, but it is not the primary literature of psychology.
The primary sources, the base of the pyramid, consists of
individual research articles about studies or experiments. The
next level up consists of review articles explaining of a lot of
research articles; this is considered a secondary source. Your
textbook uses both these kinds of information, plus other
sources: it is therefore the third level up, or tertiary. It can only
cover a limited amount of the topic. Your job is to dig down to
the primary research articles at one stone at the base of the
pyramid.
Paper assignment
(1) Identify a major topic covered in the textbook, whether we
cover it in the course or not. You can't cover too big of a chunk
for a 5 page paper, but you'd like it to be big enough for a good
paper. In Lightfoot, Cole & Cole (2012), choose a heading in
green,
. On page 130, for example, "

2. Sensing the Environment
," in
magenta
is too big, and on p. 135, "
Color Perception" in blue
is too small, but
Vision, in green
, on p. 133 is just right.You may use any topic, in any chapter
covered in the course as a topic, but you will run it by me first.
Choose at least one refernce from the section to look up in the
back of your book; 3 or more articles must come from
PsychInfo (see below).
(2) Briefly summarize in your own words what the text says
about the topic. What do we know? What research is
described? You don’t need to go into specific details about the
studies they describe in detail, but give a broad overview, as
best you can.
(3) Find three closely related
scholarly
research articles on your chosen topic.
How do you know if the articles you’ve chosen are scholarly?
Find the articles via a search in PsycInfo, the main psychology
research database, and check the box to limit your search to
peer-reviewed articles. Don’t expect to find articles from a
typical web search, via Google or other search engines. They
are often not scholarly enough.
Cut and paste jobs from the internet is plagiarism and is
forbidden; they will likely be caught by turnitin software, and
you will fail the assignment
.
How do you know if the articles you’ve chosen are “closely
related?” They discuss the same key issues, whether from a
similar perspective or a different one. Maybe they are by one or
more of the same researchers as a study that’s already cited in

3. your textbook. Maybe they each cite several of the same
articles or one article cites the other.
(4) Describe what each of these three articles tells us about the
chosen topic. For example, what
does Paper A tell you about parents’ discussion of emotion?
Briefly describe how the studies described are related to the
topic you’ve chosen, what happened in the studies, what the
major findings were, and how these findings modify or extend
(or even contradict) what the textbook tells us about the topic.
(5) Summarize what you learned, and tie together the discussion
in the text with the additional research you’ve found. Did the
new research add more evidence in a similar direction as the
information cited in the text, or did it change your
understanding of the topic in some more fundamental way? If
you were going to rewrite that section of the text, are there
different points you’d highlight than what was in the text? Why
or why not? I’m less interested in the conclusions you draw
than in the reasoning you use to draw them.
(6) In another paragraph or two, tell me one or two things you’d
like to know about the topic you chose, but that were not
covered in the textbook or the articles you read.
(7) Cite your articles in your main text (that is, list the authors’
last names and year of publication for each source). At the end
of your paper, include the full references for the articles you
cited. Use APA format. See
http://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/Library/libaxn/libaxn_bibliographic
_citations_apa.pdf
A few constraints
:
1. All articles must be located on PsycInfo. To use PsycInfo at
Hofstra,

4. go to the Hofstra Libraries website (accessible from the Hofstra
homepage, or Hofstra.edu/library). Go to the section marked
Research Resources (in light blue), then click on Research
Databases. Click Psychology. Scroll down until you find the
link for PsycInfo.
Also, note that PsycInfo is a database, which means it contains
research abstracts. It does not contain the articles themselves.
Some of the articles are linked there because Hofstra pays for
access to them through EBSCO, the same service through which
it pays for PsycInfo. However, Hofstra also pays for access to
many other journals. If the full text is not linked in PsycInfo,
you’ll see a link that says “Find Article.” Often if you click that
link, you’ll be taken to another link where you can see the
article directly, through Science Direct or another set of journal
resources. If Hofstra doesn’t have a copy you can also try to
request a copy through Interlibrary Loan – if the article is in
digital format, you can sometimes get it sent to you
electronically in a day or two.
A Hofstra reference librarian can also assist you with beginning
a search on PsycInfo. Articles from web postings or places like
The New York Times
are not acceptable.
2. Each article you discuss must report at least one study,
whether it’s an experiment (random assignment to condition,
manipulation of an independent variable) or a correlational
study. It can’t be a review paper or summary. One tip is to
scan the article to confirm there is a Method section and a
Results section, which would describe what was done in the
study, and what was found. If you are unsure if the articles
you’ve found fit these requirements, e-mail me to check.
3. Three of the four minimum articles you use
can’t already be mentioned
in the section you’re writing about (e.g., in “Parents’

5. Discussion of Emotion,” the authors already mention an article
by Eisenberg, Cumberland et al from 1998, so you cannot use
that article for this assignment). The purpose here is to find
research that extends what’s summarized in the text.
4. Beginning with some of the articles that are cited in the text
can be a good starting point for the assignment. You can look
in the back of the textbook for the full reference for any article
that’s cited in the text, and then you can search for that specific
article in PsycInfo. For many records, PsycInfo includes as link
that says “Times cited in this database” followed by a number.
For example, if it says an article has been cited 5 times, if you
click the link, it will show you a list of five sources that cite
that article in their reference list. That alone doesn’t mean the
article is on the same topic (or that it’s an empirical article
describing new research), but it’s a starting point. Also, for
each article, PsycInfo includes keywords, so you can try to
search using some of the same keywords that a related article is
tagged with.