communication studies research paper

RUNNING HEAD: Shortened Version of Your Title

Your Title [should be descriptive of your study]

Author [your name -- INCLUDE ONLY ON HARD COPY VERSION]

Perm [your 7-digit perm #]

Comm 88

Fall 2016

TA: [Your TA’s Name]

University of California, Santa Barbara

[Reminder—You do not need to write an “Abstract” for your study]

A Running Head is optional

for this paper

This document is a “mock up” of the

Comm 88 paper format, with some tips

and help for each of the sections included.

The gray “side bar” to the right is where

you will see reminders of the official

instructions for the assignment for each

section (be sure to review these!)

RUNNING HEAD: Shortened Version of Your Title 1

Your Title Again Here

Start with the introduction, which does not need its own heading. Your opening

paragraph should tell the issue that you are investigating and why it needs to be investigated.

Remember, scholarly writing (throughout the paper) should be clear, succinct, and avoid using “I”

or “We”. One way to do this is to use other ways to refer to your study, such as “The present

study investigates…” (as opposed to “We wanted to investigate…”). You can also use the

passive voice (as long as you don’t overdo it), such as “An experiment was conducted…” (as

opposed to “We conducted an experiment…”).

Next in this section is where you’re going to do your literature review and summarize

your (minimum TWO) empirical studies. You probably do not need any subheadings in this

section since your literature review is smaller than what would appear in published studies. For

each study, you should report what it was about, what they did, and what they found (see .

Your studies DO NOT have to be exactly the same as your groupmates’; it’s possible

they’re not the same studies you brought in earlier in the quarter. They MUST be relevant to

your hypotheses, and you MUST include copies of the abstracts in an appendix at the end of your

paper.

Be sure then to tie the findings to your own study! If you are using conceptual

definitions of variables from the prior studies, discuss that here too (some variables need more

conceptualization than others). Use the studies to provide a rationale for your hypotheses—a

clear argument for why, based on logic and the prior research, you are predicting the specific

relationships between variables in your study. Your hypotheses DO NOT have to be exactly the

same as your groupmates’. Here’s an example of what your hypotheses might look like (one is

associational and one is causal, just to give you an example of each—but yours will be different

Page #1 starts here (the title

page does not count as a page!)

Comment [DM1]: Reminder of the assignment instructions on GS for this

section:

INTRODUCTION (note that this section doesn’t actually get its own labeled heading like the others do) In this first section, you should introduce your topic, review the literature (the two or more empirical studies), and state your hypotheses and any additional research question(s). As you review the literature, be sure that for each empirical study you briefly summarize what the study did and describe the main findings that are relevant to your own study (do not just pull quotes from the article!). Use the studies to provide justification for your hypotheses and/or background for your research questions. It is important to explain why you are making your prediction(s) and posing your question(s).

RUNNING HEAD: Shortened Version of Your Title 2

depending on what kind of study you did). Be sure to put each hypothesis/research question on

its own line, indented like this:

H1: There will be a positive relationship between amount of communication and

satisfaction in a relationship.

H2: Participants who see an objectifying ad will report lower self-esteem than

participants who see an empowering ad.

Note that your hyps do not have to be grouped together like this (especially if you have a

different rationale for each one), and they do not have to be placed at the end of this section. The

placement of hypotheses and research questions depend on how you organize your literature

review and rationale.

Method

This section is where you describe what you did in your study. It will have several

subheadings, but the particular headings you use will vary depending on what kind of study you

did. Here are some typical subheadings that are useful:

Sample

Report your sampling technique (e.g., convenience sample), and how you gathered it (e.g., sent

survey links to Facebook friends, etc.). Describe your sample (e.g., how many participants total?

What were the demographics--e.g., gender, age, race--if you collected info on that).

Procedure

Describe the basic procedure for your study. If you did a survey, this just means a simple

statement of how you distributed or collected your survey data (in person, online, etc.). If you

did an experiment, identify what the separate conditions were for your IV (i.e., what was the

manipulation?). Did you use a factorial design? How were participants assigned to conditions?

If you showed/created anything to show to your subjects (whether for a survey or an experiment),

Comment [DM2]: Reminder of the assignment instructions on GS for this

section:

In the Method section, you should describe specifically what you did in your study. Using the appropriate subheadings for your particular study (e.g., sample, procedure, measures, etc.), you should describe the overall design, participants, procedure, and variables (including how they were operationalized/measured). If you combined several items into a scale for a particular DV, then describe that in this section too. You don’t need to write out every single item in the text of your paper, but give a couple example items and then direct your reader to the appendix for the rest (be sure include as an appendix a copy of any questionnaires or other materials you used). The content of this section will likely be very similar for all the members of your group, but the writing should be in your own words!

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it would also help to have a separate heading and section for “stimulus materials” where you can

describe them (and also add them as an Appendix).

Measures

If you did a survey, it is helpful to split this section up into IVs and DVs. How were your IVs

operationalized? How were your DVs operationalized? If you did an experiment, you should

describe your IV in an earlier section (see above), so this section would be for “Dependent

Measures.”

What kind of scales did you use (e.g., Likert, semantic differential, etc.)? How many points were

on the scale (e.g., 5, 7, 9…)? If you used an existing measure (e.g., the Big Five Inventory) cite

where you found it. Include examples of specific questionnaire items that were used for each

variable, and then direct your reader to an Appendix to see the complete wording of items.

Results

Explain what kind of data analysis you did (e.g., correlation) and report your results. It

tends to be helpful if you restate a hypothesis first (e.g., “H1 predicted that…”) and then how

your analyses supported it or not (e.g., “Analyses of the mean scores do not support this

hypothesis. Specifically,…”). Be sure to report the key numbers. You can either 1) insert

numbers within the text itself (such as “Perception of credibility was higher for those who saw

the humorous speaker (M = 3.45) than for those who saw the boring speaker (M = 2.12)”; or “A

positive correlation (r = .37) was found between credibility and likability…”); or 2) put the

actual numbers in a table or graph (e.g., “Table 1 shows the mean scores for…”) and just

describe the results within the text like the examples above. The tables and graphs themselves

should be attached as separate pages at the END of your paper, so that they do not take up

valuable space for writing.

Comment [DM3]: Reminder of the assignment instructions on GS for this

section: In this section you should briefly report what

kind of data analysis you did (e.g., you

computed means on your DV for the different

IV groups, or you computed a correlation

between your IV and DV scales), and then

report the resulting data. In other words, report

differences in mean scores between people in

different groups or experimental conditions

(e.g., on question X., men on average scored

5.2 while women scored 6.8), or report r values

for correlations between variables, etc. You

may find that tables or graphs are useful ways

of presenting means and/or percentages.

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Remember that hypotheses aren’t “proven true”, rather, they are “supported” or

“evidence was found for”… Also, save for the discussion section any comments you have about

why you may have gotten the results that you got.

Discussion

**THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SECTION OF THE PAPER**!! Remember it

doesn’t matter what your results were (such as whether or not your hypotheses were supported,

etc); what’s important is that you can use course terms to intelligently discuss your findings and

critique the strengths and weaknesses of your study.

Summarize your findings and explain what they mean. Don’t repeat the numbers, but

rather explain what the implications are for your findings (Are your results consistent with or

contradictory to the studies that you used as the basis for your hypotheses? Why or why not?).

If your hypotheses were not supported (or some were and some weren’t), can you explain why

not? Your explanation of your findings can be a nice lead-in to the critique of your study,

because some of your study’s limitations may provide an explanation or insightful understanding

of your findings. That can usually make for a more meaningful discussion section than just

having a separate part of your discussion where your list/describe strengths and weaknesses as

separate things that have no connection to your findings.

As you identify strengths and weaknesses, try to avoid just inserting course terms when

they don’t really relate. Instead think critically about your study. Dig deep to show that you fully

understand the ins and outs of the scientific process and can apply the appropriate terms

insightfully. Explain what might have gone wrong or what could’ve been done differently (where

appropriate, and especially if you can tie those issues to your findings), and then finally give

suggestions for future research.

Comment [DM4]: Reminder of the assignment instructions on GS for this

section:

This is the most important section! Here you need to interpret your findings and critique your study.

First, what can you conclude on the basis of your findings? In other words, were your hypotheses supported (and if you posed a research question, what was the answer)? Do the findings relate or not relate to the previous research you examined (and why or why not, do you think)? NOTE that your actual results (what you found) DO NOT AFFECT your grade—it’s what you SAY about your results, etc., that matters!

Second, what were the STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES of the methodological decisions you made in your study? What effect(s) do you think your design, your sample, and/or your measures had on your results? Note that different issues are important to discuss in this section depending on what kind of study you did (experiment or survey). For example, proper sampling is more important for surveys, whereas proper random assignment is more crucial for experiments. Refer back to your lecture notes or the appropriate textbook chapter to review the specific issues relevant to your type of study. Some issues you may want to consider here are: operationalization (e.g., How might your definitions/measures have affected your results?); internal and/or external validity (e.g., How well are you able to make causal statements [if you are trying to]? How well are you able to generalize beyond your sample or to other settings/conditions?). The best papers will be ones that discuss the most relevant issues and that provide the most interesting insight and thorough use of course material.

Finally, suggest ways in which the

study could be improved upon or supported

further by future research (e.g., better

definitions, other methods for addressing the

topic).

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References

Last Name, F. M. (Year). Article Title. Journal Title, Pages From - To.

Last Name, F. M. (Year). Book Title. City Name: Publisher Name.

Comment [DM5]: See the APA help documents posted on GauchoSpace for

formatting help.

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Tables and Graphs

Insert your tables and graphs on a separate page that comes after your References.

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Appendix A

Questionnaires/measures should be attached as an appendix. You may also need to add more

appendices for other printed materials, such as stimulus materials for an experimental

manipulation (advertisements, facebook threads, etc.).