Psychology

General Paper Format

Yes

No

1. Is everything in your paper (including headers, the main body of your study one literature review, and references) in 12 point Times New Roman font?

2. Is everything in your paper double spaced, including references (here I mean the spacing above and below each line, not the spaces following a period)?

3. Do you have one inch margins on all sides of the paper (one inch from the top of the page, one inch from the bottom, and one inch from each side)

4. Are the first lines of all paragraphs indented roughly ½ inch?

5. Are your paragraphs aligned left? (That is, text should be flush left, with lines lining up on the left of the page, but text should NOT line up on the right side of the page – it should look ragged)

6. Are your sections in this exact order: Title page, abstract, literature review, method, references, appendix?

7. Do you need help figuring out how to configure a word document in APA format (inserting headers, page numbers, indents, etc.) using the professional (not student) formatting guidelines? If YES or NO, I recommend watching this video which walks you through setting up an APA formatted paper! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZTCN6yOgSg

Title page

Yes

No

Header

1. Is your header title in ALL CAPS, and is it a shorter version of your real title?

2. Is your Running head in 12 point Times New Roman font?

3. Do you have a page number that is flush right (also in 12 point Times New Roman font)?

4. Is your header title 50 characters or less (including spaces and punctuation)?

Title / Name / Institution

1. Is your title focused and short, avoiding unnecessary words and abbreviations that serve no purpose (as recommended by the APA)?

2. Does your title describe your general paper theme (while avoiding something bland like “Paper One: Experimental”)? Note that your header should be a shorter version or your title (For example, the first few words are fine)

3. Do all title words with three letters or more start with a capital letter?

4. Is your title in bold?

5. If your title is longer than one line, is it double-spaced (like everything else in your paper)?

6. Are your name and institution correct?

7. Are your title, name, and institution elements centered and in 12 point Times New Roman font?

Abstract

Yes

No

1. Is “Abstract” centered and boldface?

2. Do not indent first line.

3. Is it approximately 120-150 words long?

4. Does it briefly discuss your study as a whole (purpose of research, study design, sample size and unique characteristics, what statistical analyses you conducted)? Write about everything up until the methods.

5. Is it in past tense?

6. Is “Keywords” indented and italicized?

7. Do you list 3-7 keywords relevant to your study?

Literature Review

Yes

No

Header

8. Is your header title present and identical to your header from the title page?

9. Is your header title in ALL CAPS and 12 point Times New Roman font?

10. Do you have a page numbers?

Title for the literature review

1. Do you have the identical title you used on the title page rewritten at the top of your literature review (including being in bold)?

2. Is this title centered?

Yes

No

Main body of the literature review

1. Does your literature review start broadly, giving a brief overview of the paper to come?

2. Does your literature review start to narrow down toward your hypotheses?

3. Does your literature review include a theory/theoretical foundation?

4. Do your paragraphs transition from one to the next? (That is, avoid simply listing studies you read. Tie them together. How does Study A in paragraph A relate to Study B in paragraph B?)

5. Does your paper end in your very specific hypotheses? (You will lose a lot of points if your paper doesn’t provide the specific predictions!)

6. Did you make sure your predictions are written in the past tense?

7. Is your paper at least four pages long (not including the hypotheses)?

Citations for the literature review

1. Did you cite a minimum of 14 PEER REVIEWED articles? (Two things: websites do not count as peer reviewed, so if you want to include websites, add them in addition to the 14 peer reviewed citations. You can give a lot of detail for some articles you cite but only a sentence or two for others. How much detail you go into depends on how important the article is in helping your support your hypotheses)

2. Are your citations in APA format (That is, ONLY the last name of the author(s) and date of publication)?

a. Note that you do NOT include first names, initials, or the title of the article the authors wrote when citing. That information belongs in the references pages only.

b. Also note that you only use an ampersand – the & symbol – when it occurs within parentheses. In other instances, use the word “and”

3. If you quoted, did you provide a page number for the direct quote?

4. If you paraphrased in any way, did you cite the source of that information?

5. Did you cite everything that sounded like it was factual information?

6. Did you make sure the period follows the citation rather than coming before it?

8. If there are two authors, did you cite both of them? If in parentheses, did you use the & symbol? If outside of parentheses, did you use the word “and”?

9. If there are three or more authors in the same citation, did you use the phrase et al. every time you cited them?

10. Is your literature review AT LEAST 4 pages (not including title page & abstract)

Method

Yes

No

Is your entire method section written in past tense?

Is your entire method section at least 2 pages?

Yes

No

Title for methods section

1. Is “Methods” centered and in bold?

Participants subsection

1. Do you begin with a “Participants” subsection?

2. Is the “Participants” subheader flushed left and in bold?

Did you mention the number of participants in your study?

3. Did you mention unique characteristics about your sample that are important to your study(e.g., autistic, college students, south Floridians, seniors, women, etc. Since you’re using simulated data, please make up/create statistics relevant for your study and mentioned that your numbers are speculative.)

4. Did you mention the gender breakdown in percentages and numbers (e.g., 58% (N=200))? These can be made up/created.

5. Did you mention the mean, range, and SD of the age of your sample? These can be made up/created.

6. Did you mention the racial/ethnic breakdown in percentages and numbers (e.g., 58% (N=200)? These can be made up/created.

7. Are your statistical notations italicized (e.g., N = 10, SD=.5, M=55)?

Yes

No

Materials and Procedure section

8. Do you follow the participant section with materials and procedure?

11. Is the subsection title “Materials and Procedure” flushed left and in bold? If you are merely using measures (i.e. instruments that measure psychological constructs often used in surveys), feel free to title this section “Measures and Procedure”.

12. Do you mention the materials and/or measures used in your study (with what did you measure your DV?). Include measure names, citation, the number of items it contains, how each item was rated (e.g., Likert-type rating scale AND its anchors; 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree”), and an example item. If you want each measure to have its own subsection within “Materials and Procedure”, is the subsection title indented and boldface (Week 6 PPT slide 15 for example)?

13. Do you discuss your procedures from start to finish? How were participants recruited? How did you receive their consent (they have to sign a consent form)? Did you have essential criteria that must have been met to qualify for the study? How were participants assigned into groups? What was your study design? What was your manipulation/intervention, and how was it carried out? How did you collect data on the DV? How were participants debriefed? Was there compensation for participating?

14. Do you briefly mention in a sentence or two what analyses you conducted? (hint: what kind of t-test?)

References Page

Yes

No

Title for the references page

1. Do references start on their own page?

2. Is the word “References” centered? Is it in bold?

References – Make sure these are in APA format!

1. Are references listed in alphabetical order (starting with the last name of the first author listed)?

2. Are all citations from the literature review referenced?

3. Is the first line of the reference flush left while subsequent lines are indented (Note: Use the ruler function for this. DO NOT simply tab)?

4. Did you use the “&” symbol when listing more than one author name?

5. Did you include the date of publication

6. For article references, is the article title (which is not italicized) present, with only the first word and proper names starting with a capital letter?

7. For article references, is the name of the journal present with all major words starting with a capital letter (Note: this journal title is italicized)?

8. For article references, is the volume number italicized

9. For article references, are the page numbers present (not italicized)

10. For article references, is the DOI present

Appendix

Yes

No

3. Do appendices start on their own page AFTER the references?

4. Is the word “Appendix” centered? Is it in bold?

5. Since you will have multiple appendices corresponding to different material, label it with a capital letter (e.g., Appendix A). For now, you just need to attach your demographic questionnaire to Appendix A. If you want to include your measure(s), then you can attach it to Appendix B, and consent form to Appendix C. Each appendix begins on its own page.

Yes

No

Demographics Questionnaire

1. Do you avoid asking diagnostic questions (i.e. How effective did you find your treatment; demographics is not for asking screening questions)

2. Are your questions clear and have a concrete answer; do they avoid being ambiguous, vague, or have multiple meanings?

3. Are your answers mutually exclusive?

4. Are you limiting your open ended questions (no more than one or two)?

Writing Quality

Yes

No

1. Did you proofread your paper, go to the writing center, go to the research methods help center, or use the Pearson writer to make sure your paper flows well?

2. Did you use the past tense (which is recommended, since your papers in this class will reflect work you already did rather than work you will do)?

3. Did you use a scientific / objective terms like “people”, “participants”. “users”, “readers”, etc. (as opposed to subjective words like “you”, “we”, “me”, “I”, or “us”, etc.)? Note that you can use the word “I” when referring to your own work.