Comparison research paper

Title of the paper

Your Name

Class & Institutional affiliation

Abstract

In the abstract you should: (Don’t use bullet points. This is just to list things that should be in your abstract.)

· Identify the article that you have selected from the ‘Articles’ folder on Blackboard

· Paraphrase the abstract of this article

· State in your own words what you think this article is about

· Identify how many experiments this article has (some many only have 1 experiment, and some may have up to 4 different experiments in one paper) and state which experiment (e.g., Experiment 1 or Experiment 2) that you will be analyzing

Keywords: put, some, keywords, or, phrases, that, would, help, others, know, what, your, paper, was, about

Title of the Paper

This section should be your introduction. This section should be AT LEAST ¾ of a page, but no longer than 1 full page, double spaced (Times New Roman – 12 font). Things that you should include:

· Introduce the topic of your paper/the article you chose.

· Provide a brief history of the topic.

· Which article did you select and why; why is this study important to students today? (Don’t use “I”. Instead: The article selected for this analysis is … This study is important today because …)

· What is the research question in this experiment? What are they studying and why?

· If you are using direct citations or direct quotes, make sure to cite your source or it will be plagiarism! (You should have to cite some in this section! Look at the in-text citations section on the Purdue Owl APA link. Once you get to the page, look on the left side tabs.)

(The introduction ends here. Do not go into the Literature Review. That is for next week)

Literature Review

Topic of the First Supporting Article/Study You are Discussing ( Here you will write the topic of the first supporting study that you will be paraphrasing. Below here you will paraphrase it.)

Talk about the first of those other supporting studies here. Do correct APA citation of the article title and the authors. Keep track of this study for your References page that will be due at the end of the semester.

Topic of the Second Supporting Article/Study you are Discussing ( Here you will write the topic of the second supporting study that you will be paraphrasing. Below here you will paraphrase it.)

Talk about the second supporting study here. Do correct APA citation of the article title and the authors. Keep track of this study for your References page that will be due at the end of the semester.

The total of the Literature Review should be at least 1 full double-spaced page. Remember, all your work should be double spaced in Times New Roman, 12 size font, just like this page. (Your Literature Review should look EXACTLY like this page but obviously with your information in place of the current things I have as placeholders.)

Method

Identify participants and procedures and explain how the research was conducted. For example, did they bring participants into a laboratory? What were the independent variables in their study (i.e., the variables that were manipulated by the experimenter(s)); what was the dependent variable (i.e., the variable that was measured by the experimenter(s))? How long did it take to collect their data?

Results

The results section in the paper that you are analyzing will have a graph. Interpret the graph and explain how it answers the research question(s). hint: the x-axis—bottom of the graph—should display the independent variables (different groups) and the y-axis—side of the graph—should display the dependent variable (what was measured).

Discussion

Review the discussion section in the paper that you are analyzing. Identify:

· Any limitations of the study

· How should future research move forward (which is what you are going to hypothetically do!)…

Follow-up Experiment

In this section, describe how you would extend the research. For example, what questions still remain after analyzing the results of the paper? How would you answer these questions? Develop an additional research question.

Proposed Method

In this section, explain who your participants will be (i.e., who will you use to collect your data in order to answer your research question?). What are your independent variables? dependent variable(s)? How will you conduct your research? (refer back to the method/procedure section in the paper that you analyzed to help clarify how to write this section).

Expected Results

Explain how you would expect your results to turn out (e.g., your hypothesis) and also show these hypothetical results on a graph. For example, if my research question was: does caffeine enhance memory? I would have my independent variable (amount of caffeine—I would have given one group of participants a high dose of caffeine and one group of participants a low dose of caffeine) on the x-axis and my dependent variable (memory performance—I would give both groups the same memory test after their caffeine intake to see which group did better) on my y-axis. If I expected the results to show that caffeine enhanced memory, my graph would look like this:

Overall Discussion

Complete the paper with a conclusion. For example, restate the general topic of the analyzed study. Explain how your follow-up experiment builds on the analyzed study. Why was your research question important? Why did you expect the see the hypothetical results that you demonstrated in your graph? Are there any follow-up research questions that you could have asked concerning this topic?

In your final paragraph, describe how this project has helped your understanding of how research is conducted in the field of psychology.

References

\

Groups

Memory Performance