PSYC 676 Developmental Neuropsychology

PSYC 676

Literature Review Paper: Part 2 - Thesis and List of References Assignment Instructions

Overview

Remember that throughout the term, you will be completing 4 cumulative assignments that are designed to guide you through the process of writing a comprehensive Literature Review Paper.You will continue the process this week by writing a thesis statement and providing a working list of references of primary, empirical, scholarly sources that support your thesis.

Instructions

Working List of References

For the Literature Review Paper, you are building an argument to persuade readers to accept your interpretation of the existing scientific literature pertaining to your topic. At this point in the process, you have selected a topic and received feedback from your instructor about its suitability. Now, you need to further explore the scientific literature concerning your topic. The purpose of the current assignment is to ensure that you obtain a truly comprehensive overview of the primary, scientific research that exists on the topic that you selected. To write a comprehensive literature review of any topic, you need to read lots of the existing research on the topic. For the present assignment, you are going to find and read at least 15 potential primary, peer-reviewed sources directly related to your topic, and then you are going to look for issues or themes that are common to all of your sources. Then you will create a list of references of the at least 15 primary, peer-reviewed sources that you found.

Thesis Statement

To formally present the argument in your paper, you will need to create a thesis statement—a single sentence that serves as a summary of the argument/rationale that you intend to present in the rest of your paper.

In order to create a credible thesis statement, you will need to read extensively about your topic and give significant thought to what you have read. This process involves collecting, reading, organizing, and analyzing evidence. As you read, you will look for possible relationships between known facts (e.g., recurrent patterns of finding, surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these patterns or relationships. As you do this reading and thinking, you will formulate a “working thesis,” an argument that you think you can support with evidence, but that may need some adjustment along the way.

Remember , one key feature that distinguishes a comprehensive literature review paper from research papers that students typically are used to writing is that with literature review papers, you allow the existing literature to guide the formation of your thesis (bottom-up approach) rather than formulating a thesis and then looking for research to support it (top-down approach). Practically speaking, when writing a literature review, you explore the published research on a specific topic (often hundreds of articles) then look for themes or patterns that are recurrently observed in the literature, and then your thesis will emerge from the themes/patterns that you observe.

Strong arguments have at least 3 main points supporting them. When writing your thesis, please ensure that the (at least 3) main points of the argument that you intend to present in your paper are made clear to the reader. For example, if you look at the thesis provided in the Thesis and List of References Example assignment, you will see the three main points of the intended argument…

EX: Empirical evidence suggests that Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is related to neuroanatomical and neurofunctional abnormalities in specific brain pathways involved in: 1) information processing, 2) behavioral initiation and 3) behavioral inhibition.

Content Requirements

· Provide a current APA-formatted title page that includes a descriptive title for your paper.

· Write a thesis statement (a single sentence, not an entire paragraph) that summarizes the argument that you intend to present in your comprehensive Literature Review Paper. The (at least 3) main points of your argument ought to be clearly discernable in your thesis.

· Create a working references list that is formatted according to current APA guidelines and contains the bibliographic information for at least 15 potential primary, peer-reviewed sources that you found while exploring the scientific literature on your topic.

· Though not required, you also may utilize no more than 3 secondary sources (e.g.,the Bible, the textbook, other scholarly books, or other published literature review papers). If you choose to use secondary sources, they also must appear in the list of references.

· NOTE: Websites are NOT considered scholarly sources and ought NOT be used for any assignments in this class.

· This initial list of sources is only a potential list. From the list of at least primary sources that you use for the current assignment, you will select 10–12 primary sources for your Outline assignment and your Literature Review Paper that:

· Provide a thorough representation of your original 15 prospective sources, and

· Offer solid evidence for each main point of the argument that you intend to build in your paper.

Formatting Specifications

· All assignment elements adhere to current APA “professional paper” formatting standards.

· All text is typed and double-spaced in a standard, university-approved font.

· All pages utilize 1-inch margins.

· A current APA-formatted title page is provided.

· A current APA-formatted References section with at least 15 primary, peer-reviewed sources is included.

· Individual references in the References section are formatted according to current APA guidelines.

Writing and Organization

· Make sure your thesis statement is only one sentence long

· Write in a scholarly writing style with a formal, graduate-level tone

· Be concise, not wordy

· Organize your ideas logically

· Utilize appropriate grammar, diction and punctuation

Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.

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