One way to become familiar with classic and contemporary psychological research is by doing some independent reading and writing a paper about it. The purpose of the reading is to acquaint students with current psychological research as it appears in written form. By completing the paper, you will have the opportunity to learn and writes about how psychologists present hypothesis, methods, and results.
You must first select a topic from an area of psychology that you would like to examine. You can select one of the topics that appear below or you are welcome to select your own topic.
Next, you need to find three to five articles from psychological journals. An easy way to locate articles is to use PsycINFO, aPsycINFO is a searchable database with links to articles and abstracts published in psychology. Many of the journal articles that are listed in PsycINFO can be located online. You should look for journals such as, The Journal of Experimental Psychology, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Child Development, etc. Another helpful resource is the Psychology Resource Guide.
Articles from Psychology Today, Reader's Digest, and Redbook, etc., are not acceptable. Your references MUST come from psychological journals.
Finally, you must writess a paper based on your readings. At a minimum, you should summarize the work you have read. You can present the material as a simple summary, or you could compare or contrast the hypotheses, methodological procedures, statistical procedures, or results. The following rules apply to each paper submitted to satisfy the requirement: