Term Paper Instructions

Some General Information

Your paper should be 15-20 pages and should focus on research relevant to attitudes and/or persuasion. Your focus can be on any topic of interest to you as long as your topic reflects theory or research about attitudes and persuasion.

The paper is due by 5pm on Monday, May 9. In order to have your paper topic approved, you must submit a one page paper proposal (described below) by Friday, April 14. Your paper topic must be approved or you will receive a failing grade on the paper itself.

Two 0ptions for the Paper

You have two options for your paper: you may write either a literature review or a research proposal. Graduate students must write a research proposal; undergraduates may write either a research proposal or a literature review.

Literature review. A literature review examines the published research relevant to a particular theoretical or practical problem. It is an attempt to organized and integrate research and theory in a specific substantive area. According to the APA Publication Manual (1995), literature reviews are "critical evaluations of materials that have already been published." A literature review "1) defines and clarifies the problem; 2) summarize previous investigations in order to inform the reader of the state of current research; 3) identifies relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature; and 4) suggests the next step or steps in solving the problem" (p.5).

It is important to choose a topic that is narrow and specific enough to allow adequate coverage in a brief paper. Once you identify a general area of interest, try to focus on a particular problem within that area. Be as focused and specific as possible it is better to cover a narrow topic in detail than to cover a broad topic in a superficial manner. If you have difficulty deciding on a topic, please see me.

Research proposal.   A research proposal describes an original study designed to address a question which has not been answered adequately by existing research. The format of a proposal is the same as that of an empirical journal article, except that the proposal describes predicted results (rather than the results of research which has already been conducted) and provides a discussion based on those predicted results.

The introduction of a research proposal begins with a short literature review. The review should be narrowly focused, but should include a clear statement of the problem and a brief summary of research in that area. The review should highlight what you believe to be the strengths and weaknesses of previous research. It also should provide a sense of why the research you suggest would be interesting and important. the introduction should conclude with a clear statement of the question(s) that you wish to answer.

Following this introduction, you should include a method section. This section should describe exactly how the question(s) will be tested. It lists the specific hypotheses, the independent variables and how they are operationally defined, and the dependent variables and how you will measure them. You should then provide a results section which describes the data you would expect to obtain (based on your hypotheses) if you actually conducted this research. It should be limited to reporting on the expected findings.

Finally, you should provide a discussion section you should interpret the expected results for their implications regarding the nature of the problem addressed in the research proposal. It should examine the similarities and differences between your expected results and the results of other researchers. The discussion should indicate the practical and theoretical implications of your proposed research.

Some notes relevant to either paper type

Regardless of which type of paper you elect to write, you should cite references in APA style (copies of the most recent APA Publication Manual are available it Wilson Library, in Williamson Bookstore, or you may come office hours to use my copy) and provide a references section at the end of your paper­.

Any ideas in the paper you write that are not your own should be cited as such. Using ideas (whether paraphrased or not) from any source without citing the source in the body of the paper and including it in your reference section is plagiarism and is a violation of both academic ethics and University policy. Any plagiarism in your paper will result in your receiving a failing grade for the paper. In addition, any plagiarism will be reported to the CLA Scholastic Conduct Committee.

The one page paper proposal

In order to have your paper topic approved, you must turn in a one page paper proposal by Friday, April 15. Your proposal should describe the specific topic area to be addressed in your paper and should describe briefly how you plan to address the topic area. If you are writing a research proposal, then this should include your ideas about the question to be answered and the methodology you will use; if you are writing a literature review, then it should discuss the specific parts of the literature you will be addressing and the scheme you plan to use to organize the Literature.

Please keep in mind that you must have your paper topic approved either by the faculty instructor or TA in order to receive a grade for the paper. If you do not have your topic approved, then you will receive a failing grade for the final paper.