Partial Paper #1 is a draft of your Method section of your APA paper.
The method section will be 20% (or 20/100 points) of your final APA paper grade.
Be sure to review the requirements for the Method section and sample examples in the Partial Paper #1 module.
The sample should be used as a guide. Do not copy the exact sentence structure in the sample papers. This is considered plagiarism. The paper should be in your own words. The samples are there to help you with your APA formatting and to show you what kinds of information should be in each section.
NOTE: Writing out sample items for the questionnaires (e.g., “I am calm” from a specific questionnaire) is NOT a form of plagiarism. You should report the exact wording for the items on a questionnaire because that is what the participants received.
Your paper should be in APA format.
You will turn your paper in online here using Turnitin, which is a plagiarism website. Your writeup will likely include sample items from the surveys/questionnaires used. This is not considered plagiarism if you are citing your sources. Make it clear that a survey question is a sample item by either putting it in italics or quotation marks as per APA format. Your paper should abide by the Academic Integrity (plagiarism) guidelines in this course (see syllabus).
Your Turnitin score should be less than 25% (excluding sample items from surveys) for your paper to be graded.
Method Section Rubric (20 points)
Participants (4 points)
~1-2 paragraphs
How were and where from were the participants recruited? How many participants did you have?
Basic demographic data?
Describe participants in study and basic demographics
How many participants in study?
Age? (range, mean, and standard deviation)
Gender identity? (how many males, females, non-binary)
Ethnicity? (how many of each ethnicity?)
Materials (5 points)
~3-5 paragraphs depending on how many items were in your study materials.
What materials were necessary for study?
This is where you should operationally define how your independent and dependent variables were studied.
Use separate sections to operationally define each variable.
Tell what questions you used and describe them by each topic.
What survey/questionnaire was used to measure each of your variables? Cite the measures used.
Include how many items were on the survey, what the scale was used, how the data are interpreted, sample items, etc.
Option #1: What were participants presented with (i.e., the stimulus materials) and for how long.
Design (3 points)
~1 paragraph
Identify and define variables (operational definitions) and basic overall design.
What IV(s) and DV(s) were used?
If there was more than one level of the IV, report that here. (This will be if you have an experimental and not a correlational design.)
Is your design between- or within-subjects?
Procedure (4 points)
~1-2 paragraphs
Describe the procedure for study; must be understandable and plausible.
Describe how participants took your study.
Approximately how long did it take to complete?
How did they take it?
APA Style (4 points)
Each APA error will be -0.25 points.
NOTE: The participants section should always be first. However, you may adjust the order of the other sections depending on what works for the flow of your writing.
