Producing a written report to describe the outcome of an experiment, in a format that is suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, is a critical part of being a psychologist. An empirical paper should describe a study in enough detail to demonstrate what question the research was designed to answer, what else is known about the topic (which makes it clear why your study is needed and important), exactly what was done, and what the findings mean to the field.
The purpose of this assignment is to give you some experience in writing an empirical paper. This paper will ultimately report the outcome of an experiment that has been designed and implemented by you. You will collect data, run data analyses and will interpret your findings. Your final paper will present the results in a complete research paper format, the sections of which are described below.
My role will be as your lab supervisor/reviewer/editor. It is my job to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the paper you produce, to get you to generate the best final paper possible. A large part of any career in science is opening up your written scientific reports to critical feedback, so it’s an important process to become comfortable with.
General Guidelines:
All papers MUST be uploaded to CANVAS so that they can be electronically checked for plagiarism via TurnItIn.com. Any paper that has not been uploaded prior to the due date will receive a zero. Papers must not have more than 10% plagiarism per TurnItIn.com.
You paper must follow standard APA formatting guidelines (margins of 1”, 12 pt. font, double-spaced, appropriate headers, sections, wording, citations, page numbers, headers etc), and include all sections listed below. The text or body of this draft should be about 10 pages. The title page, abstract, and appendices or other attachments do not count toward the page count of the paper (just keep in mind that the final version of your paper must be between 12-15 pages and include at least 15 peer-reviewed references).
Title page
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
A table
A graph
