Writing Assignments for PSYC 2210, Karl Wuensch, Summer II ...



Writing Assignments for PSYC 2210, Karl Wuensch, Summer I, 2011You have four writing assignments for this term. Each of them must be prepared in Microsoft Word and sent to Dr. Wuensch as an attachment to email before the deadline for the assignment. Each will be graded on a 25 point basis.Assignment 1Your first writing assignment in this class is to conduct a literature search on the topic of how physical attractiveness affects the way we interact with others. More specifically, you are to find publications that deal with how people respond differently to persons who are physically attractive than to persons who are physically unattractive. After you have found between 5 and 10 good publications that are available in our library (at least four of which must have been published more recently than in 2000) you will prepare an APA-style reference list in a Microsoft Word document. Ideally at least one of these references will be for a review article – an article that summarizes the research done by many others. See Conducting a Literature Search for an overview on conducting a literature search.One classic article on this topic is:Dion, K. K., Berscheid, R., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285-290.Your guide to preparing an APA-style reference list is the document “Writing an APA-Style Research Report,” which can be found at . This document includes links to other documents that you will need to consult to learn how to prepare a proper APA-style reference list.You may use my sample papers as a model of how to write an APA-style research paper (including the reference list). You may find that the references in one of those sample papers are relevant to your topic. While you are free to use such references in your reference list, they will not count towards the minimum of five references.Keep in mind that your second writing assignment will involve the relationship between physical attractiveness and a second construct. Be thinking about that second construct. Reading the articles you find should help you decide what your second construct will be.You will email your APA-style reference list (as a Microsoft Word document attached to email) to Dr. Wuensch by no later than 1 PM on Friday the 20th of May, 2011. The file name of the Word document should be “Nnnnn-Write1.docx,” where “Nnnnn” is your last name. The “.docx” is the file extension, and is automatically appended by Word when you save the file. If you are using an old version of Word, the extension may be “.doc.” Do not change the name of the extension. For your email subject line, please use “PSYC 2210: First Writing Assignment.”Please read carefully my document Errors Made on the First Writing Assignment. Be careful not to make any of these errors when you complete this assignment.Assignment 2Your second writing assignment will be to prepare the introductory section of an APA-style manuscript in which you introduce the reader (me) to a research question that you will be addressing. This research question will involve a relationship between physical attractiveness and some second construct. You should be able to convince the reader that there is some reason to expect a relationship between physical attractiveness and that second construct. Your guide to writing this introductory section is the document “Writing an APA-Style Research Report,” which can be found at introductory section will summarize your review of the literature on physical attractiveness and the second construct to which you think that physical attractiveness is related. That second construct must be one which you can imagine manipulating or measuring. Of course, you will need to do a literature search on that second concept before you can complete that introductory section.Your introductory section will also state what relationship you expect to find between physical attractiveness and your second construct and why you expect to find such a relationship.Your introductory section should be complete, but not long – no longer than five double-spaced pages.You will also revise your reference list to include citations to literature on your second construct. Your revised reference list should include at least ten references (excluding references to abstracts), at least eight of which were published more recently than in 2000. Your reference list should include both references relevant to physical attractiveness and other references relevant to your second construct. Please remember that there must be a one-to-one correspondence between citations in the body of the manuscript (in your introduction section) and in the reference list.Put your reference list in a separate document (we do not want to check the references for plagiarism). The file with the introduction should be called “Nnnnn-Write2”<extension of .docx or doc> and the file with the references “Nnnnn-Refs2” <extension of .docx or doc> where “Nnnnn” is your last name.BlackBoard 9 provides a plagiarism checker for writing assignments. Students are supposed to be able to use this feature to check their papers to see if there are any problems with plagiarism, but I am unable to verify this – instructors cannot see what students see when they log in to BB. In addition to emailing your paper (both files) to me, I ask that you also upload “Nnnnn-Write2” to “Second Writing Assignment,” under “Assignments,” “Writing Assignments” in BlackBoard.You will email your introductory section and revised reference list to Dr. Wuensch by no later than 1 PM on Friday the 27th of May, 2011. For your email subject line, please use “PSYC 2210: Second Writing Assignment.”I expect you to have read every reference that appears in your reference list. That means that you have obtained (through the ECU library, other library, or online) the original source, not just an abstract or summary that appeared elsewhere. You may include references to abstracts in your reference list, but they will not count towards the minimum of ten references. For an example of how to cite an abstract, see my document Citing Abstracts.When I grade your paper, I may select one of the references (excluding references to abstracts) and ask you to provide me with a copy of it, on paper or in an electronic medium, within 48 hours of the time of my email request. If you are unable to provide the requested copy, I shall deduct five points from your score on the second writing assignment.You may find it useful to see what errors have been made on this assignment in the past. Check out the document: Errors Made on the Second Writing Assignment.If you absolutely have your heart set on investigating the relationship between two constructs, neither of which is physical attractiveness, speak to me about that. I may allow that, as long as you understand it will require more work on your part (since you have already done a literature review on the effects of physical attractiveness).Assignment 3Your third assignment is to write an APA-Style Methods section in which you explain how you would conduct research investigating the relationship between physical attractiveness and your second construct. Your guide to preparing an APA-style Methods section is the document “Writing an APA-Style Research Report,” which can be found at can elect to manipulate physical attractiveness (in which case it would have a small number of possible values) or to measure it passively. If you measure it passively, it may be treated as a continuous variable, with many possible values, or as a categorical variable, with few possible values.You can elect to manipulate your second variable or passively to measure it. If you passively measure it, you can do so in a continuous fashion or a categorical fashion.Your Methods section will include a description of how you will analyze the data, using a statistical technique that is both appropriate and within your knowledge base (from your course in statistics). I expect that the statistical techniques employed will include independent samples t tests, one-way ANOVA (with pairwise comparisons among the groups), correlation/regression analysis, and Pearson chi-square analysis.You will also provide me with a description of the results you would expect to obtain if you were to conduct the research. I shall use such expected results to simulate data that you will analyze as part of your final writing assignment. Here is what I need to simulate your data, given the type of analysis you plan:Independent Samples t Test: For each group, mean, standard deviation, and N.One-Way Independent Samples ANOVA: For each group, mean, standard deviation, and N.Correlation/Regression: N, Pearson r between X and Y, mean for the X variable, standard deviation for the X variable, standard deviation for the Y variable, and X-intercept for predicting Y from X. One easy way to get these parameters is this: Take a piece of paper and make up scores on X and on Y for each of 10 to 20 subjects. Be sure that your scores are believable -- for example, don’t make up scores whose values would be out-of-range for the variable. After making up your scores, enter them into SPSS and obtain the required estimates of parameters.Pearson Chi-Square: Total N and, for each cell in the contingency table, what percentage of the total number of subjects you would expect to find in that cell. Of course, the cell percentages need to sum to 100%.If you are not certain which of these four NHST procedures is appropriate for your proposed research, please consult my document Choice of NHST: Categorical versus Continuous Variables.You should also explain in your Methods section how you decided on the number of subjects on which to gather data. I recommend that you plan on having enough subjects to have at least an 80% chance of detecting an effect of medium size. Consult my document the document Estimating the Sample Size Necessary to Have Enough Power to determine the sample size you need.Please read the document Simulation Parameters to see how I would like you to format your presentation of the simulation parameters and how I shall format the data file that I send you.You will email your Methods section with anticipated results to Dr. Wuensch by no later than 1 PM on Friday the 3rd of June, 2011. The file name of the Word document should be “Nnnnn-Write3.docx,” where “Nnnnn” is your last name. If you are using an old version of Word, the extension may be “.doc.” Do not change the name of the extension. For your email subject line, please use “PSYC 2210: Third Writing Assignment.”You may find it useful to see what errors have been made on this assignment in the past. Check out the document: Errors Made on the Third Writing Assignment.Assignment 4Your final assignment is to write a Results and Conclusions section. In this section you will present the results of your analysis and the conclusions you draw from that analysis. Your guide to preparing an APA-style Results and Conclusions section is the document “Writing an APA-Style Research Report,” which can be found at an appendix included with your fourth writing assignment, I would like for you to provide me with the SPSS/PASW output for the analyses that you present in your results and conclusions sections. Here is how to copy the output to a Word document:In the output window of SPSS/PASW select the item or items you wish to copy to the Word Document. You can do this by pointing at the item and clicking on it or by pointing at its description in the left hand pane and clicking on it.You can select multiple objects by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on what you want to select.You can select a series of objects by holding down the Shift key while you click on the first and last objects in the series.You can select everything by holding down the Ctrl key while you hit the A key.After selecting the desired object(s), click Edit, Copy Objects. This copies the objects into the clipboard.Go to your Word document and place the cursor where you want the object(s) to be pasted and then hold down the Ctrl key while you hit the V key.You will email your Results and Conclusions section to Dr. Wuensch by no later than 1 PM on Friday the 17th of July, 2011. If you are using an old version of Word, the extension may be “.doc.” Do not change the name of the extension. For your email subject line, please use “PSYC 2210: Fourth Writing Assignment.”You may find it useful to see what errors have been made on this assignment in the past. Check out the document: Errors Made on the Fourth Writing Assignment.Karl L. Wuensch ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download