OVERVIEW

PROJECT BRIEF DESCRIPTION DUE SEPTEMBER 25  OCTOBER 2 UPDATE DUE OCTOBER 23 BY 11:59 P.M. THE OCTOBER 2 AND OCTOBER 23 UPDATES ARE SENT THROUGH THE DISCUSSION BOARD FIRST DRAFT THROUGH turnitin due NOVEMBER 21 BY 11:59 PM FINAL DRAFT DECEMBER 13 BY NOON THROUGH turnitin REVIEW WHAT I LOOK FOR IN A PAPER HERE

SYLLABUS

THEORIES OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SUSAN CAROL LOSH

If you want to take advantage of the rewrite option I need your first draft by November 21st! ALL projects due December 13th. All drafts must be submitted through turnitin in Canvas (under the ASSIGNMENTS folder).

I MUST HAVE RECEIVED BOTH YOUR ORIGINAL DRAFT BY NOVEMBER 21 + THE REWRITE ON DECEMBER 13th IN ORDER TO INVOKE THE REWRITE OPTION.

I assign a temporary grade to the first draft. That is replaced by a higher grade (presumably) for the final Project due December 13 by noon.
However, you may keep the temporary grade if (1) you are satisfied with it and/or (2) a cataclysmic event (illness, accidents, etc.) prevents you from a rewrite.
 

OCTOBER 23RD PROJECT UPDATE

PLEASE POST MILESTONE 2 ONLY TO THE DISCUSSION BOARD.

HERE'S WHAT I NEED TO KNOWFOR THE SECOND PROJECT MILESTONE :

Not enough time at this point to review the literature, get Human Subjects approval, design, collect and analyze data? That's very typical and nothing to worry about. It depends which degree and stage of that degree you are at. You can still do a STUDY DESIGN or PLAN.

IF YOU HAVE CHANGED OR REVISED YOUR TOPIC, THAT IS OK BUT PLEASE PRESENT YOUR UPDATED TOPIC.

AND (whether your topic is the same or different)

(1) What (more precisely) are you going to do? Literature review? Empirical study? WHAT KIND of empirical study if so (e.g., observational design, experiment, survey, etc.; be sure you have contacted Human Subjects if you are collecting new data)?

(2) Exactly what is your topic?  NOW IS THE TIME TO BE SPECIFIC! At this point, you are involved in a subtopic.

(3) Who are your team members (if applicable)? If you are working with someone else, now is the time to tell me (if you haven't already.) Or to reaffirm these members if you did.

(4A) IF YOU ARE DOING AN EMPIRICAL STUDY: You'll need at the least a call to the Human Subjects Committee. I need to know your procedures, see your questionnaire, review your field observation codes, etc. Although you may have some changes shortly, time is fleeting so you should have an overall design.

IF YOU ARE ANALYZING EXISTING DATA I NEED THE SAME INFORMATION as above, and the variables you are analyzing.

(4B) IF YOU ARE DOING A LITERATURE REVIEW: I need to know:

some of the journals
some of the books
some of the Web sites
literature or
the other people that you are investigating.
Give me a topic outline of the areas that you will review. If you must interpolate from a related literature (e.g., from aggression to "road rage"), describe that area.
REMEMBER WE ONLY HAVE A SEMESTER! Better a smaller topic in depth than many shallow topics.
Wikipedia is a BAD IDEA (you probably already knew that): what's here today can be gone--or totally different--tomorrow.
The new APA Manual has updated information about how to cite online resources so please check that out.

NOTE COMMON PROBLEM:

HELP! I'M DOING A LITERATURE REVIEW AND FINDING A MASS OF CONTRADICTIONS

This is actually a pretty typical experience. To help you through the maze, here are some suggestions:

Consider methodology first: Are the populations comparable in the  different articles and papers you examined? Findings derived from college student samples (truncated ages, socio-economic class, academic ability) may not generalize to other groups. This is a question of external validity.

More methodology: are the verbal and other measures used comparable? If not, this may cause discrepant results across studies.

More methodology: were control variables used in the analysis? Were the SAME control variables used in the analysis? Bivariate results may change when other independent variables are controlled.

Check out the age of the publication. (Remember:)  Gender differences in math once found in high school students have narrowed dramatically. More recent generations are more sophisticated about science inquiry than earlier generations. The phenomenon you are interested in may have changed over time (that's an interesting finding, so be sure to include if that's what happened).

Got TOO MUCH literature? In view of what we know, your topic may be too broad. Narrow the scope of your review.

TIME GUIDELINES

REQUIRED MILESTONES

• A short preliminary prospectus of your Course Paper is due October 2. (please note new date)
• An updated prospectus of your course paper is due OCTOBER 23rd.

BOTH SHORT DESCRIPTIONS FOR OCTOBER 2 AND OCTOBER 23nd WILL BE SUBMITTED THROUGH THE DISCUSSION BOARD. THREADS WILL BE CREATED.
 

• A initial draft of your Course Paper is due NOVEMBER 21st to allow you to elect the rewrite option.
• The final edition of your paper is due DECEMBER 13th BY NOON.
• The rough and final drafts are both submitted through turnitin, found at the top of the Assignments folder in Canvas.

REMEMBER WE ONLY HAVE A SEMESTER! Better a smaller topic in depth than many shallow topics.
 

SOMEWHERE IN THE FIRST PAGE OF YOUR PROJECT DESCRIPTION, YOU WILL TELL ME WHAT YOUR PAPER/STUDY IS ABOUT AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO STUDY THIS TOPIC! Also what YOUR project will contribute. You may wish to duplicate this information later in your paper too. That's what I refer to as "The Big 3". I assure you that I am a total maniac on this one and will notice immediately if you do not do so. What this introduction does is help your reader anticipate what will come next and that makes your paper easier for everyone to read. It lets the reader quickly know if this is a topic s/he wants to pursue.

Here's what you need to tell me:

• (1) What is the general area of your project?

• (2) What is the general approach that you plan to take?

• (3) What is the particular topic you plan to study?

• (4) PUT IT ALL TOGETHER IN A FEW SENTENCES:

EXAMPLE:I will examine the effects of two different counseling plans that involve social and nonsocial feedback on self-rated self-esteem in college students.

EXAMPLE: I will conduct and write a literature review on causes and consequences of bullying in middle and high schools.

• (5) Tell me the names of all team members if you plan to work with someone else.

• (6) GIVE ME A GENERAL IDEA WHAT IT IS THAT YOU WILL DO:

EXPECTED PROPECTUS LENGTH: 1-3 double-spaced typed pages or equivalent.

DON'T: be too specific. I don't need to know your coding categories, any standardized tests or minute experimental manipulations. That information will be on the OCTOBER 23rd update.

Wide latitude exists for your project. Here are some possibilities:

• Research existing literature in an area of interest to you.
• Analyze existing data, such as the General Social Survey or The Longitudinal Survey of Youth. (If you use your own or a major professor's data, you must complete original analyses for the Course Project. There are many, many datasets available online--something for every interest.)
• Design a study to be carried out in the future.
• Complete a small original study such as an experiment, survey, or observation (see examples below).

LIBRARY RESEARCH PAPER TOPICS:

• Critique of the classic "Hawthorne effect" research literature
• eBay, twitter--groups and interaction online
• Attribution theory and sports
• Bullying
• Fandom
• Interpersonal processes in African-American churches
• How preschool teachers interact with girls and boys
• Special education and issues in labeling
• Road Rage
• Domestic violence and children's school achievement
• Attitudes toward homosexual among collegiate sports team members
• Social factors in eating disorders
• Risk perception and extreme sports

EMPIRICAL STUDY TOPIC EXAMPLES:

• "Look up!" Conformity and gazing behavior
• Observing parent-child interaction in neighborhood football games
• Coach-player interaction
• Me Tarzan, you Jane? Advertising oneself in online singles columns and evolutionary perspectives
• Conformity in aerobics classes
• How educational level and bureaucratic skills influence attitudes toward and responses to a jury summons.
• Emotional intelligence in work groups
• Verbal and nonverbal behavior and client assessments of counselor competence (our APA graduate student poster winner from a SYP 5105 term project!)

ON TEAMWORK

Teams find it easier to plan and execute a small experiment, survey, or observation than individuals, can do more comprehensive literature reviews and more complex presentations. You may choose to work in teams enrolled in this class for the Course Paper.  Turn in the names of all team members on the Course Paper by October 23rd  with the updated project description. I also will alert you to possible teammates (but the choice is yours).

This is your opportunity to have some fun and be creative with Social Psychology.

ON REWRITES: You may rewrite your draft project IF I receive your first draft by November 21nd (through turnitin in Canvas.).

You can't lose!

Your grade on the rewrite will not be lower than the draft. At worst it will be the same (and that doesn't happen very often; nearly all papers are much better the second time around). I do not average the two grades; you receive the higher grade. ALL projects are due December 13, 2017 by noon through turnitin in our Canvas site. I will not read any rewrites or projects turned in after that time.

NO ROUGH DRAFT (milestone 3)? If you didn't turn in a rough draft, all projects are due by December 13 Wednesday by NOON through turnitin.
 
 

FSU fines our department $10 per late grade per day. That is why I must leave enough time to read your final paper to turn in grades on time!

Remember to make your project appropriate for THIS course and to use course material copiously. This is your opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned about Social Psychology. Even if your topic is one you have used before, I want to see how you apply Social Psychology to it.

Do a thorough proofread. A few typos here and there happen even when one is very careful. (For some reason, my MS Word consistently changes global warming to global warning.) However, many typos and misspelled words can often be caught by your word processor. If typos, misspelling etc are copious, they could drop your grade by 1/2 grade.

It helps to write a few sentences or a paragraph that summarize the main topic of your paper. Place this précis before you as you write. If your further sentences, paragraph, or section do not directly relate to that main topic, eliminate it or them, no matter how fascinating they may be. Place this writing in a separate file. Remember you will probably be able to include that excised paragraph or section in a different paper later on.

Sometimes I find it helpful is to paste this extraneous wonderful section or paragraph that I hate to discard at the end of my paper. When I am pretty much done, I make a decision about whether I can use the section in THIS paper and where it belongs.If so, I merge it in. Otherwise, I save that section in a new file to be used for a different paper sometime.

Working from outlines will help organize your ideas and the order in which you present them.

Use headings and subheadings to tell me what each major section of your paper is about (again, look at your readings for examples).

It's old stuff but remember that each paragraph should be about one main idea. Beginning and ending sentences make the transitions between paragraphs easier for your reader.

The moral is simple, really: you want people to read what you wrote (if they are glued to the page with excitement, so much the better!) So you want to make it as easy as possible for your reader to know what your topic is and how you address it.

The new 2009 edition of the APA publications manual has changed some of the ways to present articles and online sources in your References section.
If you don't already have the American Psychological Association publications manual and you plan more graduate courses, I STRONGLY recommend that you buy it. Not all of the "free synopses" available online are accurate.

WRITING SUGGESTIONS

Almost everyone ends up doing some rewriting. It's the nature of the beast (although if you prefer you can stick with the rough draft grade.) Fortunately word processors make it easy to move text around, insert or delete material. Most revisions won't take very long.

REFERENCE APPROPRIATE LITERATURE

Be sure to use professional journals, such as The Journal of Communication, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Social Psychology Quarterly, and other professional journals in your field. In general, AVOID popular magazines or newspapers; their authors typically are journalists, not trained behavioral scientists, and at best, only interview behavioral scientists. Avoid WIKIPEDIA since unfortunately it can be edited and re-edited so content is not standard and its peer review is quite different from professional peer review!

YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Your personal experiences as a counselor, a teacher, or other employee make terrific illustrations. However, recall that in a professional conference paper or article, personal recollections constitute a VERY small part of what is presented to the reader (maybe 5 percent, certainly no more than 10 percent). Your emphasis for this course paper should be on concepts and the evidence supporting or refuting the concepts. Use a sentence or so of personal experience (if appropriate) as a springboard to introduce a topic, or as an illustration, no more than that.

MAKE YOUR MANUSCRIPT APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

If I present my data on science reasoning in a Social Psychology paper session, I emphasize how and why  social factors influence knowledge and reasoning rather than materials that focus more on science education per se. Most topics have several dimensions and depths to them. It is NOT "cheating" to focus most heavily on the perspectives that your audience wants to know about the most. Rather, you are providing a service for your audience of readers.

BE SELECTIVE

The best paper is not usually the one that mentions the largest number of concepts in the fewest number of pages. This is because the paper will not be able to adequately define, describe, and evaluate each concept in a small space. Similarly the best paper is not the one that manages to cram the largest number of citations into the smallest amount of room.  Your paper will be better if it selects a relatively small number of concepts and deals with them in depth. (See below)

ORGANIZE AROUND CONCEPTS, NOT AUTHORS (AND A NOTE ON CITATIONS IN TEXT OR ELSEWHERE)

What were the major findings about your topic? Were group processes more important than "personality" in studies of bullying? How does ethnicity and its associated social experiences affect eating disorders? What are the major influences of cartoon violence on children's aggression? Take a look at your readings. They will summarize a finding ("imitation of aggression increased when the model was rewarded") then cite a few studies as examples.

The MOST important thing about your bibliographic references is not the year that they were published. Rather it is how germane they are to your topic in your review of the relevant literature and how updated the material is. Of course you want the most inclusive and accurate readings that you can find. This typically means more recent references (for example, high school boys and girls now have roughly similar math backgrounds although this was not the case 25 years ago). Older bibliographic entries typically "set the stage" while the more recent entries bring us up to date. On the other hand, if you have a relatively new area, you won't have those older bibliographic readings. If the field has "moved on" (e.g., cognitive dissonance or filmed aggression) you may not find newer readings.

FACTOID: When students write conceptually rather than a "laundry list" of authors, their projects far less often trigger plagiarism checks!

Citations typically follow American Psychological Association (APA 2009) style: in the text, simply put the author's last name and the year the study was published (e.g., Jones, 2001). Give the full citation in a reference section at the back. If the author has more than one study in a specific year, designate them as 2001a, 2001b, etc. If an author has a common last name, add their first initial (e.g., M. Jones, 2001a).
 

The new 2009 edition of the APA publications manual has changed some of the ways to present articles and online sources in your References section.

ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE

Have a comprehensive introduction. Your introduction, in a few paragraphs, should tell me (1) what your paper will be about, (2) why the topic is important to study, (3) what your paper will contribute (e.g., a solid review of the literature, a new study on mate selection; remember the Big 3), and (4) the order of the subtropics that you will examine. (I know; I said this before. It bears repeating.)

The introduction appropriately goes at the VERY BEGINNING of your paper.

PRIORITIZE

All concepts are not equally important, all theories not equally fruitful, all empirical studies not equally well executed or unambiguously informative. In selecting theories, concepts, and studies for your paper, emphasize those that are the most important and appropriate for your topic.

Examine theories and concepts for internal contradictions, ease of operationalization potential, and the available supporting evidence. Consider whether the studies you select for review could have multiple interpretations of the results or are too limited to be conclusive.

BIGGER IS NOT NECESSARILY BETTER

A shorter paper is often better, if it is well-organized, succinct, and avoids redundancy. Repetition is the most common problem that I see in novice papers, and it can be eliminated if you reorganize. Fortunately, word processors make it easy to block and press the delete key, move sections around and make substitutions.

HELP! I'M NOT DONE YET!

Several individuals, especially those who are either gathering or analyzing data, won't have their total paper done by the draft date. That's expected. Turn in what you can, and focus on the writing and conceptual review. Please DON'T turn in a mass of disorganized pages, of course, but showing where the results will go and a tentative description and explanation of the results is fine.

HELP! I'M DOING A LITERATURE REVIEW AND FINDING A MASS OF CONTRADICTIONS

This is actually a pretty typical experience. To help you through the maze, here are some suggestions:

Consider methodology first: Are the populations comparable in the  different articles and papers you examined? Findings derived from college student samples (truncated ages, socio-economic class, academic ability) may not generalize to other groups. This is a question of external validity.

More methodology: are the verbal and other measures used comparable? If not, this may cause discrepant results across studies.

More methodology: were control variables used in the analysis? Were the SAME control variables used in the analysis? Bivariate results may change when other independent variables are controlled.

Check out the age of the publication. (Remember:)  Gender differences in math once found in high school students have narrowed dramatically. More recent generations are more sophisticated about science inquiry than earlier generations. The phenomenon you are interested in may have changed over time (that's an interesting finding, so be sure to include if that's what happened).

Got TOO MUCH literature? In view of what we know, your topic may be too broad. Narrow the scope of your review.

AGAIN: ON REWRITES: You may rewrite your draft project IF I receive your paper by November 21st.

Your grade on the rewrite will not be lower than the draft. At worst it will be the same (and that doesn't happen very often; nearly all papers are much better the second time around). I do not average the two grades; you receive the higher grade. ALL rewrites are due December 13 2017. I will not read any rewrites or projects turned in after that time.

NO ROUGH DRAFT? If you don't turn in a rough draft, all papers are due by December 13 Wednesday by NOON through turnitin in CANVAS (Assignment folder).

Remember to make your project appropriate for THIS course and to use course material copiously. This is your opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned about Social Psychology. Even if your topic is one you have used before, I want to see how you apply Social Psychology to it.

Remember The Big 3: What's your topic? Why is this topic important (almost everyone includes this one)? What, specifically, will YOUR project do? I need to know these by the end of the first 1.5 pages.

Do a thorough proofread. A few typos here and there happen even when one is very careful. However, many typos and misspelled words can often be caught by your word processor.
 

OVERVIEW

SYLLABUS

This page was built with Netscape Composer.
Susan Carol Losh August 17 2017
Updated September 19 2017
Updated October 17 2017