Further Information on
Informed participation
Why it’s graded: In graduate school, you
learn from your peers and discussing information rather than just absorbing information
via lectures. In virtually every graduate course, you’ll be expected to
participate in class, and you’ll actually get much more from the class if you
do so.
Grading criteria: Do you participate in a
relevant way that shows that you’ve done the readings and thought about them?
Honor agreement
Why it’s assigned: To make sure you’re clear on
what’s expected of you
Grading criteria: Whether you turn it in on
time
Plagiarism assignment
Why they’re assigned: Plagiarism is a major issue
in academics and beyond (e.g., Melania Trump). I want
to make sure you’re clear on what you can and can’t do.
Grading criteria: Whether you turn it in on
time and do an adequate and complete job
Article summaries
Why they’re assigned: To give you early feedback
on your understanding of research articles and ability to write about them
clearly, succinctly, and using good scientific and APA style.
Grading criteria:
Understanding of article
Writing and writing style
APA style reference
Avoidance of plagiarism
Notes on assignment: See link for an example.
I’m looking for 1.5 to 2 pages, typed, double spaced, on each article
summarizing why it was done (background), what was done (in general—who did
what), what was found (no numbers, in words), and why we should care. The APA
style reference for the article should appear at the top of the document, and
you should turn in a copy of the article with the assignment (or you can email
me a link or pdf).
Completion of Human Participants Training
Why it’s assigned: The training is required to
serve as researcher or PI on any studies you conduct alone or with others.
Grading criteria: Whether you turn it in on
time
Notes on assignment: Bring me or email me one copy certificate.
Revision of article
summary
Why it’s assigned: Practice is the best way to
improve your writing. Use the feedback I’ve provided and figure out what you
need to do to improve.
Grading criteria: Same as the original
summary, plus 1) improvement and 2) comments showing your understanding of
feedback
Notes on assignment: Turn in the original summary again, the
article, and your revised version. In the revision, use “comments” to show
where and why you made changes.
Journal presentation
Why it’s assigned: You need to know how to
identify “good” journals and research vs. “not so good” ones. This will get you
thinking about what differentiates the quality of journals and introduce you
more fully to some journals that you may use in grad school and beyond. It also
gets you some early grad school experience working with others and presenting.
Grading criteria:
Finding accurate information
Accurately assessing the journal
quality
Presenting information clearly
Notes on assignment: I will give your group a list of journals.
You’ll need to look at the instructions for authors and description of the
journal, as well as look through a few issues to find out information on the
following: What topics does the journal publish on? What types of articles do
they publish (e.g., review, theoretical, empirical)? How long are articles
typically? What types of methodologies and statistics do they use? How many
studies typically are in one article? Do the articles use theory to guide the
studies? Is it peer-reviewed? Do you have to pay to publish in it? Who is the
publisher? Is it associated with any group (e.g., APA, SPSP)? What is its
rejection rate and/or impact factor? Is it open-access? Using the information
you found, what grade would you give the journal? You and your partner will
present (clearly, briefly, and in an organized fashion) this information to the
class. For each journal, give a summary of what the journal covers/is like and
your grade and rationale for that particular grade (e.g., A, A-, B+, C).
Present them in order from strongest to weakest. Use PowerPoint. Assigned
groups and journals are available in Dropbox. Note that you’ll only have 10
minutes max for your presentation.
Completion of IRB form
Why it’s assigned: To help you understand what
the questions are asking, so that when you do one for real, the process will go
more quickly and smoothly.
Grading criteria:
Whether you answer the questions asked on the form
Whether I would have questions or concerns as a
reviewer
How many revisions it takes until your study is
approved
Notes on assignment: The study you choose to describe can be one
that you’ve made up or one that you get out of a journal (or even one you’ve
done before as long as it’s not for a study you turned in to the UNI IRB). It
doesn’t have to be an earth-shattering study (I’m not grading you on design
except that it needs to make sense), but you should show that you’ve thought
through the details—who would you recruit, how would you recruit them, etc. If
you’re doing an article that you got from somewhere else and it doesn’t specify,
make it up.
List of faculty and choosing
of thesis supervisor
Why it’s assigned: This one is actually a
departmental requirement, not part of the class, but since you’re all in this
class I’m putting it here so you’ll remember. The idea is to get you talking to
faculty who might be thesis supervisors/committee members and finding out about
how your and their research ideas mesh--and of course, to get you started on
your thesis by identifying your supervisor.
Grading criteria: Turning it in on time
Notes on assignment: There
is a departmental form available in Dropbox that you need to fill out and get
your thesis supervisor to sign.
Article review
Why it’s assigned: To give you practice
reviewing articles. If you become a professor, you will do these “for real.”
There are also journals that allow graduate students to serve as reviewers. But
even if you never do another review, going through the process will help you
understand and critique research that you’ll use in your thesis, in other
papers, and in practice. It will also help you identify problems that you can
fix in your own research and writing.
Grading criteria:
Accuracy (whether your
criticisms are valid)
Clarity (how well I can understand
what you’re getting at)
Appropriate presentation (whether
it’s written as a review should be)
Notes on assignment: We’ll go through the entire
process so you can see what it would be like to be a reviewer. You and some
peers will individually review an article, then I’ll send the other reviews
(blind) back to you along with my “editor’s letter.” This will also give you an
idea of what it would be like to have your article reviewed (i.e., what those
usually look like).
Writing paper
Why it’s assigned: To get you thinking about what
your goals are and how you can get there (writing goals down makes it more
likely that you’ll reach them). To force you to start planning ahead.
Grading criteria:
Thoughtfulness of your plan/ideas
Grammar/writing
Notes on assignment: This
one can be written informally, but it still needs to be written well and should
be typed. In the writing plan, you’ll react to the information in the Silvia
book and in class. The thesis is an impediment to graduation for some
students—what will you do to ensure that it’s not one for you? How can/will you
use the information you’ve learned here and elsewhere to keep your writing and
research on track? What are your pitfalls you need to watch for?
CV/Resume
Why it’s assigned: You’ll all need to do one
eventually, and the more feedback you get, the better.
Grading criteria:
Format
Content (not how much you’ve done, but how well you
do describing what you’ve done)
Notes on assignment: You
can do a regular resume, a scannable resume, or a CV,
but let me know which it is. Grammar, etc. count here, as they will when you
turn it in to a school or employer. If you already have a CV/resume, that’s
great—just update it.
Conference paper
Why it’s assigned: To encourage you to
investigate conferences and get involved with research and/or career
exploration
Grading criteria: Whether you accurately
complete the assignment
Notes on assignment: Investigate 3 potential
conferences for your research or to meet with practitioners in your field. For
each conference, list the following:
Assignment
should be typed and put in your own words. (don’t
just cut and paste a glob from their website—show that you actually read and
processed it)
Integrative review
Why it’s assigned: To give you practice and
feedback on writing more than just an article summary. One of the biggest
problems that graduate students have is how to pull together research in a
literature review. This will hopefully create some paragraphs you can use in
your thesis and make the literature review writing part of your thesis
(typically the hardest part) go more quickly and smoothly.
Grading criteria:
Accuracy
Clarity
Scientific writing style (using formal writing,
using an appropriate amount of detail, using topic sentences and
explaining/critiquing/commenting on results, etc.)
APA style
Notes on assignment: This review should be about
2-3 typed pages (in APA style) plus an APA style reference section. It should
be something that you’re thinking about for your thesis, and that you could use
as a subsection in your thesis literature review. Talk to me about topics if
you’re not sure.
APA presentation
Why it’s assigned: You need to have a good
understanding of APA style for your classes and thesis. This is a way to get
that information without necessarily reading every word of the manual. It also
gives you more experience (and feedback from someone else) on a presentation.
Grading criteria:
Content (do you accurately describe
the important parts of the chapter/section)
Style (are your PowerPoints well
done, is your presentation style easy to follow and interesting, etc.)
Understanding (how well can you
answer people’s questions)
Notes on assignment: The
presentation should be 10-15 minutes (no more than 15 even with questions) and
include some audio-visual materials (e.g., PowerPoint). In your presentation,
you should briefly outline the type of information to be found in your section
and then point out information that you believe people are less likely to know.
Don’t review things that everyone already likely knows or that wouldn’t
generally be relevant. Work together with your partner if you have one; you
should both be familiar with all parts of the chapter and both of you should
talk some during the presentation.
Intro
and Chapter 1 and 2: Toni
Chapter
3: Emma and Jerome
Chapter
4: Kristin and Charlie
Chapter
5: Sage and Alba
Chapter 6 and 7: Ellie
Chapter 8 and Appendices: Hailey
APA style test
Why it’s assigned: Having a particular style in
a field is important so that people can easily find the things they need.
You’ll need APA style for your papers in grad school, including your thesis,
and for any presentations/publications you do. People seem to have problems
learning it (or at least applying it consistently), so hopefully being tested
on it will inspire you! (in other words, I’m tired of
marking up APA style errors on papers—we should be past that.)
Grading criteria: The test will be short
answer (e.g., write the APA style reference for this article) and multiple
choice (e.g., which of the following should you report with an ANOVA in a
results section)