Modified Writing Assignment – Abnormal Psychology-Fall 2020
Modified Writing Assignment – Abnormal Psychology-Fall 2020
1) Choose one mental disorder from among those we will cover in this course. Note that “Anxiety” and “Eating Disorders” are categories of disorders, not a single disorder.
Example 1: If you are interested in the chapter on anxiety, choose GAD, OR phobias, OR Social anxiety, OR OCD.
Example 2: If you are interested in the Eating Disorders chapter, please choose either Anorexia or Bulimia.
2) In this assignment, you cannot use studies on biological or medical aspects or interventions. (E.g., medications, neurotransmitters, or parts of the brain or their function). If you have an interest in this area, after discussing the topic with me, you may compare topics such as CBT to SSRIs where both interventions are addressed in both articles.
3)Select one aspect of the disorder (a or b or c below) you chose as your paper topic. For example:
a) Demographics
That is, who gets it most, compared to whom? E.g., depression in women OR depression in cisgender vs. genderqueer, Western vs. non-Western, or White U.S. (non-Hispanic) vs. U.S. ethnic minority. Choose one comparison of demographics from the previous examples (e.g., gender), and both articles must address that topic. E.g., You could use two articles on Depression in women OR two articles comparing men and women.
or
b) Types of the disorder
E.g., In Anorexia, choose either the restricting type OR the binge-eating/purging type or both. In Schizophrenia, you could have Type I or Type II or both.In Bi-polar Disorder one could have Bipolar I or Bipolar II or both. If you choose both types, both articles must address both types so that you can address a comparison.
or
c) Psychological therapies
Cognitive, Behavioral, Cognitive-Behavioral, Psychodynamic, or Sociocultural. Choose one specific kind of therapy and find two articles on it in relation to the disorder you chose (e.g., Exposure and Response Prevention for Phobias or Mindfulness therapy for Depression).
3) Using the PsycInfo database (available online through the WSU library), find two peer reviewed, empirical, and quantitative research articles on your paper topic (one aspect of the disorder you chose as described above). Once you make this choice, look at the Results section of the paper to be sure that the study results reflect inferential statistics (that is, statistical testing for significance). Studies describing only Means and Standard Deviations, or themes of participant responses are not quantitative.
To review the PsycInfo requirements for this course (which could be different than other courses), please follow these instructions and those on the PowerPoint slide presentation I posted on BlackBoard.
4) In your paper, you will only use information from the Discussion section of the journal articles.
Do not use information from the Introduction, Method, or Results sections.
Writing Assignment Point Structure
Review of Paper Outline and Materials
| Points towards Final Paper | |
| Mid-Term Review 10 | Submit your thesis statement/s and paper outline for review. Please include the full reference page using APA style. Use PDF or Microsoft Word. |
| Mid-Term Review + Final 10 at mid-term review (and with final paper) | Article 1 Submit the PsycInfo detailed record for the article (see PowerPoint presentation for what this is) + the full text article. Both documents must be PDFs. |
| Mid-Term Review + Final 10 at mid-term review (and with final paper) | Article 2 Submit the PsycInfo detailed record for the article (see PowerPoint presentation for what this is) + the full text article. Both documents must be PDFs. |
| Mid-Term Review 10 | References Please include the full reference page using APA 7th Ed. style. Use PDF or Microsoft Word. |
| 40 | Total |
Structure of the Paper (Use PDF or Microsoft Word)
| Points for Final Paper | Page Length | Content | |
| 10 | ½ a page | Using information from Comer and Comer (2018) only, write an introductory paragraph on the disorder and the aspect of the disorder you chose as your paper topic. Include your thesis statement at the end of this paragraph (see sample intro paragraph). Note that APA requires first person (e.g., I will examine….) and active voice in sentence construction. | |
| 20 | 2 pages | Describe the findings and the researchers’ interpretations of them, using the peer reviewed, empirical, and quantitative studies you found. Use information only from the Discussion section of each article. To earn more points, instead of writing one paragraph on one study and another on the second study, try to integrate or synthesize shared or contrasting findings, as relevant (see sample research paragraph). See outline for suggestions. | |
| 10 | ½ page | Conclusion- Include the most important information from all three sources and cite them all. Suggest future directions for research on this topic. | |
| 10 | Citation in the text of your paper- follow sample. | ||
| 10 | Reference page- follow sample. You will have three sources. | ||
| 60 | Total |
Writing Instructions
*The Psychology Department requires that writing in 300-level courses reflect mastery of APA style.
* Use the PsycInfo data base from the library website to select two peer-reviewed journal articles, both articles must be empirical and quantitative. That means no literature reviews, book chapters, meta analyses, or empirical case studies (qualitative) in this assignment.
*Extra sources are not permitted, even for a definition. No website citations please!
See the PowerPoint presentation I posted on how to do an “advanced” search on PsycInfo.
*The paper will be three pages in length (+/- 75 words max) plus a title page and a reference page. Note the page restriction.
*The paper must be typed using double spacing, Times New Roman 12pt font, and one-inch margins all around. This is APA format.
*Write the entire paper using APA style and format (APA-American Psychological Association) 7th edition. See the Purdue University Owl website for the current APA style guide.
*Do not include the title of the article (or textbook) in the text of your paper- we do not do that in APA style writing. Do not say “..in the textbook…” or “…in the article.” Instead, cite the author last name/s and the year of publication, based upon the samples.
*Quotations are not permitted in this assignment. If you do not know what a sentence means, do not use it. Using sentences directly from your sources is plagiarism- cheating. Please use your own, formal, grammatical language to re-state the information in your sources.
*Use “do not” and “cannot.” Avoid using contractions casual language in formal writing such as “don’t,” “can’t,” “gotten,” etc.
*In formal writing, use “based upon….” and not “based off of…” – the latter is not grammatical.
*When presenting the findings of the study in your journal article, clearly indicate that it was found in that study- the one you chose.
For example:
Smith and Walker (2019) found that…. or ..the study findings indicated that……. (Smith & Walker, 2019).
*When you present the author’s interpretation of their findings, be clear that it is an interpretation, not a finding.
For example:
Walker (2020) suggested that…… or Walker argues that….
