Topic Selection:

You are to research a topic of in the area of social psychology. There are many potential topics that are presented in the text. However, the paper must go beyond merely what is presented in the text. The paper must cover research that has been presented in a scholarly journal or publication. Websites are not considered scholarly publications. This paper must focus on some aspect of social psychology. For instance, you might write a paper on cognitive dissonance, social norms, or persuasion.

B. Length of Paper:

Your paper will be a minimum of 6-typed, double-space pages. You are to have 1 inch margins on all sides. Use 12-point font for the typeset. You must also include a bibliography or reference page with your paper. Reference pages and title pages are not included in the page count.

C. References:

You must use at least six references. These references may be books or journals (including online scholarly journals). You may include reputable websites (e.g., government websites, professional association websites) as references; however, these do not count towards the six references required. Note that user-controlled websites like Wikipedia are NOT appropriate for this (or other academic) assignment. The primary textbook (Aronson) can be cited but cannot count towards the six references. You may use two readings from the supplementary textbook (Aronson & Aronson) as references, but the other references must be located through the BVU Library or BVU Library website.

D. Citing Sources:

If you take information from another source (the textbook, a scholarly journal article, an encyclopedia, a website, etc.) you must give the authors proper credit for using their ideas and writing. This means that you need to cite the source (in APA format, using both in-text citations as well as a reference list) even if you do not use direct quotations. Any information that is not your own thought should be cited. Note that if you do use direct quotations, you must also give the author credit for using their words - by using quotation marks in addition to appropriate citations. Please also note that you should not rely heavily on verbatim text in the final paper - quotations are fine to supplement the material you are presenting, but should complement your own paraphrasing.

Plagiarism is the intentional presentation of another person's works as though it were you own. Acts of plagiarism are considered a violation of ethical standards of behavior. Plagiarized papers will receive a score of zero. You must give credit to authors of all the material you use in your paper. You can do this through the use of citations or quotations. There are a number of examples throughout your text on how to properly document the sources you use to write your paper. Failure to properly cite your sources will have a severe impact on your paper score.

All papers will be submitted to a plagiarism detection source. Those papers which have been plagiarized will receive a score of zero.

E. General Comments:

Please proof read your papers before you turn them in. You paper will be evaluated on your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Remember, spell checkers do not check for proper word usage. They only check for spelling errors.

F. General Format for the Paper:

1. Introduction
   1. Identify topic
   2. State why you chose the particular topic
2. Body
   1. Define the topic
      • This description must be comprehensive and must give enough detail that the reader can get a true understanding of the definition. make sure you cite the source where you found the definition (including the course textbook if applicable)
   2. Discuss how the research relates to social psychology theories
      • Discuss what the major objectives are surrounding the research.
      • Discuss specifically how the research pertains to social psychology.
   3. Discuss which constructs of social psychology to which the research is related.
   4. Summarize the types of procedures used to conduct the research.
   5. Summarize the types of statistical procedures used to analyze the data collected in the research
   6. Summarize the findings of the research
3. Summarize the research findings
   1. Discuss the major findings of the research
   2. Discuss the conclusions drawn by the researchers
   3. Discuss how the research contributes to existing knowledge
4. Conclusions
   1. Summarize what you have gained from your research
   2. Discuss how the research supplemented the material presented in the course
   3. State the specific concepts and ideas from the text that the research supplemented
   4. Other general ideas, opinions, observations, that you may have