The purpose of this assignment is to 1) give you experience at reading primary empirical literature from the field of psychology, 2) allow you to learn more in-depth information about a specific topic from the course and demonstrate that learning and 3) practice/improve professional writing skills.

Article Review

Choose an article from an APA peer-reviewed journal.The article must be a primary research article with a method, results and discussion section. It cannot be a review article, editorial, etc.

You can search on any psychology-related topic that you would like.However, you must submit your article for approval prior to completing the assignment. Each student will have their own article (no duplicates).I will approve articles on a first-come/first-serve basis.

Journals

The articles you choose must come from an APA or affiliated professionally refereed journal (peer-reviewed). (http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/index.aspx) Articles from magazines are not acceptable. Articles should be a minimum of 5 full pages of text, without the references. Short reports, book reviews, and articles 1-2 pages in length are not acceptable. Please feel free to bring a copy of the article to me if you have any questions.

Writing the Review

The review should be at least 4 pages, a summary of the article. The summary should be divided into three sections:

• Introduction (introducing the topic of the article and the purpose of the article)

• Discussion (summarizing the author’s main points)

• Conclusion (reviewing the article’s conclusions and what you learned from the article).

The review should be written in APA format, and include a reference page (do not include an abstract in your article review). Please note: You will need to turn in the full text of the article in PDF format. The title and abstract are not enough. If the article is not submitted then your paper will earn a 0 grade.

Scoring

The article review is worth a total of 80 points. Please review the grading rubric posted on Blackboard for details about the grading. All article reviews are due in the assignment dropbox on Blackboard as marked on the syllabus. Article reviews must be submitted into the assignment dropbox on Blackboard. If your original article review is not submitted on Blackboard by the due date, it will NOT be accepted. NO LATE PAPERS!

DO NOT PLAGIARIZE OR USE LARGE QUOTES FROM THE ARTICLE! If you do, you will receive a 0 on this assignment. The 4+ pages should be written in your own words to explain what the article is about and the findings. No more than two short quotes are appropriate for a paper of this length or you will lose major points for “lack of originality”.I don’t want you to string together quotes from the article. I want you to write about this in your own words.

Guidelines for Finding Journal Articles

You have access to a number of databases from NCCU, UNC, NCSU or Duke University Campus.You are able to get most articles electronically, without traveling to those campuses.

You should use either the database PsychArticles or PsychInfo. The article must be published in one of the APA journals. Examples of Acceptable Journals:

American Journal of Psychology

Annual Review of Psychology

Child Development

Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology

Developmental Psychology

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

Journal of Applied Psychology

Journal of Community Psychology

Journal of Counseling Psychology

Journal of Diversity in Higher Education

Journal of Educational Psychology

Journal of Family Psychology