VARIOUS WRITING THINGS

• How to read a (social) psych article

• Remember that the authors are selling something

• Be critical but not overly so • Solutions, not just problems

• What to get from each section of an article

WHY ALL THIS MATTERS

• What I’m teaching is not my style but APA style, based also on advice from editors and successful grant getters and writing experts.

SPECIFICS

• Be concise• “that” phrases• “the researchers showed that”• “were told to”• passive voice• unnecessary details

• Be precise• Each participant, they• Researchers were interested, believed• Study hypothesized• Hypotheses argued• Felt• Put a noun after “this” or “these”• “Filled out”, “take” questionnaire, “divide” people• Male and female as adjectives

WORDING CHOICES

• Survey vs. questionnaire

• That vs. which

• Affect vs. effect

• Since vs. because

• While vs. whereas

• Only give info that’s relevant

• Integrate and combine

• Avoid stat speak, analyses

• APA style!

PLAGIARISM EXERCISE

• How can you plagiarize/cheat?

• Why is it bad?

• How many words can you use?

• What if you put them in a different order or replace them with synonyms?

• What about taking people’s ideas instead of words?

• Primary vs. secondary sources

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?

• http://www.uni.edu/policies/301

HOW TO AVOID PLAGIARISM• Strategies to avoid plagiarism

• Rewrite your notes• Use “ in notes for quotes• Always put page # for quotes• Don’t use many quotes• Read, then pause before writing• Make notes on the article

• More important, more extreme• Outline your paper and then fill in

• More important attitudes are more extreme. • College students and elementary school children on school proposals

(Harton & Latane, 1998) • When judging others (Justin, 2000) • Believe others will do too (McConahay & Costa, 2004)

• But• You don’t have to quote technical terms,

scale names, etc. (but cite them)• You don’t have to do at the end of every

sentence• You don’t have to have citations for “common

knowledge”

UPCOMING THINGS

• Next week meet in library. Readings are for background.

• 9/16: article summary due

• 9/23: journal presentation due—instead of doing them as presentations, we’ll discuss them as a class. You’ll turn in • A list of each journal ranked from high to low• Background information for each journal addressing

why you rated it as you did