SUMMARY OF JOURNAL ARTICLE (25 pts)

[Print: Word] [Print: pdf]

 

Name: __________________________________________________         

 

Research Topic: ________________________________________________________

 

Trust me!  When you are in college, you will end up reading, critiquing, and summarizing articles found in professional journals.  This assignment will not only give you a bit of practice, but it will help you get started on the literature review (Introduction) section of your own research paper for this class.

 

SELECT AN APPROPRIATE JOURNAL ARTICLE

 

As discussed in class, all research group members must find at least one journal article that relates to their research project.  These must be journal articles, not magazine articles.

 

       Send a link of your article to me.  If it is not appropriate, I will let you know.

       Send a link to each person in your research group.

 

READ THE ARTICLE

 

       Scan it first, and pay particular attention to the abstract.  Make sure that the article really relates to your topic.  Read the introduction.  This will give you a lot of background information, and may help you find other articles that you want to include in your own introduction.  The method section may help you get ideas on how to actually conduct your own research.  Skip the results section (since you havenŐt taken statistics yet, you probably wonŐt understand it), and go directly to the discussion section.  This section will talk about what the researchers discovered and may provide suggestions for future research.  Now go back and look at the tables and figures in the results section. DonŐt be surprised if you have to read sections more than once.

 

       While reading the article, take notes or highlight important concepts, ideas, and past research studies.  In particular, take note of:

á      The researchersŐ question and their hypothesis

á      The experimental design they used to examine their question (i.e, did they use a correlational design or a true experiment?)

á      What were the variables under examination?

á      What methods were used to manipulate or measure the variables?

á      What were the results, and what did the results mean?

 

 

 

SUMMARIZE THE ARTICLE

 

Your summary should be succinct, but should get across all pertinent information.  The length guidelines I provide below are only guidelines.  The length and detail depends on your particular journal article.  Welcome to the real world of academia.

 

       Identify the research question and clarify the researchersŐ hypothesis. Since there may be more than one, focus on the one that relates most to your own research project (2-3 sentences).

       Briefly describe the methods used to test the hypothesis (i.e., participants, design, variables, [X and Y variable for correlations and independent and dependent variable for experiments], and how the data were analyzed) (2-5 sentences).

       Describe the results, specifically the significant results that are pertinent to your own research project (1-2 sentences).

       Explain what the results mean (1 sentence).

           

PROVIDE THE REFERENCE

 

       At the bottom of the page, document the source of your article using

APA style (check the Ňresearch pageÓ at rhsmpsychology.com for details).

 

TYPE IT UP & TURN IT IN

 

       Type it up in Google Docs and SHARE it with me and others in your group.

       Print it.

       Hand it into me with this completed checklist attached.