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Article Summary Assignment Do not be fooled by this relatively short written assignment of 600 words

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Article Summary Assignment
Do not be fooled by this relatively short written assignment of 600 words.
Quality writing is an iterative process requiring multiple drafts with time in
between to discuss and reflect with your classmates. It is strongly advised that
you begin this assignment on or around the date specified in the Course
Schedule.
Preamble:
The primary means by which scholars communicate their work is through
journal articles. As such, it's essential for students to be able to use library
indexes to find articles, read and understand articles, and communicate their
thoughts about articles. In this assignment, you will locate and write a summary
of a journal article from Psychological Science, the most prestigious publication
journal in the field of psychology.
Learning Outcomes:
This assignment will enable you to

« Become familiar with library indexes.

« Develop literacy for peer-reviewed research.

¢« Identify and summarize key information in a research article.

« Communicate thoughts clearly and concisely in written form.

« Acquire some basic proficiency in APA formatting.
Step 1: Locate the Article Using PsycInfo:
Review the Library Skills Module before proceeding any further. It will detail
how to use PsycInfo (a research database index for psychology) to find journal
articles. Use PsycInfo to acquire the following journal article:
Salvatore, J. & Shelton, J. N. (2007). Cognitive costs of exposure to racial
prejudice. Psychological Sctence, 18, 810 - 815.
Step Z: Read and Discuss the Article with Peers:
Read the article carefully. Keep the questions provided in step 3 in mind as you
proceed, making some notes and highlighting important information along the way. Also, you can refer to the readings on Research Designs if you are struggling
with the METHODS section.
Most likely you will struggle with the inferential statistics reported in the
RESULTS section. Do not concern yourself with this for now; simply note which
sroups performed better and under what conditions. Look closely at Figure 1
since the graph plots the most important finding of the study.
Discussing the article with others can help you identify gaps in your
understanding and help you organize your thoughts. You can communicate with
your Peer Group to discuss the article or post a thread to the entire class in
the Article Summary Discussion Board. To encourage academic integrity, DO
NOT post your draft Summary to this forum. Instead, use the forum to discuss
ideas or post questions about the article. Discussions can be accessed by
clicking Connect and then Discussions on the course navigation bar above.
Step 3: Write a 600-word Summary of the Journal Article:
After reading the article carefully, write a 600-word summary of the journal
article detailing the most important information. Your goal is to emphasize
comprehension of the article content and to communicate your thougnhts clearly
and concisely.
One aspect of summarizing information is to decide what details to include and
which are unnecessary. What can you leave out without misleading or confusing
the reader? As a guide, use the following questions to help you identify important
content.
1. What was the research question or problem outlined in the article, and
why is it important?
2. How did the authors attempt to answer this question or problem?
3. What were the authors predictions? (Hint: consult the section “Overview
of this study }.
4. What was the dependent variable and how was it measured?
5. What were the independent variables in this study and how were they
manipulated/measured.
6. What did the authors discover as a result of their investigation? (Hint:
consult Figure 1}
7. What explanation did the authors provide to account for the results of
their study?
8. What was the most important implication of their findings?

The 600-word length is a hard limit. One challenging aspect of scientific writing
is working with a word-budget. If your summary is less than 600 words, you
most likely did not include enough detail. If your summary is longer than 600
words, then you either included too much detail or else your writing is not
sufficiently concise.
Step 4: APA Formatting.
APA formatting is the style of formatting used in psychology and adopted by
some other disciplines as well. For this assignment, you will not use citations
within text since all the information is coming from a single source. However, you
will need to include a title page and a reference section using APA format.
Please refer to the APA Resource (PDF) to help you do this.
In addition to Salvatore and Shelton (2007), for this assignment you will also
include five additional sources that reference the Salvatore and Shelton (2007)
article. Please refer to the Library Skills Module to learn how to find more recent
articles that reference a target article.
Step 5: Solicit and Implement Feedback from Your Peers.
After you have written your summary, you might wonder just how good it is. Is
your writing clear? Does the organization of the paper make sense? Did you
identify all of the most important information? Have you explained everything
accurately? Do you have any APA formatting errors?
In order to better evaluate your own work, you will need feedback from your
peers. At this point, you should read the Peer Feedback Module. Afterwards, try
to solicit two other members of the class who have also read the Peer Feedback
Module to give you feedback on your summary. You should offer them the same
courtesy of reviewing their summary assignments. You should begin with your
Peer Group, but, if your group members are unresponsive, you can solicit peer
feedback from individuals outside the course. To encourage academic
integrity, DO NOT post your draft Summary to the Whole Class
Discussion forum.
Once you receive the feedback, reflect on it and decide what will make your
summary better and implement those changes.
How To Submit Your Assignment

Please note that the following instructions pertain to this specific assignment.
Instructions for other assignments may differ.
Now it is time to submit your work to the Article Summary Dropbox. Be sure to
submit your assignment as an MS Word document no later than the deadline
specified in the Course Schedule. You may submit to the dropbox multiple times,
but note that previous files will be overwritten. Be sure to include all necessary
files with each submission. Dropboxes can be accessed by clicking Submit and
then Dropbox on the course navigation bar above.
Your assignment must be submitted in the following file type:

« Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX)
Late assignments will be accepted up to 10 days after due date with a 10%
penalty accumulating after every second day. Extensions for extenuating
circumstances may be granted at the discretion of the instructor.
Please refer to the Submitting to a LEARN Dropbox page for general guidelines
and how to submit to a dropbox.