Experimental Psychology PSY 433

1
Experimental PsychologyPSY 433

• Chapter 5
• Literature Review

2
Reading is Essential

• It is difficult to write about a topic without
  knowing what you want to say about it.
• Reading other articles helps you formulate your
  ideas.
• Reading other articles gives you terminology and
  references to support your own work.
• Reading other articles allows you to give proper
  credit to people who originated ideas.
• After reading, be sure to allow time to digest
  (think about) what youve read.

3
Selecting a Topic

• See pg 13 in Dunn textbook. Sources include
• Past or present courses
• Current events important in your life
• Classic research
• Extensions of existing research
• Paradoxes (contradictions, controversies)
• Your own thoughts, feelings behavior
• See Table 2.1 (pg 15)

4
Criteria for a Good Project

• Narrow your focus to a specific question.
• Is there a theory that might explain it good
  research is theory-driven.
• Theories are in the literature reading
  required!
• Can the theory be tested what kind of
  experiment would test it?
• Do you have at least 1 IV (not sex/gender).
• Is it practical to accomplish within 5-6 weeks?
• Are the needed resources available?

5
Library Research

• See Table 2.2 (pg 19).
• PsycInfo is the main database in psychology.
• Many articles can be downloaded as pdf or text
  files.
• Look at the references for relevant articles
  they will lead you to more sources.
• Check the citations for relevant articles they
  will lead you to more current work.
• Authors working in a field frequently have copies
  of their articles on their websites.
• Kantowitz InfoTrac includes full text of articles
  in psychology -- included with new copies of the
  text.

6
More Ways to Find Articles

• Use a key theorists name as a search term.
• Adding it together with your topic will limit the
  number of articles when there are too many.
• Use definition or review as a keyword. Often
  this doesnt help but occasionally a really good
  reference is found this way.
• Once you have found a good article, use an exact
  phrase match using an important phrase to find
  similar papers.

7
Using the Internet

• The internet is NOT a peer-reviewed source of
  information.
• Journals online are peer-reviewed and are treated
  the same as their published editions.
• Just because something is published doesnt make
  it correct
• Do not use articles as models of APA format.
• Be critical of the content of articles.
• Be VERY critical of anything on a webpage.

8
Hints for Finding Good Sources

• Look at the extension of the website in your list
  of search results
• .gov, .edu give better results than .org, .com,
  or .net
• If you click on the cached link the search terms
  will appear in a different color, making them
  easier to locate.
• When you find a good website, the links are often
  reliable too a reliable website usually
  provides links to other reliable sites.

9
Reading Articles

• See Table 3.1 (pg 41) use appropriate sources.
• The abstract will tell you whether the article is
  relevant to your question.
• Good abstracts help you choose sources.
• As you read abstracts think about what to put in
  your own abstract.
• The first paragraph of the Introduction should
  tell you what the article is about.
• The last paragraph of the Introduction should
  give the research hypothesis and predictions.

10
Reading (cont.)

• Skim methods to see what subjects did, but no
  need to read the details unless you are planning
  to replicate the experiment.
• The first paragraph of the Discussion summarizes
  the findings. No need to read the results unless
  you want more detail.
• The last paragraph of the Discussion gives the
  authors conclusions and significance of the
  findings.
• Read the rest only for specific information.

11
What is a Literature Review

• A summary and analysis of what has been done
  previously on a topic
• Introduce the topic (research question) and key
  terms.
• Provide an overview of the amount of available
  literature and its types.
• Point out gaps in the literature, if any (your
  study may address such a gap).
• Describe and reconcile discrepancies in the
  literature (discuss controversies debates).

12
Avoiding Plagiarism

• Articles in your literature review should be
  analyzed and summarized, not described in detail.
• Write what you think about the articles, not just
  what they said or did.
• Borrowed phrases from other articles can be used
  if quoted
• Use quotation marks ()
• Give page number
• Cite source in text and in references

13
Avoiding Plagiarism (cont.)

• Methods and results cannot be copied from your
  group members.
• The numbers and methods may be the same, but what
  you say about them must be individually written.
• Graphs and tables may be the same.
• Do NOT string together words or phrases from
  other articles and represent them as your own
  writing.
• Cite sources for important ideas, not just text.