163 ChAD Paper Guidelines
The overall goal of this assignment is to help students to understand children and adolescents growth and development in four major domains (physical, cognitive, emotional, social) and the inter-relationships among these domains. 1. The overall goal is to present information about some aspect of adolescent development (e.g., autonomy, romantic love, date rape, academic achievement, delinquency, employment, moral reasoning, teenage pregnancy, etc.), the exact topic is up to you. You will need to demonstrate how your particular topic (e.g., delinquency) is affected by and/or affects the other three domains of development. For example, delinquency can be considered an aspect of social development. In your paper, you will want to show how delinquency impacts or is impacted by physical development (e.g., gender or puberty), cognitive development (e.g., academic achievement), and emotional development (e.g., anger and hostility). You want the reader to finish the paper with a greater understanding of your particular topic. The paper is to be at least 6 pages in length, but not more than 10 pages this does not include a title page, abstract (not required) or reference page. 2. You will want to start off by identifying the exact topic (specific and narrow is usually easier to deal with], You may want to focus on an age-range (early, middle, late) as well 3. After identifying your specific topic, you will briefly review (at least) 5 empirical research articles that deal with this topic. Feel free to use more than 5 references (I strongly urge you to do so]. Scholarly books or review papers are acceptable after the criteria for 5 research articles has been met. 4. To find peer-reviewed journal articles use a data-base called Psych-Info. You will be searching by subject so you will want to type in key terms such as Delinquency Adolescent Identity, Adolescent Self-Concept - - the reference librarian can help you with search terms if you give her/him your general paper topic). Hopefully this search will yield a series of articles with author, title, and date. Scan through the titles for ones that look particularly interesting or relevant and use the option to view the abstract, this will let you know if it is an article that you might want to use as a reference for the paper. Once you have gotten your articles (always a good idea to get more than needed in case some don't work out), exit PsychInfo and access the SJSU library catalogue. Go to periodicals and type in the title of the journal where the article is located (e.g., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). This will then tell you where the journal is located or if you will need to use inter-library loan. 5. You will use American Psychological Association (APA) style for both in-text references and the reference page at the end of the paper. (See the end of this handout for how to do APA style referencing in-text as well as the full references at the end). Each idea that is not your own, original thought must be cited and referenced, even if it is not a direct quote. For every in-text reference, there must be a complete reference at the end (and if you have a complete reference, you should refer to that source in-text).
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The paper format: A You will start with an introduction that: (a) presents your topic, (b) indicates why this is an important topic, and (c) briefly highlights for the reader what the paper will focus on and discuss. You may need a paragraph to define important terms you will use in your paper. This will ensure that you and the reader are at the same level of understanding. Similarly, this would be a good place to present key components of any theory that is relevant to your topic (Note this section may not be necessary for all papers it depends on your topic and goals for the paper.) The main body of your paper will focus on presenting the research findings You want to focus on the main points of the article you read, not the author's review of previous literature but what that author actually found (results) or the major conclusions that author has arrived at in the article. Omit details about hypotheses, subjects, and methods - - sometimes a brief summary of one or more these factors will help the reader (e.g., "Smith and Jones (2001) were attempting to assess early adolescent's views about body weight ideals in a sample of Jamaican and British 12- to 14 year-olds by at looking girls' and boys' responses to photos of teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds and body types. Their results indicated that ......"). Avoid direct quotes summarize everything in your own words. If you must quote, you need a reference plus page number in text (e.g., Smith and Jones, 2000, pg. 298) as well as a full reference at the end. Some writing tips: (1) Present relevant research which addresses the issues and questions you raised in your introduction, (2) Do not be afraid to mention important articles which present contradictory evidence. You can deal with the contradictions in your conclusion, (3) Keep your descriptions concise and to the point. (4) Avoid "jargon" - and if you do have to use it, define it for your reader, and (5) if you use acronyms, write out the words first then use the acronym thereafter (e.g., Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)... from then on you can just use ADHD in the paper) In your conclusion, briefly summarize the your research findings. Draw your own careful and well considered conclusions about your finding based on the evidence presented in the research articles you have cited in the body of the paper. (Do not simply state "more research needs to be done". If this is the case, state what kinds of research on what kinds of samples should be conducted to increase our understanding of this topic.)
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Papers will be evaluated in five different areas: A Accuracy of information B Thoroughness/completeness (addresses the paper requirements and adequately covers the topic). C Accurate APA style references/in-text citation D Clarity in written expression /Grammar, spelling, punctuation 1. The A paper is well organized and developed. It demonstrates a clear understanding and fulfillment of the assignment requirements. It shows the student's ability to use written language effectively and construct sentences clearly. It is essentially free of grammatical, mechanical, and usage errors. The B paper will demonstrate the same competence in the same categories as the A paper, but will show some weaknesses in one or more of the sub-categories The C paper will complete all assigned criteria, but will show weaknesses in fundamental, usually organization or development. In a C paper there is barely enough specific information to illustrate and support the paper thesis. The D paper will neglect one or more of the assigned tasks and be noticeably superficial typically too simplistic or too short. The paper may have problems in development and will contain grammatical, mechanical, and/or usage errors that are serious and/or frequent. The F paper will demonstrate striking underdevelopment of ideas and weak organization. It will fail to meet major content criteria for the assignment (e.g., APA references, case study interview). It will contain serious and numerous grammatical, mechanical, and usage errors. F papers also may result from plagiarism, turned in after the deadline, or failure to turn in the paper at all.
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Paper Reference Formats: APA style Journal articles: List authors in order, last name first, then first name initial. Year of article in parentheses, followed by the title. Next the name of the journal underlined, the volume number (underlined) and the issue number in parentheses. Page numbers are last. Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R., & Nyman, M. (1994). The relations of emotionality and regulation to children's anger related-reactions. Child Development, 65 (1), 109-128. You place all references in alphabetical order on a separate page at the end of the paper. This does not count as one of your 6 (minimum) pages for the paper. To cite someone's work in your text you place the last names of the author and the date of the work in parentheses after you have cited the study. Example: Preschool aged children's anger reactions are associated with the general intensity of their emotional reactions and with their general expression of negative emotions (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Nymen, 1994). Example: Eisenberg, Fabes, and Nymen (1994) demonstrated that preschool children's anger ...
Once you have cited the research once you may abbreviate the author list: Example: Eisenberg and colleagues (1994) demonstrated that anger reactions are predictive ... Example: Preschool aged children's anger reactions also are predictive of their peer social competence (Eisenberg, et al., 1994).