How False Memories Impact Behavior

Research Paper

Instructions

1. Come up with a research question based on your chapter readings. A good research question is one that is open-ended, yet has a definitive answer.
2. Read your textbook section(s) corresponding to this topic. You will need it to write your introduction.
3. Find THREE empirical research articles about this topic. What kind of research article? It needs to be a primary source. This means that you will need to find the original article that did the study. You cannot use a summary (such as a CNN summary, or a WebMD summary).
4. Read your articles in detail. You cannot just read the abstract and the discussion and expect that to be sufficient. There will likely be aspects of the articles you do not understand entirely. Please email me as soon as you stumble upon anything like that.
5. As you read your 3 articles, critically evaluate the research. Do you think the researchers appropriately answered the questions? What are some flaws with the design? Do you think their conclusions fit in with the results?
6. Based on your initial textbook reading, and the critical reading of your three articles, come up with your own research proposal. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO COLLECT ANY DATA. You only need to design your own study. For instance, in continuation with the previous music class example, you may come up with the following study: If you take 2nd-grade children, and you randomly assign half of them to music lessons, and the other half to 2nd language lessons, do students in one group do better in their academics than the other?  
7. For your research design, come up with a thorough methods section. This needs to include information about what participants you are going to recruit, how many, and a detailed study design. Then come up with a brief (approx. two paragraphs) section on what results you expect to find, and what this means in terms of the big picture.
8. Finally, write an abstract. Even though the abstract goes at the start of your paper, it is always written after your entire paper is written. It is a summary of your whole paper. Read abstracts of your 3 articles to get an idea. Your abstract must be no longer than 200 words. It must be on its own page, with the title of your paper on the first line, then the word “ABSTRACT” (written in all caps, centered) on the next line.  Your abstract will then start on the line below.
9. Finally, assemble your paper in the following way:
   1. Cover page (see APA handout for details)
   2. Abstract
   3. Introduction – approx. one page
   4. Paper 1 summary – approx. one page
   5. Paper 1 critical analysis – approx. half page
   6. Paper 2 summary – approx. one page
   7. Paper 2 critical analysis – approx. half page
   8. Paper 3 summary – approx. one page
   1. Paper 3 critical analysis – approx. half page
   10. Your study design (to include methods and expected results) – 1-2 pages total
   11. References (see APA handout) – one page