The statistics you critique in the article must have been covered in class before the end of the semester. These include, but are not limited to: correlations, binominal distribution/inference, regression, z-‐‐test, t-‐‐test, and ANOVA. You should NOT select an article that uses parameter estimation(e.g., 30% of women experience a depressive episode during their lifetime)or meta-‐‐analysis (a paper analyzing lots of previous experiments)! You want an article that uses any other design and/or statistic.
DO NOT QUOTE from your news article. You should be able to summarize what the article is saying using your own words and then CITING the article.
FINAL PAPER GUIDELINES
These are general guidelines and are meant to GUIDE you, not dictate you. You should follow these guidelines but also feel free to write additional sections as needed for clarity. Please be concise and do not ramble, but make sure to provide a detailed description of the methods and data analysis. A sample paper is on Canvas under Files/Final Paper Information.
1. Papers should be 4-‐‐7 pages long, double-‐‐spaced (with no additional spaces before/after paragraphs), in Times New Roman size 12 font with 1-‐‐inch margins. This page limit does not include the title or reference pages. The format should follow APA style. If you have questions about APA style please see the above links and, if you still have questions, post questions to the discussion board. A large proportion of your grade (~10%) will be based on
APA format.
2. You should be writing about the news article only, you should not find and summarize the research article on which the news article is reporting.
3. You should not quote from your news article – use your own words and be very careful to ensure you are using your own words so no plagiarism occurs. Do not take the news article report and change a couple of words, truly summarize in your own words.
4. Your paper must include the following sections and answers to the following questions (you may use appropriately formatted APA headings to separate these sections if you desire):
a. Title Page (see APA resources above for proper formatting)i. Title your paper: A Critique of “_________________________________” (name of the article you are critiquing goes in quotation marks)
b. Summary
i. Introduce the article topic ii. Identify what the articles goal appeared to be iii. Identify the research question or hypothesis iv. What was the design? (e.g. experimental, etc.) v. Were there independent/dependent or predictor/criterion variables? Why or why not? If yes, specify which variables are independent/dependent or predictor/criterion vi. Who was the population? vii. What was the sampling strategy? viii. What was the sample? ix. How were the abstract ideas of interest measured? x. In brief, what conclusion did the author of the article draw? xi. More things possible!
*If the article does not explicitly identify any of the things listed above, you are responsible to either 1) infer what you think it is given the limited information and state how you made that inference and/or 2) state what the appropriate item (sampling procedure, sample, etc.) should be given the question of interest.
c. Discuss the statistics used or implied in the article i. Provide the correct name for the statistic(s) employed ii. Define the statistic(s) employed. Generally, what information does this statistic(s) provide? What information does it not
provide? (e.g. correlation tells you a relationship, not causation)
d. Discuss what the article did well i. This can be theory-‐‐building, design, sampling, measurement, selection ofstatistics, interpretation, journalistic goals, etc.
e. Discuss what the article did not do well i. This can be theory-‐‐building, design, sampling, measurement, selection of statistics, possible biases, interpretation, journalist
goals, etc.
f. References (see APA resources above for proper formatting)
g. Copy of your news article (paste from print view to omit pictures
