Psychology 547 Final Project: Seminar Paper
The final seminar paper will consist of a 12-15 page research proposal for a project
examining a psychological phenomenon of interest that is embedded within an explicit
cultural context. The final seminar paper should be detailed and thorough enough that it
presents a psychological topic within an analytic framework that synthesizes relevant
literature to advance knowledge on the topic. The paper is due on Monday, March 12 at
10AM. Below are some helpful milestones in preparing for the manuscript.
Research Topic Draft (1/31): To encourage you to being thinking about your paper with
the assistance of your peers, please exchange a brief written explanation of your
project on 1/31. It may be helpful to outline what you do not want your paper to be
about (what you are reacting to), but ultimately you will need to define what your
project is (versus is not). Most importantly, think about whether your framework
takes into consideration a cultural perspective. At this point, it may be helpful to
gather thoughts from your colleagues on relevant approaches and literature.
Annotated Bibliography (2/21): Please exchange an annotated bibliography with your
group by 2/21. This bibliography should first list the general research topic of interest
for your final project, relative to the preliminary research questions that you are
interested in exploring. Subsequently, the bibliography should probably include no
fewer than 8 scholarly journal articles that inform your topic of research, along with
2-3 sentence summaries of how the article furthers your understanding of your chosen
research topic. Your summaries will be most helpful to you if you make as clear as
possible the direct relevance to your topic. Also note that your summaries should not
simply be copied from the abstract of the articles. This exercise be most useful to you
if your summaries must be entirely in your own words. All citations should be in
APA style so that you will not have to do this work at the end of the quarter.
Outline (3/5): The outline for your paper should be a brief, skeletal summary of the major
points that you intend to make in your paper. These major points can consist of 1-2
sentences that can later be fleshed out with elaborations or examples. However, the
argument that is being made in these points should be evident so that your readers can
follow your line of logic. That is, a person should be able to read the points and see a
sense of coherence and argument leading to a hypothesis (or research question). The use
of APA-style headers is required here, as these headers provide an organizational
structure.
Evaluation of the final project will be based on the final draft only. The paper will be
evaluated using the following criteria:
1. Does the paper adequately and accurately review relevant, related
research from a sociocultural perspective? Is the literature review
complete and pertinent?
2. Does the paper provide an accurate theoretical rationale for the
research questions/hypothesis within a cultural framework?
3. Does the paper provide evidence for the importance of the proposed
topic?
4. Does this manuscript adequately address limitations, implications, and
directions for future research?
5. Is the writing style organized and clear?
It is not my policy in this class to read drafts of papers. However, please note that I will
be more than willing to discuss at length your research ideas, your project plans, etc. I
encourage you to come and see me – and to do so with enough lead time that you can
incorporate our discussions into your proposal.