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Term Paper Guidelines for Psychology 4063
Your paper for this class should draw on original sources, either books or journal articles,
and should also demonstrate your own original thinking on your topic. A successful paper will
thus demonstrate both your ability to read, understand, and synthesize original source material in
personality psychology, and also your ability to generate some original ideas or insights about
the topics. Your own thinking may be apparent in advancement of new theoretical ideas; your
ability to critique existing ideas or research; your ability to organize or integrate existing findings
in a way that highlights similarities or differences among them; or a summary section in which
you draw conclusions about the current state of knowledge or unresolved issues in an area of
research or theorizing.
Choosing a Topic
There is a range of topics that would be appropriate for this assignment, and selecting a
suitable one is part of the learning process. You should be careful to choose a topic that is within
the realm of personality psychology. You are free to explore a range of experiences,
observations, and ideas to help you focus on specific topics. You might start by pursuing topics
from the class that are of particular interest to you, or you might start by looking for
psychological literature related to a topic of interest to you in your own life. Here are a few
specific “dos” and “don’ts” to consider (adapted from Rosnow & Rosnow, 1986):
 Use the indexes and table of contents of the textbook and recommended readings as well
as class notes for initial leads.
 Make sure the topic you choose can be covered in the time you have to work on the
assignment.
 Try not to choose a topic that you know other students in the class are working on. You
will be competing for the same resources from the library.
 Use the professor’s office hours to ask for help focusing or clarifying your topic.
 Choose a topic that interests you. You will learn more, and working on the paper will be
much more pleasant.
Types of topics.
Several different types of paper may be appropriate for this assignment. One possibility
would be to choose an area of research or theory, review literature in the area, and write a paper
that organizes information from the literature. You could also write a paper that compares two
or more theories. More specifically, you might compare theories about a particular
phenomenon—for instance, Freud’s and Chodorow’s theories about development during the
phallic stage. You could choose a topic or phenomenon that interests you and research different
perspectives on the topic. You could also formulate a question that is of interest to you, and then
research literature to answer that question. For instance, if you are interested in why some
people are more prone to embarrassment than others, you might look for research and theories
relating to that particular issue.
Narrowing your topic.
Choosing too broad or too narrow a topic for your term paper will make your life difficult
and may result in your needing to change topics after you have started working. Your topic
should be broad enough to insure that you can find relevant literature that is written at a level you
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can understand. On the other hand, your topic should not be so broad that you are confronted
with a very large number of sources and cannot decide which ones are important or relevant.
“Freud’s theory of development,” for instance, would be too broad a topic. You could hardly
summarize the topic in ten pages, let alone have room for your original contribution.
“Distinctions between classical Freudian and Ego Analytic conceptions of the super-ego in
resolution of the Oedipus Complex,” on the other hand, would probably be too narrow a topic.
While there is certainly a literature on this topic, it is likely to be in very technical psychoanalytic
journals that would be difficult to digest at this point in your training. Something in between,
like “Alternate Conceptualizations of the Oedipal Complex,” would probably give you enough
flexibility to write a good paper without drowning in technical details.
Finding Source Material
There are a number of ways to locate sources for your paper. An important thing to learn
is how to find the most important and relevant sources, rather than spending time reading
material that you will not be able to use. The references in your textbook provide an excellent
way to start choosing literature. Reviews of the literature, such as those found in Psychological
Bulletin or Psychological Review, can also be excellent resources, although these will be written
at a higher level and thus more difficult to digest. Literature reviews also often appear as
chapters in edited books. A good literature review will not only provide you with information
directly, but may also lead you to even more specific sources.
The majority of the resources that you might need are indexed in PsycInfo. This is an
extensive, searchable database of journal articles (and some book chapters) in psychology.
PsycInfo is available on line and can be reached through the University of Arkansas Libraries
web page. Go to http://dante.uark.edu/ and follow the links under Electronic Resources and
Databases. If you have trouble using PsycInfo, the reference librarians in Mullins Library should
be able to help you.
Evaluation and Grades
Papers will receive letter grades of A, B, C, D, or F. Criteria that I will use in evaluating
papers will include quality of the literature search, quality of original ideas, and quality of
expression. There is no set number of sources or references required for this paper. You should
use as many as are appropriate to explore or support the topic you have chosen. For most topics,
it will be unlikely that this can be accomplished without four or five sources. If you find that you
need more than a dozen sources, you might consider further narrowing your topic. Quality of
literature research includes both finding appropriate literature on your topic and demonstrating
an understanding of that literature. The quality of your original thinking may be apparent in
your integration or organization of the literature you cite. Your ability to compare different
findings or theories can also serve to demonstrate your original thinking. Your original thinking
may also be apparent in your ability to apply existing literature to a new problem that you are
considering. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, suggesting extensions of current theory or
relevant new directions for research is a traditional way of demonstrating original thought on a
topic.
With regard to written expression, it seems inevitable that quality of writing affects
students’ grades on papers. My main interest in grading is to evaluate your research and ideas.
However, I can only evaluate your ideas as you write them down. If I receive a paper in which
ideas are poorly formulated and organized, or are not clearly expressed, I have no way of
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knowing that there were good ideas in your head that just didn’t get onto the page. Thus, good
writing does count. A well structured argument is particularly important. Take time to proof
read and correct your paper before turning it in. If you find sentences or paragraphs that seem
unclear, then they probably are unclear. Rewriting them will probably improve your grade.
Formatting
I expect that papers will generally conform to APA format. In short, this means that
papers will be typed, doubles-spaced, and have one inch margins all the way around. Papers
should also have a title page, a separate reference page, page numbers, and a running header.
References should be in APA format. Papers of this length generally benefit from being
organized with headings. This handout was designed to be a useful model of APA format. It
demonstrates organization with three levels of heading as well as use of a running header with
page numbers. However, this handout is single-spaced to save on copying costs. Your paper
should be double-spaced. Examples of APA format for references can be found in the on line
resources described in the next section and on the reference page.
Resources on Writing
Several resources are available to you for help in writing. Probably the most important of
these is the Writing Center on campus. The Writing Center is located in Kimpel Hall, and also
maintains a web page at http://www.uark.edu/%7Eqwrtcntr/. They offer many services, and will
even read drafts of your paper and consult with you on ways to improve the writing. There are
also guides and tip sheets for using APA Style available on line. Several of these can be
accessed through the Pscyh Central web page for APA Writing Links at http://www.psychcentral.com/APAwrite.htm.
There are also two books that I suggest you use as resources if you have any questions
about how to write or format your paper. The first is Robert Sternberg’s excellent book on
writing psychology papers. This book includes advice on writing, applying APA style, and even
choosing a topic and doing library research. Another important book that you may want to refer
to for answers to specific questions on formatting is the APA Publication Manual. The
references for these books are below (in APA format). Both are available at Mullins Library.
Sternberg, R. J. (1977). Writing the psychology paper. New York: Barron’s Educational
Series.
American Psychological Association. (1994). Publication manual of the American
Psychological Association. Washington DC: Author
Paper Guidelines
References
American Psychological Association. (1994). Publication manual of the American
Psychological Association. Washington DC: Author
Rosnow, R. L., & Rosnow, R. (1986). Writing papers in psychology. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Sternberg, R. J. (1977). Writing the psychology paper. New York: Barron’s Educational
Series.
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