PSY 520 Milestone One Guidelines

Note that you are required to use Southern New Hampshire University students as research participants by using the PSY 510/520 Lounge in SNHUConnect (link is located in the left-hand navigation menu). You are strictly prohibited from using individuals outside of Southern New Hampshire University as research participants.

In PSY 520, you will be collecting and analyzing data in an attempt to answer your research question. Before you do this, however, it is important that you have your research proposal (i.e., your PSY 510 paper) in a very strong shape. Your research proposal will form the building block for the full research paper that you will submit in this course.

As you revise your PSY 510 paper, be sure to take into account the feedback from your instructor from PSY 510. In addition, use the list below as a guide for how to revise your paper into an exemplary research proposal. As you revise your paper, be sure to think about how you will go from a proposal to an actual research project as you will be using your research proposal from PSY 510 to help complete your final project for this course, a research manuscript.

To help see the flow of the PSY 510 and PSY 520 projects, you can review this document.

Paper Element

Characteristics of an Exemplary Paper

 The beginning of the paper clearly explains the general purpose of the research, and it relates the research to a real-world issue.

 This section should be interesting to read and entice the reader.

Problem Statement

 This section should review relevant research on the topic.

 The literature needs to be an integrated discussion of research on the topic, not a one-by-one summary of all the articles you found.

 The literature should build towards your research question and hypothesis. In other words, research that is most relevant to your research question and hypothesis should be discussed. Research only tangentially related to your research question should not be included.

Literature Review

 This should be clearly stated at the end of your literature review.

 Because the problem statement introduced the general research question and the literature review builds toward the research

question, when you state your specific research question it should not surprise the reader.

Research Question

Hypothesis

 Your hypothesis should be clearly stated.

 It should be supported by your literature review, so it should not be a surprise to the reader. In other words, your hypothesis is not just a guess of what you will find; it is an educated guess supported by research.

 Your proposed participants, materials, and procedures should be clearly described.

 Keep in mind that you will rewrite this section in Milestone Four once your data collection is complete.

Methods

Data Analysis Plan

 This section will not be included in your final paper, since you will ultimately explain what you actually did in your Results section.

Anticipated Results

 This section will ultimately be rewritten in Milestone Four once you have analyzed your data.

Overall

 Be sure to follow APA style. Use your style manual!

 The entire paper should flow. Even though it is broken into

sections, each section should flow into the next and the paper

should read as one coherent, integrated paper.

 Be sure to proofread carefully. It is very unlikely that your

instructor corrected every typo and grammatical mistake. One of the best techniques is to read the paper out loud so as to catch awkward phrasing.

Guidelines for Submission: Submit a copy of your PSY 510 research proposal reflecting any new edits to be graded pass/fail.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.