Life-Span Development

• The purpose of the term paper is to provide you, the student, with an opportunity to explore an area of human development in depth. The paper is to be a 5 - 10 paper review of some topic pertinent to human development..

• Paper topics must be approved by the instructor. See your syllabus for instructions.

• At least five references for your paper must come from refereed journals (not Psychology Today or Newsweek, for example). NOTE: Do not rely heavily on popular literature, for example, a book you happen to see at Borders Books. Often times these books are not empirically based. Also, do not take the bulk of your paper from one source or from secondary sources. I want an integration, analysis, and critique of all of your readings, in particular, the current research in the area you have chosen to study. Textbooks for this or any other class are not appropriate references for a psychology paper.

• All papers must be typed, double-spaced, 1 inch margins, and in APA style format.

  If you are in doubt as to what this means, see me for details.

  or
  • Purchase or go to the library to view a copy of the APA 6th Edition Publication Manual

  • Go to OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab

While you may already be familiar with the concept of a literature review and what it entails, I would like to just reiterate some basic information.

• The basic format and structure of a literature review is discussed in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (remember, you are not conducting empirical research or writing a theoretical paper, thus the information concerning these two types of articles is not relevant for this class). The Publication Manual also provides all necessary information concerning referencing and writing style.

• You can find examples of literature reviews in psychology journals. These are articles not discussing a specific study conducted by the authors but rather reviews, evaluates, and critiques all of the research in a specific content area. Often, the words "a review of the literature" or simply "a review" will be part of the article title. My two articles on Ageism and Life Review are examples of small-scale literature reviews.

• Do's and Don'ts
  Do:

  Develop an bibliography of the key research related to your topic
  

  Critically evaluate the research
  

  Draw connections and correlations between the various research studies
  

  Examine points of contradiction and hypothesize the reasons for these discrepancies
  

  Organize your paper (you should outline before you write)
  

  Provide the reader transitions between ideas
  

  Reference appropriately
  

  If your writing skills need work - check out the writing center (poorly written papers will not be accepted towards fulfilling the paper requirement)

  Don't:

  Paraphrase an existing literature review
  

  Rely heavily on secondary sources (no textbooks or magazines should be used - use primarily articles published in professional journals)
  

  Rely on popular literature (e.g. books from Borders - these tend not to be empirically based)
  

  Include anecdotal information (e.g. information from your personal life or stories you heard about someone else's life/experience)
  

  Discuss each article separately as if writing an abstract on each

For more information, see also: Bem, D. J. (1995). Writing a review article for Psychological Bulletin. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 172-177.

I've placed an excellent handout about Writing Literature Reviews on eReserves.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have concerning your paper.