1. Introduction/Review of Literature The Introduction should be a paragraph (or

1. Introduction/Review of Literature
The Introduction should be a paragraph (or two) noting why this topic is relevant, important (and/or of interest to you). You will do a brief literature search (at least 10 articles from peer-reviewed journals) and give a brief overview of: significant findings of these articles; a brief summary of how they conducted the study (e.g., who were the subjects, what did they do with them, what data did they collect and how). The Review of Literature is essentially an analysis and synthesis of the articles you read on your chosen topic. In this section you should review previous studies (this involves a brief literature search). For each article reviewed in your paper, you should indicate at least 2 limitations of the study/findings (design flaws or methodological shortcomings of other studies, such as population limitations, issues with generalizability, etc.).
2. Summary & Conclusions (from Literature review)
This section should be a few paragraphs (two or three) that pulls together the information from the literature review section of the paper (e.g., general findings, any major disagreements). This section is not a summary of findings from your mock research
3. Mock Research Proposal/Methods
Concepts and terms (e.g., recidivism, relapse, etc.) should be defined/explained clearly as soon as they are introduced.
Assumptions & Components of your Mock Research Proposal: Start with the assumption that you are not conducting a study but you would be very well funded if you were to conduct this study (so there is no need to make the proposed study small in scale); you will briefly outline a tentative methodological design to test your hypothesis. This should include a description of participants (e.g., males, prisoners, clinical sample, adolescents, etc.), procedures (e.g., are they assigned to a treatment group, is this a retrospective study involving a folder review, etc.), specific measures (e.g., surveys, assessment devices), etc.
This proposal does not involve any description of the statistical analysis that might be needed to understand results from this hypothetical research. Examine the APA style manual (pertinent sections/examples are on the Library website) or empirical studies for assistance in writing this section.
This assignment is designed to:
#1: To help you practice and improve upon your writing.
▪ The paper must be written in APA style. (See the 7thEdition of the APA Style Manual. The Sealy Library homepage in the section ‘New or Noteworthy’ also gives examples/summarizes APA style).
▪ Your writing should be clear and professional (i.e., not personalized) and concise. Excessive errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation can affect your grade.
#2: Develop and refine your critical thinking skills. These papers should reflect original thought in addition to summarizing the readings. This is an opportunity for you to go beyond the readings by developing ideas for future research.
#3: To get you thinking about research – how it is done, why it is done in a certain manner, how might you do it in a different way, what questions remain to be answered, in what areas the research is lacking, etc.