Selecting a topic

Selecting references

Formatting the reference list

Self-evaluation (try this midway through the term!)

Frequently asked questions (about seminar)

Understanding the instructor's feedback

Stating a Topic for Your Seminar Paper: Some Tips

• Don't be too broad. (Are there hundreds of articles readily available for your topic? Could someone write a book on this topic?)
• Don't be too narrow. (Does PsycLit come up with too few articles, even when you try various search strategies? Are there so few articles available that you would need to get articles from remote libraries?)
• Don't be too old-fashioned. (Are most of the articles on this topic published many years ago?)
• Don't ignore everything you learned before. (Are the articles so remote from your previous course work that you can’t understand them?)
• Don't be afraid to be creative. (Can you only report what you’ve read, without doing any critical thinking about it?)
• Do follow your own energies. (Are you excited by reading lots and lots about this topic? Do you have questions that you hope you’ll learn to answer?)
• Do be open to new approaches to the topic. (Would you be willing to read articles in journals outside of your field, if they are relevant?)
• Do consider what your knowledge about this topic will do for you after this course. (Will this topic be relevant to your future career or graduate studies?)
• Do expect to change the focus or scope of your paper as your literature review progresses. (If, as often happens, there is more information than you expected on one subtopic within your paper, which subtopic would you most like to expand? Why not start with that one?)
• Do see this topic as an opportunity to critically comment on the field as it exists today. (You do want to engage the material and not simply report it; right?)

Selecting References

• Use computer literature searches, available at The Sage Colleges libraries. The librarians are willing and able to help you find the most appropriate search techniques for your topic. In addition, get advice from your instructor.
• Search for a literature review or meta-analysis that has been recently published, and read it early in your literature reading. It will help you locate relevant references. (In PsycLit, limit your search with the command "and literature review or meta-analysis" to find these.)
• Books and chapters within books may be helpful at the early stage of your literature review, to help you gain an overview of the field. Use them to organize your thoughts and plan further reading. Be reluctant to use them extensively as cited references, though; books are generally less current than journal literature reviews. In addition, you should be focusing on primary sources for most of your references.
• If you find some "classic" references in your field that many people are citing, locate them and read them in the original, so you can say something about them first-hand.
• Focus on empirical research articles in reputable professional journals. Realize that these are more difficult to read than the popular press.
• Be selective. If a reference is old, or in a foreign or relatively inaccessible journal, you should be less willing to include it in your review than a newer, more accessible article, other things being equal. Articles in popular magazines and newspapers are usually not appropriate to include, unless you are saying something about the popular press. If they report interesting research second-hand, search for the original, professional articles and read those.
• Know why you are citing each reference. Is it because of an important research finding? A method of collecting data? A clever research design? Don't try to summarize everything about each study that you read.
• Avoid citing secondary references (that is, references cited within the articles that you read). If a cited reference looks interesting, try to locate and read the original. If you must cite it as a secondary reference, make that clear to the reader of your paper. (For example, you might write "Smith (2000) describes a dissertation study by Jones (1995) in which Jones found that ....")
• If secondary sources aren't good, what about literature reviews?

APA Form Checklist: References

The APA manual gives detailed information about formatting references, and you should consult it frequently. Here is a list to help you avoid some common errors:

• Title "References" should be centered, only "R" capitalized, not underlined. (Do not call this section "Bibliography" or "Works Cited" or anything else: simply "References.")
• Begin this section on a separate page of your paper.
• Double space throughout.
• Do not add extra spacing between references or after the title. (Simply double space.)
• Use hanging indent for each reference. (That is, the first line is to the left margin and the remaining lines, if any, are indented a half inch.)
• Alphabetize the reference list by authors' names. (Do not change the order of authors within a specific citation!)
• Use initials for authors' first and middle names (not full name).
• Space between the initials of the author's name.
• If there are two or more consecutive citations with the same author(s), you still must repeat the author for each citation. (Do not use hyphens or lines as some other formats require.)
• Use ampersand (&) before last author (not "and") in the References section. [In the paper itself, though, spell out "and," except use the ampersand within parenthetical citations.]
• List all authors; do not use "et al." except under the special circumstances described by the APA manual.
• Omit the issue number (except in the rare case of noncontinuous pagination of the issues of a journal).
• Italicize the volume, and the comma that goes after it.
• Separate journal and volume with a comma.
• Separate volume and page numbers with a comma.
• Put a period at the end of the citation.
• Don't capitalize title of article (first word and first word after a colon only, and any proper names, such as names of specific tests).
• Do not include any "special issue" information after a title (though it does appear in PsycLit).
• Capitalize all the major words of the journal name.
• Do not include "The" as the first word of a journal name. (Simply omit it.)
• Spell out all the words in the journal name; don't abbreviate.
• Spell out "and" instead of using an ampersand (&) in the journal name.
• For books, capitalize only the first word (and the first word after the colon in a subtitle).
• For books, include publishing information: city, state (abbreviated, using the standard 2-letter abbreviations on p. 218 of the APA manual), publisher. Omit the state for well-known major cities (which are listed in the APA manual). Include countries if other than the US. Omit unnecessary words from the name of the publisher (such as "Inc." and "Publisher").
• On-line (electronic) references require special formatting; see the APA manual, pp. 268-281.
• Omit the hyphens that PsycLit searches use to connect words in authors' names, journals, etc.
• Check spelling!

Try to get the formatting correct early in the semester. It will pay off later!

Here's a web page that is helpful: Russ Dewey's APA Research Style Crib Sheet:

• http://www.wooster.edu/psychology/apa-crib.html

Seminar: Midterm Self-Evaluation

1. How many references have you assembled (photocopied, borrowed, etc.) so far?
2. How many more references do you need to get?
3. How many pages have you written of your first draft?
4. How many additional pages do you need to write of your first draft?
5. Have the sections you have written so far turned out to be about as long as you expected when you did your outline, or are they longer or shorter?
6. Has your outline changed very much since you turned it in? If so, why?
7. How many hours do you expect you will need to spend revising your finished first draft before it is ready to turn in?
8. How many computer disks do you have with the latest version of your paper?
9. Have you formatted a page header yet?
10. Have you checked that your margins are correct?
11. Are you using double spacing for everything: including block indented quotations, and including references?
12. Have you figured out what section headings to include in your paper yet? Dividing a long paper like this into headings makes it easier to read, especially if you write summaries at the end of each section.
13. How long do you think it will take to write the abstract? (This is page 2 of your final paper.)
14. How long do you think it will take to compare the references cited in your text with the references at the end of the paper, to be sure they match one-to-one? (Every citation in the paper must be listed in the reference section. Conversely, every item listed in the reference section must be cited somewhere in the paper.)
15. Are you sure that you are using proper APA form on your references?
16. Are you sure you are using proper APA form to cite references within the text (including knowing when to include page numbers, and when to use "et al."?)
17. Have you thought of a good title for your paper--descriptive and interesting?
18. How long do you think it will take to edit your final paper for grammar and spelling?
19. Have you avoided too-close paraphrasing of your sources, as well as other forms of plagiarism?
20. Are you feeling a sense of accomplishment?

	Is the paper really due at the end of the semester?	Yes. A grade of incomplete can be arranged for special circumstances, but you must speak with the instructor and fill out a formal written request for an incomplete.
	I'm graduating, and my paper is going to be late. This is OK, isn't it?	No. (It takes a lot of time to grade seminar papers, and if you don't submit your paper by the due date, you are likely to not have a grade submitted to the registrar in time to graduate. The deadline is not arbitrary.)
	Last minute computer bugs made me run late. You're not going to take off for that, are you?		Count on last minute problems; they are routine. Work sufficiently ahead to allow for problems with printers, computers, and so on -- and to edit and proofread your paper.

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