Writing assignments for this class consist of 4 short (2 pages, double-spaced, 12 pt.

Times New Roman font,

APA reference format) reviews of the journal articles listed on the syllabus. The articles will be posted and on
the course website. You will annotate each article in a small group in Hypothesis the week before you write
your review.

Each review should address the following questions:

1) What was the goal of the study? What did the author(s) want to test? (10 points)
• 5 points for explanation of background for research question
• 5 points for introducing the study, including a clearly stated research question
2) What methods were used to investigate their question(s)? (10 points)
• 1 point for participant information
• 5 points for experimental design (How many conditions? What were the conditions?)
• 3 points for procedure (How was the experiment conducted?)
• 1 point for dependent variable
3) What were the main results? (10 points)
• 10 points for accurately and clearly explaining the pattern of results for each condition
4) What can you conclude from the results? What do the results mean? Do they provide support for a
particular theory? What do they contribute to our understanding of language? (10 points)
• 4 points for explaining the author’s interpretation of the results
• 3 points for explaining how the results relate to the original research question
• 3 points for explaining the significance of the results in terms of our understanding of language
5) What do you think might be an interesting next step, given the results? (5 points)
• 5 points for a research question and suggestion for a future study of your own based on the results
Format/Clarity (5 points)
• 2 points for following standards of written English
• 2 points for writing clearly
• 1 point for following formatting guidelines (font, margins, APA style reference)

Helpful Hints
❖ Read the article more than once to make sure you understand it.
❖ Set the article aside while you write a draft of your review and see how much you can remember from
memory. The better you understood the article, the easier this will be.
❖ Make sure you briefly introduce relevant terms or concepts; special terms used in the article being
reviewed may need to be defined in your paper. If you were not familiar with the term when you first read
the article (e.g. “fast mapping”), you should write as if the reader of your review wouldn’t be either.
❖ Do not use direct quotes or close paraphrases of the article.
❖ Oftentimes the methods sections of these articles will contain more details than it is possible to include in
a review paper of this length. It is only necessary to include the most critical information.
❖ Leave enough time to finish your draft and then go back and revise it later.
❖ Come to office hours if you have questions about the article or about how your review should be written.
❖ Make sure you cite the article once in the text of your introduction and include a References section as per
APA guidelines. You do not need to include a title page.