Reference no: EM132238690

Assignment: Compare the popular media summary to the findings in the original study and summarize your findings in a critique . Your critique should include awareness of the differences in goals & audiences of the two sources . The critique should be about 1000 words, typed and double-spaced. Excessively short or long papers will be penalized; stay within 850 - 1150 words for full credit. Please include a final word count. APA style is not necessary. A well-written paper will have a clear, logical structure and be free of spelling and grammatical errors.

Article: Age-Related Changes in Emotional Behavior: Evidence From a 13-Year Longitudinal Study of Long-Term Married Couples (By Alice Verstaen, Claudia M. Haase, and Sandy J. Lwi and Robert W. Levenson)

Guidelines: Students will write a short paper critiquing a summary of psychological research found in popular media. The paper is due by the end of class February 21, and is worth 18 points. Late penalties are discussed in the syllabus. The syllabus also has information on acceptable ways to submit your paper if you do not attend class on the due date.

1. Select a popular media summary of a scientific psychology study. Links to media summaries are located in the Pages section of Canvas.

2. Find the corresponding original study from a professional journal in the Files section of Canvas.

3. Compare the popular summary to the findings in the original study and summarize your findings in a critique. Points you may wish to consider include:

• success at simplifying the original research questions & hypotheses for general audiences

• how adequately the description of participants & procedures was conveyed

• if the strengths and limitations of the study's research design are effectively covered

• how well the major findings of the original study are paraphrased in the popular summary

• whether substantial limitations outlined in the original's conclusions section were addressed in the popular summary

• if the author of the popular summary suggests practical implications of the study, how reasonable are the suggestions?

Your critique should include awareness of the differences in goals & audiences of the two sources (i.e., news website for non-professionals, scientific journal). For example, the popular summary will be less detailed because it is much shorter than the original research. Simply stating the popular summary is flawed or inaccurate because the cut material was "important," without persuasive arguments for why non-professional readers would require deeper explanation, will result in a loss of points.

4. The critique should be about 1000 words, typed and double-spaced. Excessively short or long papers will be penalized; stay within 850 - 1150 words for full credit. Please include a final word count (handwritten is fine). APA style is not necessary. A well-written paper will have a clear, logical structure and be free of spelling and grammatical errors.