RESEARCH PAPER GUIDELINES
The subject of the paper can be any topic of interest in Abnormal Psychology and
students will be allowed to do research papers on a wide range of subjects provided that
they are completed using APA citation and reference style and that they follow the
guidelines listed herein. Students must use references that are scholarly such as
sources from peer reviewed journal articles, scientific books or empirical research studies.
All sources must be paginated (e.g.) they must have specific page numbers that can be

Referenced. Non-Acceptable Sources include: electronic online sources such as non-
academic journals, newspapers, Wikipedia, online blogs, or other non-peer reviewed

sources. When citing a reference, it is always important to make it clear to the reader
where you have obtained your information and where the reader can locate it.
There should be at least one literary citation for every page of written content and no
less than 10 scholarly references for a 13 page paper. The paper structure should begin
broadly then quickly narrow to examine at your subject. APA tutorials will often mention an
abstract and running head which may be included. However, methodology sections, results
sections and discussion sections are not necessary for this paper because these sections are
only included when the paper is discussing an experimental study that has an outcome. The
purpose of the class research paper is to demonstrate APA writing style doing scholarly
research with sources that are outside of the primary text. THEREFORE, YOU CANNOT
USE THE PRIMARY TEXT AS A SOURCE FOR THE PAPER. ABSTRACTS, TITLE PAGES
AND REFERENCE PAGES DO NOT COUNT AS WRITTEN PAGES!
The NUMBER OF PAGES and NUMBER OF SCHOLARLY SOURCES are important in
order to achieve a specific letter grade as follows:
A = 13 written pages (not including abstract, title page or reference sections) 10 References
B = 11 written pages (not including abstract, title page or reference sections) 7 References
C = 7 written pages (not including abstract, title page or reference sections) 5 References
D = 5 written pages (not including abstract, title page or reference sections) 3 References

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The paper must demonstrate APA style and should be word processed, double-spaced
and use 12-point font no larger and no smaller, with one inch margins all around. The
DUE DATE FOR THE RESEARCH PAPER is listed in the course calendar at the end of
this syllabus. If you run into trouble finding a subject for your paper pick one of the
disorders in the course text and ask a research librarian to help you locate data bases
such as PsychLIT that have peer-reviewed psychology journals. If all else fails, please
remember that it is always better to turn in a late paper than no paper at all. All
papers are submitted in hard copy in class on the due date. As mentioned in the ACADEMIC
DISHONESTY section above, if you are randomly selected you will have to submit an
additional electronic copy to TURN IT IN or another electronic analytic program.