Analysis of a psychology article.
Goals for Assignment # 1
1) expose you to a scientific article in psychology that you will hopefully enjoy and understand
2) expose you to library resources so you become familiar with how to search for journal articles
3) gain some academic writing experience to sharpen your written communication skills
4) familiarize you with how to submit assignments in Brightspace
Task: find and read a psychology journal article and then complete a writing assignment stemming from the
article you chose (details below). Each student must choose a different article from one of these 4 journals
(only) published in or after 2015:
Canadian Psychology
American Psychologist
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
You will need your S # and password to access these journals via the SMU Patrick Power Library
(https://smu.ca/academics/the-patrick-power-library.html). An off-campus login page will appear on your
screen when you try to access a database or journal content; enter your S# and password. If you need help
updating your library record, contact Access Services (access@smu.ca). Notice that I’ve provided you with a
companion handout prepared by expert librarian, Dr. Heather Sanderson (see attached) that is designed to help
you find an acceptable article.
Take some time to look through these journals and choose an article that interests you (see handout on how to
find these journal articles). You can see which articles have been “taken” by other students on the assignment
tab in Brightspace (this list will be updated regularly). Choose an article that is not in that list. Once you have
chosen the article, send an email to the Teaching Assistant (TA) for this class, Ms. Dufour
(gena.dufour@smu.ca). In the subject line please write “Psyc 1200”. Then tell her which article you plan to use
for your assignment. Copy/paste the title and author of your article in the email. Ms. Dufour will verify your
article and, if no other student has selected it, it’s yours and you can start! Save your article as a pdf file (you
will need to submit it along with your assignment).
The actual writing: Please write a 4-5 page paper (see format details below) that describes the main ideas of
the article. Be sure you include a section that describes what you learned that you did not know, what surprised
you, and how this article connects or relates to some aspect of your life or that of someone you know. You can
use hypothetical situations (e.g., if I had no toes…).
word limit:1210