Read a scientific article and write a short paper (minimum 350 words, maximum 400 words) in which you explain the article in plain language to someone with no background in psychology (e.g., your parents, your dentist, a 10-year-old).

Explain it to your Parents” Paper Guidelines – due August 18th

• Read a scientific article and write a short paper (minimum 350 words, maximum 400 words) in which you explain the article in plain language to someone with no background in psychology (e.g., your parents, your dentist, a 10-year-old).

• Article must be from a peer-reviewed scientific journal and published between 2018 and 2023.

• Must be an empirical article – that is, an article that describes and reports the results of a new experiment the authors have just run and want to share with the world. This is a different type of paper from a review paper (which summarizes the results of many past experiments but does not present new ones) or an opinion paper. Empirical articles will nearly always have sections called Method, Results, and Discussion in which the structure, results, and interpretation of the new experiment is described in detail, so looking for those sections is a good way of knowing whether your article is empirical or not. If you have any doubts, of course, you are more than welcome to send me your paper (or a link to it) and I will confirm whether you have an empirical paper.

• The topic of the article should relate to the general subject matter of cognitive psychology. Potential topics include perception, imagery, attention, cognitive neuroscience, memory, decision-making, problem solving, and/or language. This leaves a very wide range of potential papers!

• Your empirical article may describe multiple experiments or only one, but you should discuss only one experiment in your paper, since the paper should not be less than 350 words or exceed 400 words total.

• Remember that the writing should be simple and easy to understand for anyone. Pretend that you are explaining your article to someone with no background in cognitive psychology or psychological research generally. It shouldn’t go on too long (this is why the word limit is so low) and your writing style should be familiar and informal, as if you were talking to someone about the paper. Read your paper to someone who knows nothing about psychology and see if they understand it before you turn it in! (You don’t have to do this, but it’s a good idea!)

• Required sections for the paper and suggested organization:

1. Introduce the general topic

2. Share the motivation for the experiment reported in the article – why did the

researchers conduct the experiments they are writing about?

3. Describe the experiment’s methodology.

4. Describe the results.

5. Mention the implications of these results and try to provide a clear take-home

message.

Looking up psychology journal articles (but not articles in Psychological Science):

1. Go to library.csun.edu

2. Click on Databases, then Psychology

3. Click on PsycInfo

4. Enter search terms related to the topic you are interested in, under

“Publication Year” type in 2018-2023, and check the “Peer Reviewed” box.

Looking up articles in the journal Psychological Science:

1. Go to library.csun.edu

2. Under the search box within OneSearch, select the link called Journals

3. Enter the title of the journal (Psychological Science) and click Search

4. The first result will be the title of the journal. Select the link called “Online access”

5. You can then see the 6 databases that give you access to view the journal.

6. Under each listed database, you will see the years of availability for the journal. Search for articles published between 2018 and 2023.

Requirements: 350-400 words