IR Guidelines
Here are the guidelines for your IR submissions. Please follow each of them to avoid point loss.
Choosing your topic:
1. Choose a topic that will expand your knowledge of text material (something the text left out or did not cover well) and which interests you.
2. Choose a topic that you can cover in depth and with substance. This means that you must not choose a topic about which whole books or chapters have already been written. You cannot expect to cover such a topic well in four pages. For example, do not have a topic like Effects of Divorce on Children. Instead, narrow it to something like “Effects of Divorce on Sons when Fathers Leave”. Do not choose “Anorexia”; narrow it to something like: “Anorexia and pregnancy”.
3. Make sure you relate the report to the material in our course. If you choose a topic like pharmaceutical applications, do not get too far from our interest in them.
4. Make sure your topic is relevant to the current 7-8 chapters. Do not choose a topic that is merely mentioned in the current chapters and then fully covered elsewhere in the text.
5. Do not choose a biographical report as your topic.
Researching your topic:
1 Search for your sources (rejecting many poor ones in the process). Do not use encyclopedia or Wikipedia type sources. They can be good but can also be sloppy.
2. Do not use sources that are reporting on other work (secondary sources, like Time, Newsweek, USA Today, etc.); go to the source on which they are reporting (primary sources, like professional journals, or web sites reporting research).
3. Once you have a minimum of at least five good sources, explore those sources, taking notes.
4. Then integrate all your notes into a report on the topic that is in your own words. Do not merely put a few paragraphs from one source followed by a few paragraphs from the next one, etc. Weave them together into an integral report.

Writing your submission:
1. Put your title at the top (no separate page is necessary).
2. Focus on what your topic promises the reader. Do not stray into areas outside the topic. For example, in a report on The Behavioral Treatment of Anorexia, do not give a section on WHAT Anorexia is, stick to the TREATMENT of it as your title promises.
3. Write the text/body of your project (four pages MINIMUM (1.5 line spacing), with normal margins and a size 12 "normal" font, like Times New Roman). The most common reason for losing points is submitting a below-minimum submission. You will see something in the grading comments like "needs more depth and substance". So, do not try to hit the minimum and no more. Instead, plan on going beyond the minimum just to avoid point loss.
4. Use American Psychological Association (APA) formatting style (just Google it to get the basics), especially for the sources list. Exceptions: No separate title page is necessary, and no section headings are necessary.
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6. Do not repeat large sections of textbook material in your report. Duplicating the text coverage in your report is NOT acceptable. The assignment is to EXPAND the text coverage.
Do not plagiarize: if you copy something word for word or even just the idea expressed elsewhere, attribute it to the author who wrote it. It is NOT enough to cite the sources at the end of your document. You will receive a ZERO for your paper if there is any material that is not yours and not in quotation marks.
7. This is not Creative Writing 101, nor is it an essay or a Speech to Persuade. Do not wax flowery or emotional. Do not tell a story or write an article for a newspaper/magazine. Do not give case examples that go into detail about a person’s life or how difficult it is to live with a disorder, etc. Write a sterile report on your topic giving the facts that you have found, an in-depth informative account of the material you found on your topic.
8. List your sources (five MINIMUM
, more preferred) at the end of your paper using APA formatting style.

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