Please follow these instructions carefully when writing your research paper. Points are deducted if you do not follow directions. It goes without saying that you may NOT use a paper you turned in for another class.

You may choose any topic covered in the textbook to write about. It will be at least 4 complete (not including your cover page), typed, double-spaced pages with 1.0” margins (left indented only, not block formatted) in Times New Roman font, 12-point size. Do not skip extra spaces between paragraphs. The paper can be longer than 4 pages of research. The paper should be in full APA format.

You will write the first page (only) as an autobiographical or biographical statement of why you are specifically interested in your topic. For example, let’s say you were raised by two gay dads. You will write the first page about your experiences with your dads and growing up, then the next 3 pages must be a synopsis of the research your research. You may not use interviews or stories of people as evidence of empirical research. Also, if you write a conclusion that only repeats what you have already written or is your opinion, this does not count towards the required three complete pages of research. The 5th page will be your reference page (bibliography).

This is a research paper, so you must write it in essay format, without bullet points, lists, or subsection titles. You will not write an abstract. You do not need a header/footer or page numbers. You need a minimum of 3 references for this paper, which may only include journal articles. Do not use any type of book as a reference. Your references should be no older than 2005. If you use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), then it must be the 5th edition only.

Be sure you use scholarly sources; you may use websites in addition to three research journal articles. Some examples include: psychologicalscience.org, apa.org, NIMH.gov, NIDA.gov, and any website I directed you to in the classroom. You can’t use any “.com” because there is no one to govern the truth of many of these sites. This means you can’t even use wikipedia.com or any other “wiki” site!

You must include a 5th page that will be a list of all of your reference (a bibliography) websites.

IMPORTANT: When you are using someone else’s work to write your paper, you must give them credit. You must cite your references in every paragraph of the research section of your paper; this should be done in either APA format (see www.apastyle.org (Links to an external site.) and the way your textbook is written). APA format means you include the author’s last name and the year of publication ONLY of the article inside parentheses when you are referencing work they presented. The following is an example of a sentence from a paper on depression: Many times depression is linked to anxiety (Smith, 2016).

Here is what a website would look like as a cited source: (www.apa.org). The full http address will be in the reference page.

The important thing to remember here is NOT TO PLAGIARIZE the information. CITE your references in EVERY paragraph, and USE YOUR OWN WORDS! Please do not copy word for word from your sources unless you put those words in quotation marks. You may not use quotes longer than one sentence, and you may not have more than 4 sentence quotes in the paper.

You must summarize what you have read using plain English. Do not write scientific jargon (such as lists of prescription drugs or the ingredients of drugs) that is not understandable without a medical degree. If you do not use all of your own words, and do not properly cite your sources, this is plagiarizing and grounds for cheating. This would result in a zero on the paper.