Read all the instructions carefully
Read at least one experimental paper as a model having the instructions in your mind
(Optionally) Submit topics and/or outlines for feedback
Write a short paper where you
Propose a research question related to the course topic
Motivate your question by referring to at least two papers
Propose an experiment to address the question
Submit the paper via Teams assignment
Please take this as a learning process. Below I wrote down what I am expecting as clearly as possible. All the instructions are set up so that you can write a better paper by following it, so please read and follow them.
At the same time, most requirements are negotiable. If you have some good reasons not to follow them, you can let me know and I can be flexible.
You are supposed to follow the template outlined below. The template is specialized for this assignment but it has a lot in common with most experimental papers. Therefore, as a part of the assignment, please read at least one experimental paper (written in the last 20-ish years) having the template in your mind before you start outlining your own paper. It will help you get better sense of what I am expecting. This can be the same paper(s) as the ones you are citing in your term paper.
Optionally (but much recommended), you can submit your outline anytime more than two weeks before the deadline and I can give you some feedback. I am expecting the outlines to be a few bullet points for each section of your paper. I am aiming to get back to you within 3 days after you submit your outline, but it might depend on my schedule and how many of you submit your outlines.Â
Don't send me a fully written draft because it is often too late at that point and I may not have time to read and comment on them. Try to communicate the crux of your paper in a simple manner.
On the other hand, you should feel free to ask for even earlier feedback, for example about the topic.
Your research question must be about human language processing and related to the course topic (language production, lexical prediction, or the relationship between language production and comprehension). For example:
Do phonologically related words in the native language facilitate or interfere with the language production in the second language?
Can people predict animacy-violation verbs (e.g., Nieuwland & van Berkum, 2006) because they use alternative world models or because they update the representations of the individual objects?
Does engagement of language production mechanism inhibit the retrieval of unexpected words in language comprehension?
The research question can be the same as the papers you cite, but in that case you have to be clear about why the paper is not sufficient and the question is still worth asking when you refer to the paper.
Your research question needs to be specific. That is, you shouldn’t be asking "What is the relationship between lexical access and structure building?" or ”How are kids different from adults in terms of language prediction?” because those are too broad. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be too specific like ”Do people predict a word X in context Y?” A better research question would be something between those in terms of specificity, like the ones introduced in the beginning of this section.
You should reconsider questions like ”What if we take this paper and use stimuli X instead of stimuli Y?” or "What if we we test German speakers instead of English speakers for the study Z?" The idea itself may be good as a starting point, but you should go one step further and think about what you can learn by that modification in the design and turn it into a question about how the human mind works. For example, you shouldn't say "What if we use German stimuli with Momma et al. (2016)'s design?" but you might ask instead "How does partial/loose verb-finality affect the incrementality in verb production?" (compared to Momma et al., 2016), and then decide to test German speakers as a way to address the question.
Refer to at least two papers as backgrounds to motivate your study, at least one from the class and at least one that we didn't read in the class. (OK to use the papers I shared but didn't discuss in the class either as the one from the class or as the "new" paper.) If you really want all your citations to be from outside of the class, please consult with me early on.
The relationship between the two papers and your experiment can be whatever, as long as they are relevant. For example:
your study might reconcile two apparently conflicting studies.
your study might extend one prior paper, and the other might provide reasonable methods for that.
etc
This minimal requirement about the prior papers doesn't mean that you can ignore other papers we read for the class. If there are closely related papers from the class, I expect you to cite and discuss them whether or not you have already cited other papers (e.g., when your argument conflicts with one of those papers). On the other hand, I don't expect you to do a thorough literature review of papers outside of the class.
Propose an experiment that can address your research question. The idea is to write up a paper just like ones we read in the class, but without actual data or details about the design.
Design an experiment including some details:
What kind of measures will you use? (e.g. Picture description, sentence production with given words, etc.) Which population will you look at? (e.g., Speakers of Language X, Y years old kids and adults, etc.) What kind of stimuli will you use?
You are not expected to describe the full details of the experiments, but you should describe at least the minimal details to explain what the experiment is like and how it works. For example, you don't need to provide the full set of stimuli, but you must provide one set for each condition. You are not expected to describe which university the participants are from, the number of electrodes in the EEG cap, or how long the fixation cross is presented on the monitor.
Discuss the results with possible outcomes:
Explain what the results would look like, and how that helps you answer the research question.
You can either deeply discuss one possible pattern of results that you expect, or cover multiple possibilities and respective implications.
Of course you don't need to run the experiment. However, it is OK to write the paper as if you have actually run the experiment or even report fake data (optional). But make sure you are consistent. Don't mix up "In the experiment, participants will..." and "The target word production was slower for..."
Note that the focus is not on the details of the experimental stimuli since this is not a methods course.
Please read these carefully because those are the main comments I always write for term papers.
When you are planning your final paper, you should think about both research questions and testable hypotheses but separately. First identify your research question and then turn it into a testable hypothesis.
Research questions
Do people build identical syntactic structure representations in language production and comprehension?
A question that describes what you are trying to understand about human language processing through the research. Conversely, the goal of the research is to provide an answer to the question with evidence.
Usually researchers have their own answers (theoretical claims) and they provide support by the study.
Testable hypothesesÂ
If syntactic structure representations are identical in language production and comprehension, structural choices in language production (active vs passive) should be equally affected by priming from language production and comprehension.
Research questions themselves are abstract, so they must be transformed into concrete and testable hypotheses. By testing these hypotheses, you can answer the research questions.
Often in the “If… then…” format.
Good research proposals don’t try running experiments without expectations and see what happens. Rather, they have clear and specific theories/hypotheses to evaluate and expriments are means for that. Therefore, when you provide your research question, you should show your hypothetical answer to the research question (= your claim) as well as alternative answer(s).
For example, if your research question is “What roles do language production processes play in lexical prediction in language comprehension?”, you should show your answer such as “I claim that people use the language production processes as an emulator.” and your experiment should be able to provide support for it if you get the expected results. (This example research question is a bit vague and yours should be more specific.)
Of course your answer doesn’t need to be “correct” because you are trying to see it through the experiment. But, on the other hand, your hypothetical answers or the competing theories/hypotheses shouldn’t be random guesses. Ideally they should be supported by prior studies. For this assignment, they can be good guesses with some rationale.
It is also important that your theory/hypothesis has a reasonable alternative hypothesis (or a couple of them). If nobody would argue against you, there isn't much reason to do the research at all.
"Not studied yet" is not a motivation but is more like a prerequisite. The complete form is something like "X is important because Y, but it is not well studied." The former part is essential and you should mention that.
The important thing is to clarify how the study helps you understand language processing better.Â
One good way is to think about two competing views on language processing (= theories). If your study can provide evidence for one or against the other, that is a very good motivation.
e.g. Momma et al. (2016) tested whether sentence-final verbs are planned at the end of the sentence or with preceding arguments (subjects or objects). This is a good test case of the strong incrementality hypothesis where words are planned in the same order as the utterances vs the "look-ahead" effects where words that play critical roles can be planned in advance.
You should aim for a small but simple and solid work with a clear logic rather than an excessively ambitious, chaotic, and sloppy work. I highly recommend you to focus on one point to make in the paper (or at most two). Never try to achieve 5 things at the same time in a single experiment and a single short paper because that would never work.
The same thing holds for the design. The main focus of this assignment is on the processes of (i) proposing an unanswered and motivated question based a prior paper(s) and (ii) designing an experiment that can address it. In this regard, a good experiment is something that nicely addresses the question in a simple manner and there is no need to try to come up with a fancy design.
Important things should come as early as possible at all levels in academic writings. You should introduce your research question and foresee your conclusion at a very early part of the paper. For each paragraph, the main point should be described in the first sentence. Good academic papers would look like worst mystery novels in that the culprits are revealed immediately.
Be concise. If you could leave out a sentence from a paragraph or a paragraph from a section, those are harmful for your paper and should be omitted. For example, be careful about the use of "in other words..." because students often write "[Something incomprehensible]. In other words, [something understandable]." You only need the latter half.
Be specific and avoid excessively general and vague statements. For example, avoid something like "This study contributes to the understanding of human language processing." Any psycholinguistic paper should make some sort of contribution, so the important thing is what exactly the contribution is. Another bad example is “This study clarifies/deepen our understanding of the relationship between X and Y”. "Clarify" or "deepen our understanding" can mean anything and it doesn’t tell the reader what exactly you are arguing. You should explicitly show your argument like “This study will demonstrate that the relationship between X and Y is [Your argument])” or at least show competing theories and write “This study evaluates Theory 1 and 2 regarding the relationship between X and Y.”
Use examples. Refer to concrete sentences, words, etc everywhere to help readers.
If you use non-English languages, you must include English translations of your examples. You should also include alphabetical transcripts for non-alphabetical languages. (You can optionally omit the non-alphabetical strings.)
Recommended: follow sections 6d,e and 8 from Linguistic Society of America style sheet.
Follow the template specified below.Â
Up to 3000 words excluding figures, captions, and the reference list. No minimal word counts.
Double-spaced & single column (Need some space to write in comments)
Put the title and your name at the top of the first page and then begin the main text on the same page.
Put a page number on each page.
Other formats for better readability (e.g., reasonable font size and margins, headings, indentation for each paragraph's beginning, etc.)
You should expect average master's student in LST who haven’t taken this or a similar course (or you yourself before taking this course) as readers of your paper. Therefore you should explain jargons that those people might not know (e.g., content retrieval, SOA, N400, etc.).
It is a good idea to include tables and figures from the prior studies and/or fake ones for your experiment. All tables and figures should be accompanied by a figure/table number and should be referred to with the number.
e.g., Figure 1 illustrates the EEG data of ...
It is your responsibility as the author to give credits to findings or ideas of other researchers. All prior works should be cited using the APA citation format, which is frequently used in the psycholinguistics literature. The website below provides useful examples for both in-text citation and the reference list: https://www.mendeley.com/guides/apa-citation-guide/
Use the template below. If you really know what you are doing, you could be more creative about the structure within the sections, although you should still keep the five sections.
Make sense of the template by reading experimental papers having it in your mind and use them as models of your paper.
Please do NOT include an abstract.
Purpose: Introduce your study and convince the reader that they should read the rest of the paper.
Introduce the topic (broader than your specific research question)
What exactly the research question is.
Why it is important to answer.Â
How does it contribute to understanding language processing?
Why is it particularly important compared to other questions?
Expect your conclusion. (e.g., This study will show that ...)
Additional notes:
Make sure readers know where you are going after they read the introduction.
2 and 3 can be swapped if that improves the flow.
Purpose: Situate your research question and your experiment in the background literature.
Introduce the prior studies.
What exactly they did (methods)
The relevant results
The author's and/or your interpretation of the results
Show what is not yet known (= the gap) in the literature.
Briefly introduce your experiment
How your experiment fills in the gap in the literature.
A brief description of the crux of your experimental design. You might use some examples here. If you haven't done it yet, you should introduce the linking hypotheses (i.e. theories of how your experimental paradigm reflects the cognitive processes you are interested in) of your methods.
Your prediction about the results (If X, then participants should Y.)
Additional notes:
Make sure readers know why you are citing the work before you provide its details.
The above structure assumes that two (or more) studies you are citing are direct theoretical/empirical precedences of your work. If a prior study provides some useful methods, you may introduce it differently (e.g., you might insert it when you introduce your own study in 3. above).
Clearly separate the methods, results, and interpretations of the prior studies!
Readers must know the high-level idea of what you are doing in your experiment and what you are expecting to find by the end of this section. You further describe your experimental design in the Design section and the expected results in the Discussion section.
Subjects: What kind of speaker group(s) will you test?
Materials: What are the conditions?
Use examples to describe your materials if you didn't do that in the previous section. Don't just throw examples after you verbally explain everything.
Tasks: What kind of tasks do the participants perform?
Other important details specific to each study such as:
proficiency in English if you are looking into non-native English speakers.
(You don't need to specify tests etc to assess the proficiency.)
the SOAs if you are using an interference paradigm just like Schriefers et al. (1990).
etc
Additional notes:
Since you don't need to provide as much details as real experimental papers, you may not create subsections for participants, materials, etc as the papers we read.
(Briefly) provide motivations for your choices of the design if you have not mentioned them in the current study section or they don't naturally follow from that section.
Expected data patterns
e.g., The production latency would be shorter in Condition A than in Condition B.
It is useful to show a fake figure (optional)
Implications of the expected results
Make sure to tie the expected results back to the research question.
Other discussion
Broader implications, future studies, limitations, relationship with other studies, etc.
List the reference following the APA format.
The term papers are graded for their quality following the criteria below:
Styles & Formats
The paper follows the specified formats. (5pt)
The reference list and the in-text citations follow the APA format. (5pt)
The paper is written as a scientific writing. (Formal writing, avoid 'I believe ...') (5pt)
Overall writing quality
The argumentations and descriptions flow well. (5pt)
Jargons are defined or unpacked. (5pt)
Introduction
The research question is clearly described. (10pt)
The research question is well motivated. (5pt)
The conclusion is expected in the Introduction section. (5pt)
Prior and current studies
Relevant prior findings are introduced clearly and concisely. (10pt)
The gap in the literature is clearly identified. (5pt)
How the current study fills the gap is described. (5pt)
The crux of the current study is concisely described. (5pt)
Designs
Stimuli are described with examples and are motivated. (5pt)
Procedures/tasks are described and are motivated. (5pt)
Other important aspects (e.g., participants) of the experiment are described and are motivated. (5pt)
Results & Discussions
The possible data pattern(s) are clearly described. (5pt)
Discussion based on the results. (10pt)