You will be required to write an empirical research proposal on any topic related to eyewitness identification that would actually be possible for you to conduct. Your proposal will be between 15 and 18 double-spaced pages in length (not including title page, abstract, and references) with 1” margins, 12pt Times New Roman font and will be written in sections according to APA 7th Edition (i.e., title page, running head, abstract, introduction, method, and references). Your paper will include a literature review and a detailed description of the specific research hypotheses and methods that you will use to address your hypotheses. There will be no Results or Discussion sections in your proposal. Your research proposal in this class must be different from any work that you have submitted in other classes, including PSY 738/791 and must be different from any thesis work you have already proposed or conducted. This course will be using Turnitin, an on-line plagiarism detection service offered through Blackboard, to check the originality of the material that you submit. Students are required to submit all written assignments in electronic format (Word, WordPerfect, RTF, PDF, or HTML) directly to Blackboard. Students may submit an electronic draft of a written assignment to Blackboard in advance of the due date to “test” the assignment’s originality. Again, students may not submit in this course original material that has been or is being used for written assignments in other courses; this is referred to as self-plagiarism and will be penalized in the same manner as plagiarism.
Your paper grade will be determined by the quality of your research idea (e.g., was the proposed methodology sound, reasonable, and appropriate? Was the research idea novel and creative?) and the quality of your written paper (e.g., grammar, ease of comprehension, correct APA formatting). You are strongly encouraged to “virtually meet” with me during the semester to discuss any aspect of your paper. The goal of this assignment is to create a viable research plan that, if conducted, would advance our knowledge of eyewitness identification in some way.
