Academic journals are periodicals that are published on a regular basis and therefore contain the latest findings in specific fields. Academic journals generally contain two types of articles:
Literature reviews provide an overview of the findings of research on a specific topic. They are secondary information sources because they report on the work of other people.
Research articles report on the original research conducted by the author(s) of the article. Research articles are primary information sources that report on the original work of the authors. Authors will provide a description of the research questions that were being asked in the study (sometimes in the form of specific hypotheses), the sample and method used to gather data, the method of data analysis, and the findings and conclusions of the study.
For this assignment you are required to prepare a summary of a research article published in an academic journal that reports on original research. You are free to choose research on any topic that is related to families. Journal of Family Issues, Family Relations, and Journal of Marriage and Family are journals that are commonly used to report on research in the field of family studies. However, you do not need to limit your search to these journals.
The limitation on your choice of articles is that it must have been published within the previous or current year. For example, if the current year is 2021, the article must have been published in 2020 or 2021. Make sure there is a methods section that describes how the authors conducted their research.There are a few ways to search for journal articles. If you are not particular about the topic of the article that you summarize, you can simply browse through journals to pick an article.
Note: If the research article includes several hypotheses, you do not need to discuss whether or not support was found for each of them. Look for general findings or conclusions.
In this assignment as in any other assignment, you must avoid plagiarism. Try to put information in your own words. You are listing the source of information at the top of the page, so you do not need to cite the source again within the text of the summary if you have used your own words and paraphrased information from the article. However, if you use any direct quotations, you must use quotation marks and provide the page number of the article from which the quotation was lifted. Information on APA referencing and in-text citations and direct quotations can be found through this link to OWL, the Purdue University online writing lab:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.html
All assignments are submitted in UM Learn in the assignment submission folder labelled for each assignment. The assignment must be a Word file and the file title should be Research Summary and your surname (or example, “Research Summary, Smith”). Please do not submit PDF or other file formats. All assignments must include a title page. Always keep a backup copy of your work and save this each time you work on the assignment. It is your responsibility to check to see that the correct file has been submitted in UM Learn and that the file can be opened.
An example of a summary of a research article is provided at the end of this page. The marking key is also provided.
