This guide is aligned to support the requirements of your COMS 350 research assignments.
In addition, contact information for support through the writing center and library is provided.
You have three assignments that will require academic research. The assignment requirements are listed below for your reference. In the following pages, you will be provided with tools and strategies to assist with the completion of these papers. The guide will address how the highlighted requirements can be accomplished.
Research Reports
You will write two research reports following the instructions below for each paper.
For this report you’ll find a recently published (no earlier than 2010) research article in the field of nonverbal communication. This has to be an article reporting on research the authors conducted, not a critique, review or meta-analysis. It also should not a brief report, but a full length article. Provide the citation in APA format and the published abstract. Then write up details about the work in your own words.
1. Summarize the background upon which the authors based their study, naming the major theories or streams of research that they are continuing.
2. What research questions or hypotheses were they posing?
3. Describe their research methods.
4. State what methods of analysis the authors used (e.g., you might just say they used statistical procedures).
5. What were the findings?
6. What conclusions do the authors draw?
7. What future studies to the authors recommend?
8. What is your own opinion or analysis of this article?
Another way of stating this assignment is that I am asking you to take detailed notes on a research article. You may type this up single spaced and I expect the whole document to be about three pages, but that is a very general guideline.
This summary should be 1-1.5 page(s) single-spaced.
For this final paper, you will analyze the nonverbal communication of one or more personalities from a reality television show of your choosing. Outside of class, take time to view no fewer than four (4) hours of the television show, carefully analyzing the nonverbal behaviors you see demonstrated by your subject(s). Locate and read at least (4) scholarly research articles relating to one or more of the nonverbal cues you observe in the show. You are permitted to use the same articles from your previous research reports. Compare and contrast the scholarly findings (assumed to be "real") with the nonverbal communication of the chosen personality(ies) to determine if the television personality or personalities are or aren't "real". You will submit your paper at the end of the term.
