How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson

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specifying, for example, the date, name or type of publication from which you want your results to be drawn. Practise using different search terms and search parameters not just when an assignment is due – perhaps choose a topic that especially interests you, or one that you know well. Honing this skill will really help when it comes to the task of locating items for your assignments.

      Searching effectively

      Let’s assume that Sophie and Olivia have to tackle the following essay title:

      ‘Critically evaluate the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.’

      Search strategy one: Hope for the best

      Sophie sees straight away that the topic concerns persuasion. She gets onto Google Scholar and in 0.03 seconds 904,000 results are identified. Towards the top of the search are some of the most important and highly cited papers, including Hovland et al.’s research into attitudes and one of Petty and Cacioppo’s influential papers outlining the Elaboration Likelihood model (Hovland, Janis & Kelley, 1953; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). There are then disparate papers covering diverse topics, such as persuasion and healing and coercive persuasion. Sophie wasn’t expecting to cover coercive persuasion or persuasion and healing, but includes these along with the Hovland et al. and the Petty and Cacioppo articles to add breadth to her essay. Sophie finds that only about a quarter of the articles have full-text versions available free of charge, so she uses summaries of the papers where necessary.

      Sophie’s search strategy

      Databases: Google Scholar only

      Initial search term: ‘Persuasion’

      Variations: None

      Parameters: Default – limited options are available with this search tool, but even these (e.g. date) are not used

      Follow-on strategy: None

      Selection of articles: Four are taken from the first page of results.

      Verdict on Sophie’s search strategy: Sophie has been reactive and restrictive in her search. She has turned to one database, used one search term and then used whatever emerges from that – rather than really thinking about the title – to shape her essay. This is like essay writing by Yahtzee – whatever turns up shapes the essay (even if it’s a brief summary of an article irrelevant to the title). Whatever Sophie does next in terms of her introduction and conclusion, her structure and critical evaluation, her essay is like a boat with a large hole in the hull. It’s flawed, compromised and likely to sink. The good news is that it is quite easy to improve this situation, as Olivia demonstrates.

      Search strategy two: Proactive engagement

      Olivia is faced with the same essay title, but she is more proactive and uses the the Stop – Look – Think approach outlined above. She doesn’t rush blindly to search a database and doesn’t feel the need to restrict herself to the one that was quickest to use. Looking at the essay title, Olivia sees that it is really centred on the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion – not attitudes or persuasion in general – so her initial search terms focus specifically on the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Olivia realises that she probably won’t find all that will be best for her essay in one search. She knows that varying the search terms (including Elaboration Likelihood Model, criticisms of the Elaboration Likelihood Model, etc.) and refining the parameters of her search (such as date of publication, journal, authors, etc.) will really help. For example, paying attention to some of the recent literature by refining the date range in some of her searches will ensure that she includes contemporary as well as classic references. Olivia also notices that the essay title emphasises evaluation and she thinks about how she needs to find out about the ways in which the ELM has been evaluated. Olivia identifies that there might be theoretical or conceptual evaluations of the ELM as well as methodological ones, and that this could inform her search terms. By using different databases Olivia not only identifies a wider range of citations, but also finds articles that are more relevant for the argument(s) being developed in her essay. Olivia’s thinking about the essay and planning of it are happening concurrently with her searching for articles. This helps her to set up a thoughtful, scholarly, argumentative essay. In addition, by using different databases she has found full-text access for the key papers she wants to include.

      Exercise

      Searching the literature

      Take a moment to note your ‘go to’ search strategy. What search engines and other tools and reading lists do you use? How long do you spend finding sources for your essay? How effective do you think your approach is? Thinking of the advice in this chapter, what can you change to make your literature search more effective?

      Olivia’s search strategy

      Databases: Google Scholar, Psych Info, PsychArticles, ejournals finder, Web of Science

      Initial search term: ‘Elaboration Likelihood Model’

      Variations: Olivia uses multiple search terms. For example, an initial PsychArticles search ‘Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion’ yielded just six results; removing ‘persuasion’ increased this to 24. Olivia’s search terms included: ‘Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion’, ‘Elaboration Likelihood Model’, ‘ELM’, ‘Criticisms of the ELM’, ‘methodological criticisms of the Elaboration Likelihood Model’.

      Parameters: Olivia varied the date parameters in some searches to highlight recent developments. Some of the databases offered a wide range of parameters that could be controlled, allowing particular journals and authors to be used as well as control about where the search terms occur (for example, in the title, abstract or body of the article).

      Follow-on strategy: Initial searches revealed the term ‘conceptual criticisms’ which informed further searches, names were identified as authoring evaluative articles and these were used in follow up searches. Attention was also paid to journal titles that contained relevant papers and these informed subsequent searches. It was initially difficult to identify more radical critiques of the ELM so other databases were used and search terms that included reference to discursive psychology and rhetoric (both of which provide a radical critique of classic approaches to persuasion) were used.

      Selection of articles: The essay title was inspected again and an initial structure was identified.

      Verdict on Olivia’s search strategy: Olivia has been proactive and flexible in her search. For Olivia, thinking about the essay title and how she will address it has already started, rather than being deferred until after she has her resources in front of her. This proactive investigative search strategy has meant that Olivia is locating resources that not only are relevant to the essay title, but also enable her to develop a critically evaluative essay as she has specifically identified articles that will support this. Her intelligent use of different search terms to support the arguments that she wishes to develop enables her essay to sparkle with the quality of on-target excellence and critical thinking that is associated with sophisticated scholarship. Using different databases enables Olivia to access full-text articles, but this does not necessarily mean that she reads the full text of every one of these articles. Again purposively, Olivia can locate just the most useful and relevant information within them to most effectively develop her essay.

       Table 2.5

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