Topic & Preliminary Annotated Bibliography

Instructions

Your topic should:

Identify a specific issue or problem in a specific situation and localized setting (workplace or community).

Seek to improve professional and community practices.

Generate new knowledge to address a specific problem to improve practice.

Improve the well-being of the people involved.

Interest you personally and professionally.

This will be the first section of your proposal.

Once you identify your topic, you will:

• Conduct a review of the recent academic literature on your topic. Use both The Chicago School Library(Links to an external site.) database, and Google Scholar (Links to an external site.) to conduct your search of the most recent literature on your topic.
• Identify and read three peer-reviewed journal articles published within the past five years to support your topic.
• Write a description of the journal articles in annotated bibliography format following APA guidelines.
• Write a single paragraph up to seven sentences for each article.
• Include the main point of the article.
• State how the findings of the article relate to the other sources in your bibliography.
• Avoid opinion without support from the literature.
• Include both positive and negative comments about the article. You can generally find limitations presented by the authors near the end of the article.
• Always review the resource section of an article or dissertation for additional sources. Use the work of others to help build your literature review.

You will use your topic of interest to begin the process of developing a research proposal. Through an iterative process, you will develop and refine your research proposal across the course, culminating in the Signature Assignment.

Paper Requirements

• The topic is a Level 1 heading.
• In one paragraph, state your topic and how it aligns with your program concentration and/or professional interests in psychology. Develop an annotated bibliography following the guidelines presented above.
• Length: approximately two pages (double spaced).

Note: Your Annotated Bibliography will be expanded to five peer-reviewed journal articles and submitted again in Module 2.