Sport or Exercise Psychology Research Paper

You should write a paper on any topic that you think suitable for segments or all of your audience.  For example, “Changing your behavior to make you a better coach” or “Body image and physical activity participation” or “Exercise effects on psychological function” or  “Determinants that predict exercise behavior.”  At any rate, use your imagination, decide what appeals to you and might be appealing to the audience and choose a topic that falls under the heading of sport OR exercise psychology.  It is important to choose a topic that has some interest for you, but still fits within the given guidelines!

The following suggestions will help you organize and put together your presentation:

1. Remember, you are targeting a specific audience and you are giving a talk, so write in language that they will understand.  But what you say must be scientifically accurate! So, you need to make reference to some scientific content.
2. The title and the opening paragraph will help you get your audience’s attention.  Therefore, make the title creative or catchy and make the first paragraph as interesting as possible to get their attention.  Otherwise, people will be asleep before you know it.
3. Focus the content of your paper. The audience does not want to know everything under the sun about the topic. Keep it comprehensive, and make sure to pick an important aspect that has a take-home message.
4. Use plenty of examples to illustrate and highlight your points.
5. Ask yourself the question, “Does the paper provide ideas, recommendations, and insights that the audience can take away with them and use later?”  If not, you need to rethink.
6. Provide information that reflects scientific credibility. As such, you must cite scientific information in your paper (at least 2 sources). Do not rely on large chunks of direct quotations.  Additionally, do not rely on citing “class notes.”  This is not an acceptable reference source and points will be taken off for doing this.
7. Be clear! Have someone else read your paper. If they find it confusing at any point if means you haven’t done a good enough job explaining your ideas or being clear.
8. This is not a group assignment.  Completion of this assignment with another individual will automatically result in a grade of zero for all persons involved.

General Guidelines

The written assignment will require you to use the library/academic databases (e.g., PubMed or Web of Knowledge), read, think, and prepare thoroughly.  The paper should be 2 pages in length, (can be between 1 and 3/4th to 2 full pages), and double-spaced typed. Please DO NOT SUBMIT ANYMORE THAN TWO PAGES (double-spaced typed) in length excluding references.  Again the emphasis is on preparation and presentation, and you need to make a well written, concise, and convincing case in your paper, keeping the length in mind. More guidelines on formatting are provided below.

Proofread your manuscript, use a spell checker, write in sentences, and do not use colloquialisms.  The focus of the assignment is to improve your writing abilities by incorporating your knowledge of sport and exercise psychology.  The end product should reflect effort, persistence, and thought.  The papers will be judged on content, scientific accuracy, individual thought, and appropriate use of examples, organization, and clarity of writing.

Formatting guidelines 

The paper must follow the following APA guidelines: 

1. Font size pt 12.
2. Double-spaced.
3. Font style- Times New Roman.
4. Margins 1″
5. Left aligned.
6. The citation must be in APA style- meaning, it must be an in-text citation as well as mentioned in the references. 

Help/Guidance on citing academic sources, and citing them in APA style: 

You have to have at least 2 scientifically credible sources. These could be journal articles, textbooks, or well-recognized bodies such as the World Health Organization, National Institute of Health etc (These bodies are usually cited for definitions of terms).

For finding journal articles, you can use scientific databases. The most common one, and probably adequate for this assignment, would be Google Scholar. Keep in mind, you have to cite the article, not the database (Do not cite Google Scholar as your source, find the citation for the particular article you found on Google Scholar).

In the APA format, citation is done in-text and included in the references section. So essentially, the article (or any other scientific source) you have included in your in-text citation should be mentioned in the references. For example, say I have a sentence in my paper that says:

‘Bryant, Ford, and Kim (2014) found that there were significant racial differences in the relation between BMI and cognitive function’ <– This is an in-text citation

And then I would mention this article in the reference section:

Bryant, A., Ford, K.-L., & Kim, G. (2014). Racial/Ethnic Variations in the Relation Between Body Mass

Index and Cognitive Function Among Older Adults. The American Journal of Geriatric

Psychiatry, 22(7), 653–660.

https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JAGP.2013.08.006

A good source of learning how to cite different scientific sources (books, articles) in the APA format is Purdue Owl APA Citation Guide.