• Gollwitzer Mario

When a paper is published in a scientific journal, it typically undergoes a review process in which the paper’s conceptual and methodological scrutiny is (more or less carefully) assessed by the journal editor and, typically, two or more independent reviewers. Such a peer-review is an important gatekeeping and quality assurance system in science - and, despite its flaws, it is probably the best system we have. Understanding the peer-review system and anticipating how a paper is evaluated by one’s peers is important to understand how science works, how critical thinking is applied in practice, and how a paper should be written in order to increase its chances of being accepted and getting published. In this course, students are familiarized with the peer-review process in psychological science: they will read and evaluate four papers submitted to personality and social psychology journals, learn how to write a review about these papers, and make a justified recommendation on whether or not these papers are worth being published. 

Learn more about the peer-review process, learn the practice of evaluating papers and writing a review oneself, apply techniques to assess the conceptual and methodological quality of a paper, learn more about publication standards and good scientific practice.

American Psychological Association APA (2010). Preparing manuscripts for publication in psychology journals: A guide for new authors. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/pubs/authors/new-author-guide.pdf (see also https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/resources/manuscript-submission-guidelines). 

Cialdini, R. B. (n.d.). Manuscript review guidelines. Unpublished Manuscript.

Field, A., & Hole, G. (2003). How to design and report experiments. London: Sage.

Meltzoff, J., & Cooper, H. (2018). Critical thinking about research: Psychology and related fields (2^nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Pellham, B. W., & Blanton, H. (2018). Conducting research in psychology (5^th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Individual assignment (written text / “Hausarbeit”): read a (fictitious) paper, detect its methodological flaws, write a “mock review” in which these flaws are identified, explained, and suggestions for revisions are made.

Individual assignment (written text / “Hausarbeit”): read a (fictitious) paper, detect its methodological flaws, write a “mock review” in which these flaws are identified, explained, and suggestions for revisions are made.

Individual assignment (written text / “Hausarbeit”): read a (fictitious) paper, detect its methodological flaws, write a “mock review” in which these flaws are identified, explained, and suggestions for revisions are made.

Individual assignment (written text / “Hausarbeit”): read a (fictitious) paper, detect its methodological flaws, write a “mock review” in which these flaws are identified, explained, and suggestions for revisions are made.

Individual assignment (written text / “Hausarbeit”): read a (fictitious) paper, detect its methodological flaws, write a “mock review” in which these flaws are identified, explained, and suggestions for revisions are made.