summarizing Published Studies and one communication paper

for paper: analyzing the persuasion tactics used in an advertisement (one of the following two), APA, 5-6 pages

Spotify – ‘Let the Song Play’:

UN World Food Programme – Feed Our Future:

[IMPORTANT NOTE: ignore the coming to cinemas part in the last few seconds]

Identify and analyze THREE important persuasive features in the ad

Use outside research: find and discuss the findings of at least TWO published empirical studies to support your arguments

Comm 1 Exercise
Summarizing Published Studies
This exercise is designed to give you practice at synthesizing the important information from published
empirical studies so that you’ll be better prepared to summarize and apply studies in Paper #2. First, you’ll
need to search UCSB’s online databases (http://www.library.ucsb.edu) and find a published empirical study in
an academic journal that examines one (or more) of the persuasive features you plan to use in your paper (e.g.,
source credibility, humor appeals, etc.). This exercise is mainly for practice—you might find that you need to
find different/better research articles for your actual paper. Remember also that in your paper, you’ll need to
summarize and apply TWO studies.
Read the “Introduction to Scientific Journal Articles” handout (see next page below), and read the journal article
that you found on your own. Answer the following questions regarding the study you found. Type your
answers and bring it in to section on the due date (see the discussion section schedule in the syllabus).
CITATION INFO: [see the “Using APA Style” document on GauchoSpace]
a) Give the full APA style citation for this article, as you would list it on your “References” page (i.e., the
authors’ names, year published, title of study, journal name, volume #, page #’s, etc., all in the correct order
and format).
b) Write an example sentence showing how you would cite this article within the actual text of the paper
assignment.
FROM THE INTRO/LIT REVIEW SECTION:
Synthesize the researchers’ lit review in only one or two sentences. What is the topic/problem under
investigation, and how does the previous research/theory lead to the authors’ study?
FROM THE METHOD SECTION:
Describe in only one or two sentences what the researchers did in their study. Do not give minor details (e.g.,
sample size), but rather identify the overall method (experiment, survey, content analysis) and describe the basic
procedure for how they tested their hypotheses/answered their research questions.
FROM THE RESULTS SECTION:
Ignore the statistical procedures described and look for sentences in this section that tell you what the authors
found. Briefly identify the main findings.
FROM THE DISCUSSION SECTION:
In one or two sentences, describe what the authors argue is the importance of their study.
OKAY, NOW TIE TO THE PAPER ASSIGNMENT:
Take what you have written above and distill it down even more into one paragraph that you could use in your
paper. For each study, think of writing it in this formula:
What was it about? What did they do? What did they find? … and then…
How does that support your argument about the effectiveness of the ad that you are analyzing?
INTRODUCTION TO SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ARTICLES
What is a scientific journal?
Research is complete only when the results are shared with the scientific community. The traditional medium for communicating
research results is the scientific journal.
Scientific journals contain the accumulated knowledge of a field. In the literature are distilled the successes and failures, the
information, and the perspectives contributed by many investigators over many years. Familiarity with the literature allows an
individual investigator to avoid needlessly repeating work that has been done before, to build on existing work, and in turn to
contribute something new.
Research articles published in scientific journals typically contain the sections described below.
Abstract
An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of a journal article. Usually 100-200 words in length, it appears at
the beginning of the article and allows readers to survey its contents quickly.
Introduction/Literature Review
In the opening section of an article, the researcher introduces the problem that is under investigation and describes the research
strategy. The author here reviews previous research and theory on the subject, developing a rationale for the present study and
specific hypotheses to test (or research questions to answer). The author also defines relevant variables and provides an overview of
the research method.
Method
The method section describes in detail how the study was designed and conducted. Several subsections typically appear. One
subsection identifies the participants (also called “subjects”), describing their major demographic characteristics (e.g., age, sex), how
they were selected, and how they were compensated for participation. The author also describes materials used in the study, such as
measurement equipment (e.g., heart rate monitors, questionnaires) and stimulus materials (e.g., film clips that were viewed). The
procedure subsection summarizes each step in the actual data collection of the study, including instructions to participants,
experimental manipulations, and any important features of the design. In sum, the method section describes what the researcher did
and how he or she did it.
Results
The results section describes the statistical techniques used to analyze the data and reports the results of these analyses. This
section frequently includes tables, graphs, and figures. The researcher emphasizes statistically significant findings, often reporting
which hypotheses were supported and which were not.
Discussion
The discussion section is where the researcher evaluates and interprets the results of the study. Here the author attempts to
answer the research questions and explain how data support (or do not support) the hypotheses. The researcher criticizes the study in
light of previous research, identifying strengths and weaknesses, explaining the practical and theoretical implications of the findings
(i.e., how the study contributes to knowledge or society), and suggesting avenues for future research.
Appendix
Some articles include an appendix in order to present complete examples of measurement instruments (e.g., questionnaires) or
statistical data that was only summarized briefly within the text of the article.
References
The reference section is a complete list of the sources that the researcher cited throughout the article. Typically these sources are
published works (e.g., articles, books) that the author relied upon to conceptualize concepts and design the study. Within the article
itself, the majority of references are typically cited in the literature review section, but they may appear elsewhere in the article as
well.
For most communication research journals, the format for citing references, both within the text of the article and in the
reference list, follows the guidelines of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Fourth Edition), and
is thus affectionately known as “APA style.”
The above descriptions are paraphrased from the 2001 Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Fifth Edition),
Washington, DC.
Comm 1 PAPER ASSIGNMENT # 2 – Effectiveness of Persuasion Tactics in Advertising
IMPORTANT: See next page for key info about format requirements, policies, grading criteria, and getting help!
You will be analyzing the persuasion tactics used in an advertisement. Your TA will provide you with two
advertisements (TV and/or print), and you will choose ONE ad to analyze for your paper. You must write your paper
on one of the specific ads that your TA assigns to you.
OVERVIEW
Your goal is to build a sophisticated argument about the potential effectiveness of the ad for the audience(s) targeted,
given the concepts we have covered in this class as well as outside empirical research. In your paper, you must:
1) Identify and analyze THREE important persuasive features in the ad that you think would help determine the
degree to which the ad is effective for the particular target audience(s) (which means, of course, that you will
also need to identify who you think is/are the target audience(s) and why).
2) Use outside research: In addition to supporting your arguments with clearly defined course concepts and concrete
examples from the ad, you must find and discuss the findings of at least TWO published empirical studies to
support your arguments about the effectiveness (or not) of some of the particular features in this ad.
SPECIFICS
For the introduction and target audience: Identify which ad you are analyzing, and be sure to provide a thesis
statement(s) about what you plan to discuss and what is the larger point(s) of your paper (keep the intro brief!). A
separate paragraph is also usually necessary to make a case for the target audience(s).
For each separate persuasive feature: Define your term(s) (including citing sources in APA style) and provide
evidence that it is indeed being used in the ad. Discuss how that feature would help or hurt (or both) the effectiveness
of the ad for a given audience. All three features must be concepts/terms discussed in lecture or course readings.
The persuasion-related features, such as source qualities (e.g., credibility, similarity) or message strategies (e.g., fear
appeal, use of a particular kind of evidence) usually work best. However, you may also choose features that come
from other course topics, such as perception (e.g., attention-getting features like salience; or factors that influence
impression formation) or something you find applicable from interpersonal, small group, organizational, or mass
comm (but NOT language or nonverbal topics that could have been discussed in Paper #1).
For the empirical studies: Each study must examine in some way the specific feature(s) of the ad that you’ve chosen
to analyze (e.g., a particular source or message characteristic). Your two studies may both address the same feature,
or they may each address a different feature. The studies must be complete studies reported in academic journals
(not findings summarized in a textbook; not news reports of studies, etc.).
For each study, describe what the study was about, what the study did (e.g., its basic procedure as an experiment or
survey, etc.) and what its main findings were. The exercise that you do for section (Summarizing Published Studies) is
practice for this part of the paper, so use it to help you figure out what to summarize. After describing the study,
apply the study’s findings to the ad you analyzed (e.g., do the findings suggest that the particular use of the feature in
the ad would be effective or ineffective? Why/how?). Be sure also to attach to the back of your paper a print-out
of the “abstract” page of each research article that you used (this is usually the first page and includes the title,
authors, and abstract).
TIPS FOR SUCCESS:
1) Choose your features & studies wisely. You have a lot of choices, so choose the features for which you can make the
most interesting/insightful analysis that advances your thesis. For your studies, you need to be able to summarize your studies
clearly and succinctly, so make you find ones that make sense to you. Your application of the studies and where in your paper you
discuss each of them will depend on the findings and how closely you can relate those findings to your arguments about the ad’s
features and its effectiveness! For example, suppose you find a study whose results show that humor is persuasive under certain
conditions. You can use that study to argue for or against (or maybe even both) your ad’s effective use of humor, depending on
how closely your ad’s humor aligns with the type of humor or conditions used in the study, etc.
2) Aim for a fairly complex conclusion: The persuasiveness of an ad is not just whether or not an audience might be
influenced, but how and for whom. Are certain segments of an audience likely to be more influenced than others? Does one
feature of the ad increase persuasion while another feature might hinder it? Ultimately, you’ll need to draw some conclusions as
to what kinds of influence (or not) you think the ad might have, and these conclusions should be based on the
support/arguments/evidence you have provided/built throughout the paper for the various features.
PAPER ASSIGNMENT #2 CONTINUED…
Requirements and Policies
TURNING IN PAPERS: You are required to submit on GauchoSpace, by the due date and time, an electronic version of your
paper (saved as a WORD .doc or .docx file). See the GS “Assignment Dropbox” tab for instructions. Unless your TA tells you
otherwise, you are ALSO required to turn in at lecture a hard copy version of your paper on the designated due date (see syllabus
and course schedule). Emailed versions of papers are NOT acceptable. Late papers are penalized 5 points off per calendar day
(slightly fewer if late but still same day as due date). Always keep a file/copy of your paper for your records, and remember
that it is your responsibility to see that your TA receives your paper.
FORMAT: Your paper should be 5-6 pages in length, not counting title and references pages (please number your pages and do
not exceed 6), and must be typed, using Times 12pt, double-spaced, with one-inch margins. Note that many word processing
programs use different default formatting, so be sure to change your settings! Your paper should also have proper spelling,
grammar, and punctuation. Your title page should include a title (of course), your perm #, TA’s name/section, etc. (see GS for
formatting and file naming instructions for the electronic version). Do not include your name at all on the electronic version (just
perm #), but do include your name on the title page for the hard copy version (makes it easier for TAs to record and hand back
those papers). Do not use a running head nor put your name anywhere else in your paper–the TAs do blind grading (which means
they turn over the title page for all papers before grading, so that they cannot tell whose paper is whose while grading them).
APA STYLE: All source material (e.g., lecture, textbook, academic journal articles, online sources, etc.) must be appropriately
cited using APA style (whether directly quoting or paraphrasing). Be sure to use APA (not MLA!) style, both in the text of your
paper, as well as in the References list at the end of your paper. See “Using APA Style” on GauchoSpace for examples.
ACADEMIC HONESTY: Plagiarism will result minimally in a zero grade, so be sure to properly cite your sources. In
addition, do NOT “borrow” from another student’s paper, new or old. Even if you change some specific words, YOU ARE
PLAGIARIZING and will receive a zero. I strongly suggest you DO NOT EVEN READ someone else’s paper, as it is
difficult to write your own ideas in an original way once you have seen how someone else has written theirs. You must also be
sure to write your paper on one of the exact advertisements that your TA assigns to you. If you write about the wrong ad, we
can only assume that you have plagiarized from another paper, and you will mostly likely get a zero.
Grading Criteria
Grading is based on how well your paper shows the following: Depth of analysis in using course concepts, effectiveness at
articulating and supporting arguments and thesis, accurate and thorough understanding of course material, clarity and authority in
writing style and organization, and excellent execution of the assignment. We evaluate these qualities by comparing your paper to
others, not to some “ideal” objective we have in mind for the paper. This is because each TA may have a different ideal in mind,
so it is the actual set of papers submitted that tells us what level of excellence is achievable. After years of experience with Comm
1 papers, I can tell you that we usually see a very high level of achievement indeed, so it is a mistake to think that if you just “do
what the assignment asks” you will get a good grade. Doing the assignment is the minimum, and usually results in an “average”
grade (i.e., in the “C+” range). To lift your grade above average, you will need to show sophistication in your thinking and apply
and integrate course concepts with clarity, depth, and insight–this is what the high achieving papers tend to do.
Getting Help on Your Paper(s)
A good paper begins with good thinking, then a good outline, and THEN good writing. An even better paper goes through
several revisions before being turned in. Be sure you give yourself time on your own to think, outline, write, and then revise your
paper. To encourage you to do this, you get points in section for having outlines ready, and (for Paper #2) for completing an
exercise on finding and summarizing empirical studies.
Your TA will devote time in section to helping you understand and do well on the assignment, so it is important to attend section
to get this vital information. You are also encouraged to see your TA or Prof Mullin at office hours. When you come in, it is a
good idea to bring your outline or some notes you’ve made about which potential issues you are considering using. You may
also get writing help from Campus Learning Assistance Services (CLAS), although please note that CLAS tutors, while helpful
with general writing skills, usually do not know the specific course material nor our level of our expectations for these papers.
RE rough drafts: You may bring a rough draft to your TA’s or Prof Mullin’s office hours, and you may ask questions about
any part of your draft or outline. But you must choose only a few sentences of your actual draft to have us go over with you in
detail for writing style and/or content issues. We will not read the entire draft and give you comments. This is because a) any
general comments we make would be misleading to you (i.e., you’d think you’re “on the right track” or just need just a few
changes, but then might still end up with a lower grade than expected), and b) making more detailed comments throughout the
paper would be editing your paper for you, which is not fair to other students, and is YOUR job anyway. So, ASK about ANY
part of your outline or draft, but choose a small portion for detailed writing help. Then you can take what you have learned from
how we tore apart the one paragraph and edit/fix the rest of your paper on your own. 