Course:PSYC208TM/Writing a Team Research Paper

Below is a suggested outline for writing a team research paper. Depending on the size of your assignment or paper, you may be meeting much more frequently (adapted from Young, 1993):

First Meeting

Review the objectives and criteria for the assignment.
Identify the main aspects of the topic you wish to address in your project.
Discuss strategies for approaching each aspect of the topics you identified.
Determine the different tasks and deadlines required.
All members of the team choose an aspect of the issue to address (sometimes more than one member will focus on a issue or topic).
Establish how you will communicate with one another (i.e. discussion board topic)

Between the first meeting and the second meeting

Team members share scholarly resources that may help one another in completing the assignment.
Write the segment of the assignment that you are responsible for (first draft).
Share your first drafts with one another using your group’s discussion topic in WebCT Vista.
Peer review/edit one another’s drafts offering constructive criticism and ideas for improvement.
You can use the following methods for peer review/editing:

Use Microsoft Word’s track changes and commenting tool, which will color-code each member’s team member’s edit or comment. Once you have edited the draft make sure to share it back to the original author and the rest of the team by attaching it to a discussion post. You may also choose to use one of the online tools discussed at the end of this manual instead for peer edit/review.

Second Meeting:

Discuss the peer-edits that took place prior to the meeting and establish the next steps for refining the assignment.
Check to make sure that everyone is on track and contributing their share towards the assignment. If there are any concerns about a team member’s involvement notify your instructor or teaching assistants now.
Discuss strategies for transitions between sections of the assignment and determine who will write the introduction and conclusion. Also, determine who will go over the final paper to make sure the voice and format is consistent and who will aggregate all the references used in the final paper and make sure they are all formatted in APA (American Psychological Association).
Establish the time of the next meeting if you haven’t already done so.

Between Second and Third Meeting

Circulate your revised drafts including the introduction and conclusion.
Peer review/edit each other’s drafts.
If a team member is not able to submit their draft by the deadline, determine whether the deadline can be postponed by a few days for the individual or if their share of the work will need to be redistributed amongst the team members. If it is the latter case, notify your instructor and teaching assistants of the issue.
Send in all your references to the team member who will be aggregating all of them. You can share your own reference lists through your discussion board topic in Vista. Make sure they are in APA formatting. The references page should go at the end of the final paper.
One member will combine all sections of the paper together to ensure consistency of voice and format. This complete version will be posted to the discussion board topic so that all team members can review it and provide comments.

Third Meeting:

Discuss any final edits to be made to the final paper collectively. Make sure to look for areas for elaboration, overlap, and inconsistency.
Once everyone in the team is happy with the product, submit it to your instructor.

After Submitting your Team Assignment

Complete the peer evaluation for each team member. This will help the instructor know which team members have contributed towards the assignment and which have not been involved.