Scientific Research
Psyc B1A – Dr. Niestas
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Paraphrasing Assignment
What is a Summary?
The goal of a summary is to compose a
concise
and
objective
overview of the original writing.
Any
summary
you write
should focus on the author’s main ideas and important details that support those ideas.
What is an Abstract?
Published journal articles include an abstract at the beginning of their article.
In the abstract, t
h
e author(s)
share a brief introduction to
their paper.
Abstracts
commonly
include an introduction of their topic to the reader, the purpose of their study, their research methods and results, and
a conclusion
.
Any academic/scholastic research article you find should have an abstract at the beginning
.
Assignment
1.
Read t
he follow
ing
abstract from a full experimental research
study
. The author
summarized their paper in these four paragraph
s
.
2.
Your assignment is to summarize this abstract in
one paragraph.
Remember that a summary should include
the author’s main ideas and important details that support those ideas.
3.
Your summary should be concise, objective
and
in your own words.
4.
The main objective of this assignment is to
paraphrase this abstract
in one paragraph without plagiarizing.
This study expanded on past research that examined which factors influence European Americans’ prejudicial attitudes against Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Speech style has been investigated – the effect of Spanish-accented English and degree of accent on initial impressions. Another factor, however, that has not been examined is nationality – whether having been born in the U.S. or Mexico, has an influence on attitudes.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the distinct and joint impact of accent level and country on attitudes. This was done with a stimulus person by manipulating nationality (using written descriptions) and degree of accent (with audiotapes). Speakers were described as either being born in the U.S. or in Mexico, and they spoke either in standard English or with a mild or strong Spanish accent. Participants rated the speakers on various traits.
Participants were 102 college students. It was hypothesized that a combination of accent and country would
have an effect on
attitudes, with U.S. and standard being more favorable, but Mexico and a strong accent being the least favorable. Findings showed that European Americans did make a distinction between standard English and Spanish-accented English, regardless of nationality, evaluating the non-
accented speakers more positively. Also as expected, Mexicans with a strong accent were judged more negatively than those with a mild accent. Surprisingly, however, Mexican Americans were rated more positively when they had a strong accent as opposed to a mild one.
This study provides additional support that Spanish-accented English is viewed more negatively than standard English. However, there was less certainty about the influence of varying degrees of accent. The impact of nationality is not clear and showed mixed results.