1. Exams: There will be three examinations 2/19, 4/8, and final exam(TBA) comprised of multiple choice and true/false questions. A study guide is available on the class website by clicking on study session. Prior to each exam a study session will be held to review the material. Five multiple choice/true and false questions are your ticket for admission to the study sessions – you must bring these questions to “share” with other students or you will not be admitted. The third exam will be given during finals period and will be partly cumulative – most questions from the third section with a few carried over from the first two. The exams are worth 70 points each.

2. Short assignments: There are ten short assignments. Each is worth up to 5 points. You can earn up to 30 total points on these assignments. If you’ve done the math you realize that you need to complete only 6 assignments if you get perfect scores on each. I will count the 6 highest scores you get. Descriptions of these assignments and due dates are below as well as on the course schedule. The first assignment, leading a class discussion, is required of every student. The other options are short papers that are 1-2 pages each. Papers that adequately meet the assignment will be awarded 3 points. To receive 5 points, additional effort must be expended. For example, you might add some interpretation, show how the information can be applied, do some additional reading (and use the citation in paper) or link it to some other nonverbal concept. Be creative! Start this additional effort in a new paragraph and use a heading like “Interpretation” or “Links”. You must work alone on these assignments. Late short assignments will not be accepted.

3. Term Paper: Each student will write an original 5-10 page term paper based on your own empirical research about nonverbal communication. You can write about any aspect or application of nonverbal communication that interests you, and design a study to learn more about it. Examples of research studies are available in your text and will be provided throughout the semester. You may work with one other person and papers are due on April 24th in class. The paper is worth 70 points. Late papers are penalized 3 points plus an additional 1 point for each day late.

Step 1. Come up with a topic.
Start by picking an aspect on nonverbal communication which interests you. Skim through the text, other books, newspapers, magazines, etc. for ideas. Think about your interests – what role does nonverbal communication play in them? Consider your personal and professional relationships, your future occupation, politics, etc. Think about how nonverbal communication is involved in these.

For example, if you like to dance, how do you coordinate with your partner? If you play a competitive sport, how do you anticipate your opponent’s next move? If you want to be a sales person, how do you know how your customer is reacting to your pitch? If you want to be a teacher, how do you know your students are learning? If you want to be a manager, how do you assess the office mood?

Pick something you are involved in, and see how nonverbal communication relates to it. Let’s take the sales example. When you think about effective sales, you may decide that eye contact is important. If you’ve been a waiter or waitress, you know how this influences your tips. So you might decide to find out how to use eye contact to influence people. Or you may be interested in friendship. The new school year is started and you are curious who might be a future friend. What are the signs that people like you? In this case, you might want to study nonverbal intimacy cues – how people express liking and/or attraction.

After deciding on your general topic, you may want to go to the library and do some preliminary research on it. This research can shape your thinking and narrow or focus the topic. If you chose the sales topic, you would look up “eye contact” and see what research has been done. You might want to link “eye contact” with topics like “persuasion”, “influence”, and “power”. This will give you ideas about not only what to study but also how to conduct your study.

Your topic choice is due on January 31. Please email your choice to me (mhecht@psu.edu), including your name (and that of your research partner if you are working with someone) and your topic. Also provide a very short explanation of your paper (1-2 sentences). Late topic choices will be penalized 3 points. However, you can change your topic at any time by handing in another choice and 2-3 keywords that describe the key things you are studying ( e.g., space, emotion, friendship, power) and have me approve it. The goal here is to “encourage” you to start thinking about your topic and allow me to provide you with some preliminary feedback.

On February 7th, you have a term paper preparation assignment. You will meet with one other person and email me a short description of their project. Failure to complete this assignment will result in a 3 point penalty on your term paper. You can meet in class or out of class to complete this assignment.

Step 2. Define your study
Now you are ready to define your study. Phrase your main idea as a research question or hypothesis. The difference is that a question is very open (e.g., how does eye contact influence people?) while a hypothesis makes a prediction (e.g., the more eye contact one has, the greater the amount of influence). Here is where library research really helps. Check the psychological, sociological and other abstracting services, and run an online literature search. Most topics have been studied in the past. By reading some of these studies, you will have a better understanding of your topic and be better prepared to study it.

When you conduct library research, focus on “empirical research articles” – those that have some sort of data (for example, surveys, experiments, observations) and which are published in academic or scholarly journals (sorry, not Cosmo or websites). They are not just think pieces or theories and are not from pop books or texts. The academic or scholarly journals will be your best sources. You must cite the original source(i.e., do not use "cited in"). Three articles per person is an average number of sources. Try to identify 2 or 3 main conclusions from what you have read and observed in your life. Then try to think about what you need to know to be more effective – what will make you a better communicator? This will provide even more focus and you may need to revise your question or hypothesis. If you decide to change your topic, let me know.

Step 3. Conduct your study
Next, you will conduct an original empirical study. This means collecting your own data. This is not only a library research project. Find or arrange a situation in which you can study your topic. Feel free to ask for help in designing the study. I will be pleased to assist you. Ask for feedback from students and teachers alike. Previous research articles are a good source of ideas for methods. While the study must be original, you can use parts of other studies (with proper references). We will discuss how to conduct nonverbal research on January 29, and the text includes examples. Methods can include:

• Observations
• Surveys
• Experiments
• Interviews

If you were interested in the eye contact study I have been using as an example, you might watch people in the mall. You would observe sales people and customers, note the nonverbal behaviors and see which lead to sales. Of course, you may not know if the customer returned to purchase the item later. Alternatively, you might get on the internet and observe shopping behavior that way (see, for example, www.camcentral.com). In either case, you would either use a coding system or write down all the cues you see. When you have observed a number of sales people and a number of clients, you will analyze your findings for consistencies and patterns. An experiment would also work – one where you use a lot of eye contact with some people, and less with others, and see if you can convince them of something.

For the purposes of this assignment, you do not need special approval for your methods. If, however, you want to eventually publish your research, University rules forbid you from using surveys, questionnaires or interviews without explicit written consent from the Institutional Review Board. This permission is difficult to get and takes a long time. If you want to publish the results based on these methods, see me very early in the process.

Step 4. Write a 5-10 page paper reporting your results.

Write your own, original term paper. Be sure to proofread your paper to correct for spelling, punctuation and grammar. The simplest way to writes is: subject-verb-object (e.g., She hit the ball). Outlining will help your organization. Papers must be word processed or typed. You may not hand in a paper that you or anyone else has used for this or any other course, nor are you to use substantial portions of a published study nor any portion of someone else’s work without attribution. You are responsible for knowing what plagiarism is and avoiding it. If you have any questions, visit the College of the Liberal Arts website at http://laus.la.psu.edu/integrity/ or see the instructor. The paper should contain the following sections:

Background. Start by stating your research topic and showing why it is important. Give an overview of the paper, explaining how it is organized. Next, make an argument for your study. Describe the 2-3 main points you came up with in step 2. In your paper, bold these conclusions so that they are clear to me. Usually, they will appear in the first sentence of a paragraph. Explain why you think that your study is important. What does it add? How does it help us to better understand nonverbal communication? How does it make us better communicators? Here is where library research can help you make your argument. Use previous research to support you main points. Remember to cite at least three empirical research articles per author.

Methods. Describe your methods. Tell us not only what you did but why you did it. For example, if you did the mall study described above, describe your selection of the mall, store, sales people and clients, and justify these selections. Then tell us how you conducted your observations – where were you, when you were there (time and date), how did you record your observations, etc. Read the methods sections of other studies. You should be just as specific as they are. Who are the participants, how many participants, where was the research done, what time of day, what procedures were involved – this is all vital information. You should give us enough information that we are able to repeat your study. If appropriate, include a copy of your observation forms, survey, interviews, etc. in the appendix. You must keep your “raw data” (e.g., field notes). Do not throw them away at least until you receive your final grade. Be prepared to show these as proof that you actually collected the data. Some papers will be randomly chosen and the author(s) asked for their research. If you work with another person, you will be expected to have a more extensive research design (more participants, more observations). However, you will not be expected to do as extensive a study as those you have read in the text or journals.

Results. What did you find? Report your results – just the facts. Don’t editorialize in this section about your results, merely state them. This section probably will include numbers – frequencies, percentages, averages. Again, read the Results section of other studies although I will not expect advanced statistical analyses. Tables, charts, figures, and graphs may be useful.

Discussion. In this section you explain what you found. What do your findings tell us about the research you read? Did you find something new? Did you find something that does not match previous findings? What does this tell us as communicators that we can use in our everyday lives? Here, again, library research can help you explain your findings.

Turn in an original and a file copy, and keep one copy. Drafts of the entire paper or its parts may be turned in at any time for feedback until 4/10. Yes, I will read your drafts and tell you what you need to do to get a better grade. If you have any questions about any stage of the project I will be glad to help you. It is more productive to ask questions before you have problems than to try to correct them later on.

Key Facts
Length: 5-10 pages (typed, double spaced, plus references and tables)
Style: Empirical journal article
Due Date: 4/24

Curve for paper: