SPPA 6150 5/5/2023

SPPA 6150 Project

You have two choices for your SPPA 6150 project: (1) carry out a modest-sized study, or (2) write a conventional literature review. Both options involve writing a paper, although the nature of that paper will differ depending on which direction you choose. You will also give a presentation on your project at the end of the term. The two types of projects are discussed in detail below. Even if you have already decided which of these options you plan to pursue, you will need to read all of the material below since some of this information applies to both.

Study

The study option involves designing, conducting, and describing the results of a modest-scale experiment. The study need not be very extensive and, depending on the exact nature of the project, may involve a fairly small group of subjects. You are encouraged to apply any knowledge that you may have of descriptive or inferential statistics, but formal statistics may not be needed for some projects. (Major exceptions: studies for which t-tests or correlations are appropriate.1) The main purpose of the project is to identify an interesting question (although not necessarily an original idea), to lay out a good way to test the question, and to provide a clear description of the study. The results of your research will be reported in the form of a written report (~12 pages, double-spaced, not including figures, tables, references, etc.), and in the form of a 13-minute oral presentation.

To give you a general idea of the sort of project that I have in mind, brief descriptions of few sample studies are provided below, in no special order.

Example 1: Relationships between Voice Pitch and the Physical Characteristics of Speakers

Is there any relationship between the average fundamental frequency of a speaker and physical characteristics such as height, weight, head circumference, neck circumference, etc. The Visi-Pitch could be used to measure fundamental frequency.

Example 2: Speaker Identification Based on Audio Recordings

To what extent can listeners identify known speakers based on listening to audio recordings? Variables that could be studied might include the length of the recording, the type of speech sample (e.g., sustained vowels vs. reading of a standard passage, vs. conversational speech), the length of time that elapses between two sets of recordings that are to be matched, and the effects of vocal disguise. You might also consider an experiment involving speaker identification based on an examination of spectrograms (I could give you a hand setting this up if you need help. This is not at all difficult to set up or run.).

1 Instructions for calculating the Pearson r can be found on my SPPA 6190 web page. For a t-test, search the web for something like ‘online calculator correlated t test’(or paired or repeated measures t-test) or ‘online calculator independent groups t-test’(or independent samples t-test). For a reminder on what this means, look for Repeated measures vs. independent groups … on my 6190 web page.

A related project would involve determining whether listeners can identify the gender of pre-adolescent boys and girls (e.g., about 11-12 years or younger) from voice recordings. Research indicates that the acoustic characteristics of boys' and girls' voices are very similar, so one might think that identification of gender would be difficult or impossible. However, some studies indicate that listeners perform above chance on gender identification tasks involving the pre-adolescent boys and girls. Other studies have shown negative results. This would be a fairly simple study to run. Some thought would have to go into the choice of speech samples (e.g., care would have to be taken to ensure that gender clues were not available in the content of the test utterances).

Example 3: Reliability Studies

As we will soon see, a very important indicator of the precision of a test is its consistency or repeatability. A lot can be learned by conducting fairly simple studies to determine, for example: (1) the extent to which two listeners agree on the severity of a voice disorder, (2) the extent to which an individual listener is internally consistent in his/her judgment of the severity of a voice disorder (see below), and (3) the repeatability of standardized tests of speech reading or some other commonly assessed ability, (4) the extent to which apparently simple measures such as speech intelligibility can be made in a way that is repeatable within and/or across observers.

Special Note: For anyone interested in voice quality, I have a nice database of recordings of disordered voices that can be used for a wide variety of experiments on the perception of vocal quality. There are hundreds of voices in the database showing a wide range of severities, etiologies, and voice qualities. Dr. Tasko also has a very interesting database of voices exhibiting functional voice disorders that were recorded both before and after treatment. I also have software that makes these kinds of experiments fairly easy to run. There are quite a few useful, interesting, and simple experiments that can be done in this area. For some ideas and literature, see Kreiman et al., Perceptual evaluation of voice quality: Review, tutorial, and a framework for future research. J Speech Lang Hear Res., 1993, 36(1):21-40.

Example 4: Replication of Studies in the Literature

Replicating existing published studies is just fine. One nice example from a few semesters back was a replication of the original experiment that produced the sone scale of loudness estimation. This was a nice idea since the experiment could be run with an ordinary audiometer, and meaningful results could be obtained from a fairly small number of subjects. Many other examples can be found by scanning the journals. You are looking for experiments that do not require elaborate equipment or methodologies.

Example 5: Measurement of Speech Intelligibility

There are many interesting and fairly simple studies that can be carried out that involve the measurement of speech intelligibility in dysarthric speakers or other speaker groups that tend to show intelligibility deficits. For example, how well do subjective estimates of speech intelligibility (e.g., 50% intelligible vs. 80% intelligible, etc.) correlate with intelligibility estimates that are measured objectively using standardized sentences or word lists?

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Example 6: Tongue twisters

Do tongue twisters really create problems for a speaker by twisting the tongue? Probably not, or at least not entirely. There is evidence that utterances like “wrist watch” and “toy boat” that are difficult to say aloud also slow a “speaker” down when they are uttered subvocally (i.e., inside the head). Since the articulators are not moving during subvocal speech, it cannot be that motor execution is the only problem. It must be that tongue twisters create problems at the motor planning stage. The finding also indicates that subvocal speech must involve a motor-planning component rather than just the generation of an auditory image. This would be a very simple experiment to run, requiring only a volunteer and a watch with a second hand. (See Smith & Hillenbrand, “Durational characteristics of vocal and subvocal speech: Implications concerning phonological organization and articulatory difficulty,” Journal of Phonetics, 1986, 14, 265-281.)

Example 7: Effects of experience on auditory abilities

Are musicians better at discriminating pitch differences than non-musicians? Are SLPs better at identifying or discriminating speech sounds than untrained listeners? Are experienced SLPs better at making these kinds of judgments than graduate students in their last semester of study? There are several simple-to-run experiments that could be set up to test questions such as these. I would be happy to help you get a project like this off the ground. (For just one example, see Hillenbrand et al. “Perception of intraphonemic differences by phoneticians, musicians, and inexperienced listeners,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1990, 88, 655-662.)

Example 8: Bite-block speech

I have not had time to write a description. I’ll explain it in class. It’s a pretty simple idea, it would be easy to carry out, and it’s a really interesting area of research.

Example 9: Effects on intonation contour on speech intelligibility

[fill this in]

Example 10: The role of stress in parsing

[fill this in: light housekeeper vs. lighthouse keeper, black board-eraser vs. blackboard eraser – measurement of f0, intensity, and duration]

Example 11: Berko-Gleason wugs replication

[fill this in]

Example 12: Effects of speaking rate on judgments of naturalness in dysarthric speech

[fill this in – see dysrate]

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Example 13: Auditory Stroop effect (stereo/male-female)

[I’ll explain this in class. See Alvin sample experiments; search google scholar for Auditory Stroop effect – see especially Jerger, S., Martin, R.C., and Pirozzol, F.J. (1988). A developmental study of the auditory Stroop effect. Brain and Language, 35, 86–104.

Example 14: Mental rotation

Example 15: Effects of intonation on sentence intelligibility in quiet and noise

Example 16: Effects of listening experience on three-choice phonetic identification

Other Details about the Project

A. IDEAS

You are encouraged to come up with an idea of your own, but there is nothing wrong with carrying out one of the sample projects described above. Modest-size replications of studies already in the literature are appropriate. There are many studies in the literature that would be fairly simple to replicate on a small scale. For example, audiology students might be interested in replicating any one of several classic psychophysical studies; e.g., the mel scale, the phon scale, the effects of duration on loudness, etc. See me if you would like suggestions.

You will need to choose a project that can be completed in the relatively limited time that is available to you. Projects that require fancy instrumentation are not good choices, unless you are quite familiar with the instruments or can get help from someone who is. If you will require special assistance from someone, arrange for it immediately. Think carefully about where you will get subjects, and make arrangements right away.

B. HOW MANY SUBJECTS DO I NEED?

Nobody really knows exactly how to answer this question. However, when real studies are conducted in real laboratories, the researcher tries to think through how many subjects are needed to answer the questions that are being posed in the study. This is pretty obvious, but in the case of this seminar, we do not have the luxury of approaching the problem in this way. We will have to think in terms of the number of subjects that can reasonably be run in the relatively short time that you have to conduct your projects. These practical considerations are likely to vary quite a bit depending on the nature of your experimental tasks. For example, some of you may end up running studies involving tasks that can be completed in 15 or 20 minutes, and in those cases, it might be quite feasible to run 20 subjects or more. For studies with longer tasks or methods that require long and involved data analysis it may be feasible to collect data from much smaller groups. Try to think through this on your own, then see me for advice.

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C. WHO CAN BE USED AS SUBJECTS

The safest bet is to find a project that can be carried out using other students as subjects. Any project involving children needs to be very simple. The tasks that the children are going to be asked to perform need to be either routine clinical procedures (articulation tests, language samples, diadokokinetic rate, receptive vocabulary tests, etc.) or some other similarly simple, non-stressful, and safe procedure. If you are interested in studying a clinical population, see me. Some clinical populations would work out fine (e.g., children with articulation disorders or relatively mild language disorders), but others involving cognitive impairments (e.g., autistic children) are not a good choice.

D. LITERATURE SEARCHES

There are all sorts of methods available for finding literature on a topic. Do not limit yourself to just one method. In particular, topic searches using search facilities such as Medline are worth doing, but in my experience they often miss quite a bit. The secret is to find the one or two key papers that will have references to many other related papers which, in turn, will lead you to still more literature, and so on. Sometimes Medline will find these key papers and sometimes not. Don’t overlook textbooks, and do not be hesitant about asking faculty members who have expertise in your topic. Google Scholar, of course, is an excellent search tool (http://scholar.google.com/), although there are many others.

E. LITERATURE REVIEW PAPERS

In place of conducting a research project, you may choose to write a literature review. The key is to find a topic that will allow you to apply some of the research methods concepts that we will be discussing in this course. There should be some central question that you are trying to address, and it needs to be the kind of question that researchers have tried to answer with experimental evidence. Some examples might give you an idea of the kinds of topics that would be appropriate:

1. Do cochlear implants result in significant improvements in: (a) speech production, (b) speech perception, or (c) language development? This has become a very extensive literature. You’ll have to pick and choose, focusing on what seems to be the most reliable evidence.

2. Does chronic otitis media result in speech and/or language delays? You would think that this question would have been settled long ago, and most SLPs believe that it has been. It hasn’t. This is a great topic.

3. Are perceptual judgments of voice quality reliable and/or valid? A lot has been written on this topic. Although it is getting a little long in the tooth, there is a very good review paper that provides a good framework for understanding the key questions in this area (Kreiman et al., Perceptual evaluation of voice quality: Review, tutorial, and a framework for future research. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 1993, 36, 21-40).

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4. What are the mechanisms by which the sound pattern of a native language interferes with the acquisition of a new language?

5. Is swallowing therapy effective? This has become a pretty extensive literature by now, and it is almost certain that the topic will have to be narrowed down in some way. It is a manageable topic, though.

6. Are non-speech oral-motor exercises effective in treating articulation disorders? There is an excellent review paper that will give you an excellent start on this topic (Forrest, K. Are Oral-Motor Exercises Useful in the Treatment of Phonological/Articulatory Disorders? Seminars in Speech and Language, 2002, 23, 15-26.) This paper is getting a little old, but it is well written and a good place to start.

7. What is the evidence for and against a genetic basis for stuttering (or language disorders or speech-sound disorders or … – you name it)?

8. Why do some children spontaneously recover from fluency problems while others go on to become chronic stutterers?

9. Does speech or non-speech auditory perception play some role in the etiology of articulation (or language) disorders?

10. What are the effects of aphasia on multilingual speakers? For example, are the two (three, etc.) languages affected equally, does it matter which language was learned first, the degree of pre-morbid fluency in each language, etc.?

11. Is aphasia therapy effective? This is a huge topic with an extensive literature, and you would have to find some way to narrow it down. It is not an easy topic, but it can be done, and it’s a rich, interesting topic.

12. What is the relationship between performance on nonword repetition tasks and developmental language disorders? In a nonword repetition task, as the name suggests, subjects are asked to repeat a made-up word, such as “urzuhla.” If there is a relationship between performance on nonword repetition tasks and developmental language disorders. It turns out that there is a very strong relationship. Why is nonword repetition such a strong predictor of SLI?

13. What role does “theory of mind” play in autism. From Wiki: “Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own.” The central idea is way simpler than that it may seem from that egghead description. Here’s a concrete example of a theory of mind experiment. We have three people: Sally, Ann, and Milo. Milo is the subject in the experiment. Ann watches as Sally puts a doll in a box. While Ann leaves the room for a moment, Sally, being a jerk, moves the doll from the box to a basket. After Ann returns, the simple question for Milo (our subject) is this: Where will Ann look for the doll? The answer, of course, is that Ann will look in the box, the last place she saw it. Autistic children tend to perform poorly on this kind of task, and there are some

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investigators who have argued that a poorly developed theory of mind (the ability to reason based on an internal model of other people’s thoughts) is the central deficit in autism. There is a beautifully written, down-to-earth article in Scientific American that does a terrific job of explaining the idea and reviewing some of the experimental evidence (Frith, U., “Autism,” Scientific American, 1993, 268, 108-114). This is a wonderfully interesting topic.

14. What role does hearing play in the regulation of the speech of postlingually deaf speakers? Much of the literature in this area comes from a series of studies that were done with postlingually deaf cochlear implant users. The method was about a simple as it gets: analyze the speech of the CI users with the device on, then turn the implant off and do it again. Will the speech differ? If, in what way? It turns out that some aspects of speech are largely unaffected while other characteristics are almost immediately affected. For the most part, the studies are not technically complicated or hard to understand. It’s a good topic. For a start on this literature, see papers by various combinations of H. Lane, J. Perkell, M Svirsky, and M. Matthies.

*** There is nothing at all wrong with picking one of the topics listed above. ***

Topics to Avoid

1. You want to avoid topics that are purely descriptive in nature. For example, a paper describing the speech and language characteristics of TBI patients, while perfectly appropriate for a course on neurologically based speech disorders, would not be appropriate for this seminar since it would consist primarily of a straightforward recitation of facts and incidence figures. You are looking for something that will allow you to exercise some of the knowledge you will be gaining in research methods.

2. Avoid topics for which there is little or no reliable experimental evidence. This does not mean that all of the studies you report on need to be flawless. They will not be. However, your paper should rely on reasonably reliable experimental evidence and not the authoritative opinions of experts. The goal is to prepare a research report and not to write an essay expressing your opinion on a topic or to summarize the opinions of others. In general, you should avoid topics for which a large share of the evidence comes from case studies or studies with very small sample sizes. (One exception: The literature on the effectiveness of non-speech oral-motor exercises is filled with very small-scale studies, but this literature is very important, so an exception is justified.)

3. I would prefer it if your paper focused on basic science or clinical research issues rather than professional issues. For example, a paper discussing survey research that measures the attitudes of health care professionals toward speech language pathologists, while perfectly legitimate for other purposes, is not what I have in mind for the seminar.

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F. PAPER FORMAT

1. Study option

There is a more-or-less standard format for conventional journal articles that describe research in which data are collected, analyzed, and interpreted. The main sections are listed below.

a. Introduction: In this section you: (a) introduce the reader to the research area of your study, followed by a review of the literature on your topic; and (b) state the purpose and rationale underlying your study. Do not just jump from your literature review straight into Methods. You need to tell the reader what you are going to do and why you are going to do it.

b. Methods: It should be pretty obvious what goes here.

c. Results: Ditto

d. Discussion: There are all kinds of things that can be discussed in this section. In this section you are trying to give the reader some idea of what you findings mean and, in many cases, how your results compare with other work on the topic. Feel free to summarize the findings, but you want to do more than just summarize. What do your findings mean?

Open any issue of JSLHR to find numerous examples of journal articles. The format of your paper will be the same, although yours will be shorter.

2. Literature review option

There is no fixed format for literature review papers. What I have in mind here is the standard term paper of the kind you have probably written in the past. For examples of well written review papers, see Forrest [“Are oral-motor exercises useful in treatment of phonological / articulation disorders?” Seminars in Speech and Language, 23, 2002, 15-25], Kent ["Anatomical and neuromuscular maturation of the speech mechanism: Evidence from acoustic studies," Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 19, 1976, 421-447] or Rees [“Auditory processing factors in language disorders: the view from Procrustes' bed”. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 38, 1973, 304-15].

*****************IMPORTANT: Describe the purpose, methods and findings of the studies you review. DO NOT just give the conclusions that were reached by the author(s). The reader needs to understand what specific findings led the authors to their conclusions. Leaving this key information out of the reviews of individual studies has been a major problem in a small number of papers in the last few years. If you take that kind of approach, you will be required to rewrite and resubmit your paper. I do not want that and you definitely do not want that. Note also that this also applies to the literature reviews that are written by students who choose the study option.

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F. DUE DATES

1. A one-page written description of your project or literature review, along with a preliminary reference list, is due in two weeks (May 22). You should also be prepared on that day to present a brief (~five-minute), somewhat informal oral description of your project to the class. You do not need to have everything pinned down, but it should be obvious from your written summary and your discussion of your topic that you’ve spent some time in the library.

2. Your written paper is due on August 8th – regardless of when your oral presentation is scheduled. Something very close to 12 pages (not including title page, abstract, figures, tables, and references) would be the right length for a study and about 18 double-spaced pages (again, not including title page, abstract, figures, tables, and references) for a literature review.

NEW TOUGH-GUY RULES ON PAPER LENGTH: (1) For literature reviews, 17 ½ pages will not trouble me, and ~20-21 pages will not trouble me. Anything shorter or longer will be unacceptable. The same kind of thing holds for written reports of studies – a half-page short or a few pages long will be alright. (2)Remember that things like the title page, abstract, figures, tables, and references do not count. We are talking about the body of your paper. (3) Do not fiddle with margins and line spacing to get your paper to look like it is more substantial than it is. It is very easy to spot and it looks silly.

THERE IS NO FIXED NUMBER OF REFERENCES NEEDED FOR YOUR PAPER. For studies, your paper should include: (1) a clear statement of the question you are trying to answer, (2) a description of the research literature that is related to your problem – ending with a clear statement of the purpose and rationale underlying your study, (3) a description of your methods, (4) a description of results, and (5) a discussion/conclusions section. Take a close look at a recent issue of the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research to see how to organize your paper. Note: A conclusion/summary section is especially important for a literature review. As indicated above, there is no fixed format for literature review papers. You are encouraged to look at some examples of review papers (e.g., the Rees and Kent papers cited above) for some guidance. Please just staple your paper together; do not use any of those plastic gadgets that they sell at the bookstore. Important: the staple needs to actually go through your paper, which many wussy staplers do not. There is a mega-stapler near the administrative assistant’s desk on the 4th floor. (Sorry to make a fuss about this, but papers come apart all the time and my cat likes to play with the loose pages and … It can get ugly.)

3. Presentations will be given in two long sessions, August 11 and 15, 9 am-2 pm . These dates should not conflict with your clinic schedule. If that turns out to be wrong, you will need to let me know immediately. You will be assigned to one of these dates by lottery. I will be distributing the schedule later in the term. You can switch dates with another student if it is mutually agreeable. Let me know of any changes.

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G. ORAL PRESENTATIONS

Oral presentations should not exceed 13 minutes. There will be almost no flexibility on the 13-minute time limit. We have no choice but to stay on schedule, so when your time is up you will have to stop, no matter where you are in your talk. Poor time management has been a common problem. In planning your talk, try to avoid giving a lot of attention to the fine details of your topic. You will not be able to work all or even most of your written paper into your oral presentation. Most of your listeners will be primarily interested in the highlights of your topic. The talks are intended to be somewhat informal. Prepare your talk carefully, but please do not read it . (Note: Reading your paper and reading text directly from your PowerPoint slides or from note cards are not really different.) I will almost certainly interrupt you with questions during your talk. I try pretty hard to take into account the time that is taken up by these questions, but in planning your talk you should assume that you will lose about 2 minutes to responding to my questions.

Powerpoint file:

1. Prepare the graphics for your talk using PowerPoint. (A few students have used display software other than PowerPoint. These usually work fine, but not always, so please use PowerPoint.) I will have a Windows laptop and computer projector. The day before your talk, email your Powerpoint file to me as an attachment. As a backup, put your presentation on a USB drive as well.

2. Name your file according to this scheme: LastnameFirstnameShortTitle.ppt; e.g., ‘HillenbrandJamesGeneticsOfStuttering.ppt’. Note that everything is all run together; i.e., no spaces.

3. Although you won’t be showing this to your audience, your Powerpoint file should end with your complete reference list.

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H. EVALUATION

Grades for the project will be based on the written paper, the oral presentation, and contributions to class discussion. The fact that you have only a few weeks to carry out a fairly small-scale project will be taken into consideration. I am not expecting the sort of project that you would see in JSLHR. The most common problem that I have seen with written reports of studies is an inadequate literature review. For example, I have seen papers on diadokokinetic rate that do not include a review of the many studies that have been done on DDK rate, I have seen projects measuring the reliability of voice-quality judgments that do not review any of the dozens of studies that have examined this question, and I have seen papers on the effects of amplification on student performance that do not review previous published studies that have explored similar questions. It will not be possible to earn a passing grade for your project without demonstrating through your review of the literature that you have done the necessary library work to support your research. Also note that the literature review for a project report belongs mainly in the first section of the paper and not scattered throughout Methods, Results, and Discussion. Finally, the grade you receive for your oral presentation will not be influenced by how nervous you appear to be when you give your talk. You will need to be well prepared for your presentation, but you need not worry about presenting a calm or polished image. Your ability to manage your time does count, however.

I. INCOMPLETES

An incomplete will be given to anyone who requests one, but your grade will be affected by varying amounts depending on how late the paper is. The purpose of this is to be fair to students who turn in their papers on time under the usual end-of-the-term time pressures. Exceptions can be made for medical problems, death (i.e., your own), and other bad things. The late–fee system works like this: 1-7 days: 1 letter grade; 8-14 days: 1½ letter grades; 15-21 days: 2 letter grades; 22-28 days: 3 letter grades; more than 28 days: 4 letter grades.

J. LITERATURE CITATIONS, STYLE, FORMAT, AND PLAGARISM

The basic rules governing proper and improper use of published material are fairly simple and extremely important. There have been some serious problems in the past, so it is crucial that you acquaint yourself with these rules. If there are any uncertainties, please ask.

The formal definition plagiarism, adopted by the Faculty Senate, is given below:

Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s language, ideas, or other material without making the source(s) evident in situations where there is a legitimate expectation of original work. Plagiarism does not occur when efforts to promptly identify sources by making source use apparent to the audience of the submitted material are obvious. Plagiarism may not necessarily include mistakes in citation style.

A legitimate expectation of original work exists for numerous circumstances, including (but not limited to): scholarly writing, technical presentations and

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papers, conference presentations and papers, online discussion postings, grant proposals, patents, book and other manuscripts, theses and dissertations, class assignments, artistic works, computer code, algorithms, and other creative works.

This definition applies to the entire WMU community, which includes all faculty; students; staff; visiting faculty, scholars and administrators; and any other person governed by the academic research and other policies of the university. (Faculty Senate MOA-15/08)

The universal definition of plagiarism is also referenced at the website for the Office of Student Conduct under the Definitions of Academic Honesty Violations.

 For assistance with questions or inquiries regarding instances of potential student academic misconduct, please contact Nicole Millar Allbee, director of the Office of Student Conduct, at (269) 387-2160 or nicole.allbee@wmich.edu.

The basic rule regarding plagiarism is very simple: whenever you present a specific idea that is not original with you, credit must always be given to the original source of the idea. There are some students who believe that if a writer is careful to paraphrase rather than quote word-for-word, a citation to the original source need not be given. This is not true. However, if a source is quoted verbatim, the material must be enclosed in quotation marks. The author(s), publication date, and page number(s) must also be given. For example:

According to Kent (1976), acoustic studies of infant cries have been, "... motivated by reports that certain characteristics of an infant, such as age, identity, and condition, could be appreciated by listening to its cry ..." (p. 425-426).

The complete reference to this paper would then be given in a separate References section at the end of the paper. In preparing your References section, follow the format that is used in JSLHR. This format is described in detail in the APA Style Manual (available in the library), but you can usually get the information you need by looking at examples in a recent issue of JSLHR. The Kent paper that I just cited provides some good examples, and is an excellent model for preparing a clear and well documented literature review (Kent, R.D., "Anatomical and neuromuscular maturation of the speech mechanism: Evidence from acoustic studies," Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 19, 1976, 421-447; other nice review articles that you might look to as a model are: (a) Rees, N.S. “Auditory processing factors in language disorders: the view from Procrustes' bed”. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 38, 1973, 304-15, and (b) Forrest, K. “Are oral-motor exercises useful in treatment of phonological / articulation disorders?” Seminars in Speech and Language, 23, 2002, 15-25.)

A similar procedure should be followed when you use material that is paraphrased rather than quoted verbatim. The only differences are that quotation marks are not used and you do not need to give the page number(s) from which the material was derived. Paraphrasing means that the writer captures the essence of the original source using the writer's own words and not those of the

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original source. Paraphrasing does not mean changing a word here and there. For example, the material below was derived from the Kent (1976) tutorial. If you check the material below against the original source (p. 422, first full paragraph), you will see that Kent's ideas are captured, but his phrasing was not used.

Most of the technical problems in analyzing children's speech are related to the wide harmonic spacing of the glottal spectrum (Kent, 1976).

It is sometimes necessary to discuss material from a book, article, or convention paper that you know about only through a description in some other paper. In these cases, cite both the original source and the secondary source. For example:

A distinction needs to be made between surface phonetic forms and underlying phonological representations (Alioto & Pierre, 2003, cited in Minifie, 2005).

Important: (1) This kind of indirect citation should only be used in cases where the original source cannot be found (e.g., an out-of-print book, or a paper that appeared in the proceedings of a conference – some of these are easy to find, others are not). If the original source is available, it should be read and cited directly. I frequently get papers in which this indirect citation method is used for papers and books that are readily available. (2) References to both sources must appear in your reference list. (3) References to both sources must appear in your reference list. Yes, I said that twice. It often does not get noticed.

Material or ideas from class lectures or discussions with colleagues and faculty should also be cited (e.g., "Clark, personal communication," or “Nelson, SPPA 6020 lecture notes”). However, you should only cite lecture notes for special cases in which the idea is original with the instructor. As just one example, there are many good sources to cite other than lecture notes for basic information about developmental milestones for speech and language development.

You do not need to provide literature citations for ideas that are original with you, or for information that is regarded as "common knowledge." It is not always completely clear what does or does not qualify as common knowledge. This is discussed in the Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers. (See me if you need a copy of this.) If there is any doubt about whether a particular idea is "common knowledge," see me or find a source to cite.

By far the most common serious problem in this area involves students who use the precise phrasing or slightly modified phrasing from a source without using quotations marks, and/or without giving credit to the source. This is almost always very easy for teachers to spot, and most teachers will treat this as a serious matter.

Two final notes.

1. Be certain that every book, article, or convention paper that you cite appears as a complete citation in your References section. This includes citations to papers that you know about only by reading another source; i.e., indirect citations.

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2. Do not overuse direct quotes . It is unusual for a paper to require more than a small handful of direct quotes since these are needed only when the precise wording used by the author is essential in conveying the idea. I sometimes read literature reviews that seem to consist almost entirely of direct quotations from other authors. These papers are not very interesting to read and do not make it very clear what original thoughts the author has on the topic. This has become a big problem the last few years. New Rule: Each student is allowed to use three direct quotes without explanation. After these three direct quotes are used up, you will need to submit an appendix with convincing explanations of why the precise wording of the original author(s) was needed.

K. DESCRIBING YOUR RESULTS

Describe your results in a simple way. If you are familiar with an appropriate statistical test, use it. Statistical analysis is not required., with two notable exceptions: (1) If you run a correlational study (e.g., correlating DDK and articulation scores), see me and I’ll show you how to calculate a Pearson r (better yet, see this link on my web page for SPPA 6190: Calculating the Pearson r using Excel); (2) If you have a design that can be analyzed with a t test, see me and I’ll get you set up, or better yet, search the web for an online t-test calculator. They are all over the place. (Note that there is a difference between an independent-groups t-test (different subjects in each group) and a repeated-measures (also paired or correlated) t-test (the same subjects tested under different conditions). See footnote 1. Check your stats notes. You need to use the appropriate one. See me if you are unsure. Above all, graph your data or put them in a table, think about your findings, and describe what you see.

L. INTERPRETING YOUR RESULTS

With the limited time and resources available to you, it is unlikely that you will find the final and definitive solution to a problem. Warn your reader of whatever limitations there may be (e.g., small sample sizes), but do not be afraid to talk about what your results might mean. At the same time, if your results are a complete mess, do not be shy about saying so (and talk about what might be done to clarify things).

M. COMMON STYLISTIC ERRORS

Listed below, in no particular order, are some common stylistic errors to watch for in your written paper. If you make a mistake, try not to make it one of these.

1. Non-APA citation style:

Incorrect: "In 1974 Caffey wrote an article discussing two cases of residual ..."

Correct: "Caffey (1974) discussed two cases of residual ..."

2. Inappropriate use of 'however':

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"This study addresses some very important issues, however, there are serious methodological flaws."

should read:

"This study addresses some very important issues. However, there are serious methodological flaws."

or possibly:

"This study addresses some very important issues; however, there are serious methodological flaws."

3. Mixing up there, their, and they’re.

4. Mixing up of affect (verb) and effect (noun).

Sleep deprivation can affect performance. [good]Sleep deprivation can have an effect on performance. [also good]

This is a common one, so here’s more detail, from WMU’s ‘Writing Tips’:

Affect, as a verb, means to influence. (His illness will affect his attendance.) Effect is infrequently used as a verb and means to cause or bring about. (We will effect a major reorganization of the office.)

Affect is rarely used as a noun, and its correct use as a noun relates to psychological emotional states. (During the trial, psychologists described the unstable affect of the accused.) Effect, as a noun, has a variety of meanings and uses, including consequence or result (The effect of the budget cuts will affect us all.); becoming operative (The policy goes into effect immediately); media technology (The special effects won an Academy Award.); creation of a desired result (Nearly everything Lincoln did was calculated for effect.); and the stuff in your purse, always used in the plural (Your personal effects.).

In nearly all cases, we use effect as a noun and affect as a verb.

5. Apostrophe problems:

"the authors intention"

should read:

"the authors' intention” (more than one author) or "the author's intention" (a single author)

"subjects were assigned to groups based on the mothers education level"

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should read:

"subjects were assigned to groups based on the mothers' education level"

6. Use a spell checker.

7. Read your paper aloud before turning it in. You will often hear things that do not sound right, but which looked fine on paper.

8. The word "data" is plural. It sounds awkward to many people to say "data were analyzed ...", but this is the way it's supposed to be. It's an artificial rule invented by English teachers with too much time on their hands, but we have to live with it.

9. Literature is "cited", not "sighted" or "sited".

10. Problems with "imply" and "infer".

These are correct:

“These findings imply that language disordered children have a deficit in auditory processing.”

“From these findings we can infer that language disordered children have a deficit in auditory processing.”

These are incorrect:

“These findings infer that language disordered children have a deficit in auditory processing.”

“From these findings we can imply that language disordered children have a deficit in auditory processing.”

11. "criteria" is plural; "criterion" is singular.

12. Mass nouns (referring to things that cannot be counted; e.g., water or coffee) vs. count nouns (referring to things that can be counted; e.g., water drops or coffee beans)

Correct: number of errors; Incorrect: amount of errorsCorrect: number of people; Incorrect: amount of people

The same applies to less vs. fewer; e.g.

Correct: fewer errors; Incorrect: less errors

This distinction is starting to disappear in English, but it is not gone yet.

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13. Contractions are not appropriate for a formal paper.

14. Comma advice (from http://www.wmich.edu/writing/punctuation/comma)

The comma is one of the most commonly misused forms of punctuation. Omitting a comma causes information to run together, leading to a change in meaning or loss of clarity. Excessive commas cause information to become choppy and disconnected, confusing the reader. Avoid making these mistakes by learning the rules of comma usage.

Use commas to separate:

Three or more items in a list: Homecoming is for students, alumni, parents, families and friends. (Do not include a comma before the conjunction in a simple series.)

A series of adjectives equal in importance: WMU is a dynamic, learner-centered institution.

Complete sentences that are combined with a conjunction: The event is open to the public free of charge, but reservations are required.

An introductory phrase from the rest of a sentence: First, we must double the amount of external support.

A nonessential phrase from the rest of a sentence: Sky Broncos, led by Steven Tkachuk, won the regional flight competition.

Direct quotes: "We must support students in any way we can," Dunn said. Party affiliation, academic degrees and religious affiliations; and dates from years: Tim

Greene, Ph.D., will compete in "Dancing with the WMU/Kazoo Stars" Oct. 30, 2009. Cities from names of states and nations; and names from hometowns and ages: Nate

Knappen, of Grand Rapids, Mich., is the president of WSA. Yes and no; and names in a direct address: Yes, Mom, I'll be home for dinner. Similar words: What it really is, is justice.

15. It is a very good idea to check this list after you have written your paper. Many students do not. It only takes a few minutes.

Advice about Writing Literature Reviews

The most common question that I get about preparing written papers has to do with how literature reviews should be organized. The text below is my response to a student who asked me this question. Note that the advice below applies regardless of which option you have chosen (i.e., the study or the literature review option).

**********************

There isn't one fixed way of writing a lit review. You can discuss the literature one issue at a time, with the description of several studies in each section, or you can discuss the literature one study at a time. The first approach is often more interesting, but it can be harder to write. There is nothing wrong with the second approach, and it is usually easier to organize. Have you looked at the lit review examples that I recommend in the project description? The best way to get ideas about how

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to organize your paper is to look at the examples that I mention in the project description [The review papers by: (a) Kent, (b) Rees, and (c) Forrest].

There is also no fixed answer to what methodological details need to be discussed, but the reader will almost always need to know: (1) key details about the subjects, especially sample size, (2) what the subjects were asked to do, (3) what the results were, and (4) what the results mean. You have to pick and choose among the methodological details that you discuss. You're trying to develop a narrative, so you need to be thinking about what information the reader will need to follow the story. There is no fixed script for telling any kind of story, and a lit review is no different. The central skill in writing anything is to adopt the point of view of the reader: what information would you need as a reader in order to understand the story that is being told? Yes, you nearly always want to want to discuss key details such as the characteristics of the subjects (language delayed, articulation disorders, low SES, typically developing, …), sample size, procedures (what exactly were the subjects asked to do), and results (this is in boldface because results have often been omitted). There are some methodological details, such as sample size, that will almost always be important; for example, in your area, a study that tested 5 cochlear implant users will mean one thing while a study of 80 CI users will carry quite a bit more weight (assuming the study you are reviewing was designed well). You need to pick and choose about how detailed you are going to be about methods and results; for example, readers will nearly always want to know how many subjects were tested and (in at least fairly general terms) how they were chosen, but they will almost never care what model of microphone was used. Once again, think like a reader: what information would be most important to you if you were reading the review?

I will say that the most common problem that I see are papers that mainly discuss the conclusions that the authors reached without enough information about how these conclusions were arrived at.

I'm sorry I don't have more specific advice for you, but there aren't too many things that apply broadly to all lit reviews. But you are asking exactly the right questions, so I think your paper will turn out just fine. The more worrying a writer does, the better the paper - as long as you worry about the right things, which you are.

Other things:

1. Before you begin writing your paper, re-read the project description. That document is filled with items of the form do this and do not do that. We went over all of these things on the 1st day of class, but every year I get papers from students who only remember some of these things. That's not surprising since more than three months have gone by, but it doesn't take long to quickly review the document. The importance of re-reading that document cannot be overstated.

2. Take a look at one or more of the examples that I provide in the project description - e.g., the review papers by Kent, Rees, and Forrest. The most straightforward example is probably Karen Forrest's paper (Forrest, K. Are Oral-Motor Exercises Useful in the Treatment of Phonological/ Articulatory Disorders? Seminars in Speech and  Language, 2002, 23, 15-26).

3. Do your best to keep your writing simple; for example:

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More complicated that it needs to be: "In 2013 Fisher and Miller conducted a research study in which they wanted to know how the articulation abilities of dyslexic children compare to the articulation abilities of non-dyslexic children."

Simpler and much better: "Fisher and Miller (2013) compared the articulation abilities of dyslexic non-dyslexic children."

4. Read your paper aloud. Passages that look alright on paper will sometimes sound awkward when they are read aloud. You can usually trust your ear.

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Appendix B: Citing Information from the World Wide WebElectronic Reference Formats Recommended by the American Psychological Association

-----------------------------------------------------------------Last update: June 1, 1999

Note. This document replaces "How to Cite Information From the Internet and the World Wide Web."

* Citing Email Communications* Citing a Web Site* Citing Specific Documents on a Web Site* Citing Articles and Abstracts From Electronic Databases

Citing Email Communications

First, a cautionary note: It is possible to send an email note disguised as someone else. Authors not journal editors or copy editors are responsible for the accuracy of all references, which includes verifying the source of email communications before citing them as personal communications in manuscripts.

Email communications from individuals should be cited as personal communications, as noted in APA's Publication Manual (4th ed., pp. 173-174). The format in text (personal communications are not cited in the reference list) is as follows: L. A. Chafez (personal communication, March 28, 1997).

Citing a Web Site

To cite an entire Web site (but not a specific document on the site), it's sufficient to give the address of the site in the text. For example,

Kidpsych is a wonderful interactive Web site for children (http://www.kidpsych.org).

No reference entry is needed.

Citing Specific Documents on a Web Site

Web documents share many of the same elements found in a print document (e.g., authors, titles, dates). Therefore, the citation for a Web document often follows a format similar to that for print, with some information omitted and some added. Here are some examples of how to cite documents posted on APA's own Web site.

An action alert posted by our Public Policy Office:

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American Psychological Association. (1995, September 15). APA public policy action alert: Legislation would affect grant recipients [Announcement]. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/ppo/istook.html

An article from the journal American Psychologist:

Jacobson, J. W., Mulick, J. A., & Schwartz, A. A. (1995). A history of facilitated communication: Science, pseudoscience, and antiscience: Science working group on facilitated communication. American Psychologist, 50, 750–765. Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/journals/jacobson.html

An article from the APA Monitor (a newspaper):

Sleek, S. (1996, January). Psychologists build a culture of peace. APA Monitor, pp. 1, 33. Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/monitor/peacea.html

An abstract:

Rosenthal, R. (1995). State of New Jersey v. Margaret Kelly Michaels: An overview [Abstract]. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 1, 247-271. Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/journals/ab1.html

All references begin with the same information that would be provided for a printed source (or as much of that information as is available). The Web information is then placed in a retrieval statement at the end of the reference. It is important to give the date of retrieval because documents on the Web may change in content, move, or be removed from a site altogether. In fact, none of the examples above are currently available on APA's Web site.

Citing Articles and Abstracts From Electronic Databases

APA's recommendations for citing electronic media have changed substantially since we published the fourth edition of the Publication Manual. For databases, rather than the "Available: File: Item: " statement specified in the Publication Manual, we now recommend a retrieval statement that identifies the date of retrieval (omitted for CD-ROMs) and the source (e.g., DIALOG, WESTLAW, SIRS, Electric Library), followed in parentheses by the name of the specific database used and any additional information needed to retrieve a particular item. For Web sources, a URL should be given that points to an "entry page" for the database. The basic retrieval statement for CD-ROM databases is as follows:

Retrieved from [source] database ([name of database], CD-ROM, [release date], [item no.--if applicable])

The basic retrieval statement for on-line databases is:

Retrieved [month day, year] from [source] on-line database ([name of database], [item no.--if applicable])

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The basic retrieval statement for databases accessed via the Web is:

Retrieved [month day, year] from [source] database ([name of database], [item no.--if applicable]) on the World Wide Web: [URL]

Examples

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1998, March). Encryption: Impact on law enforcement. Location: Publisher. Retrieved from SIRS database (SIRS Government Reporter, CD-ROM, Fall 1998 release)

Schneiderman, R. A. (1997). Librarians can make sense of the Net. San Antonio Business Journal, 11(31), pp. 58+. Retrieved January 27, 1999 from EBSCO database (Masterfile) on the World Wide Web: http://www.ebsco.com

Kerrigan, D. C., Todd, M. K., & Riley, P. O. (1998). Knee osteoarthritis and high-heeled shoes. The Lancet, 251, 1399-1401. Retrieved January 27, 1999 from DIALOG database (#457, The Lancet) on the World Wide Web: http://www.dialogweb.com Davis, T. (1992). Examining educational malpractice jurisprudence: Should a cause of action be created for student-athletes? Denver University Law Journal, 69, 57+. Retrieved [month day, year] from WESTLAW on-line database (69 DENULR 57).

Bowles, M. D. (1998). The organization man goes to college: AT&T's experiment in humanistic education, 1953-1960. The Historian, 61, 15+. Retrieved [month day, year] from DIALOG on-line database (#88, IAC Business A.R.T.S., Item 04993186)

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