Contents

• Semester Project Requirements and Structure
  • Basics
  • Types of Projects
  • Exceptions
  • Papers: Basic Structure
  • Poster: Basic Structure
  • Rubrics
  • What Counts Toward Research Credit Hours?
  • Due Dates
• Peer Review
• Plagiarism Guidelines
• Generative AI Guidelines
• Writing Resources

Semester Project Requirements and Structure

Basics

• You will complete a semester project every semester for which you are registered for research credit. This project will be worth 20% of your grade. 
• Unless noted*, you are required to participate in a peer review process.
  • *Senior thesis and URS students are generally not required to participate in the peer review exercise but are invited to do so. Bio/Bot/Zoo 152 students are required to participate.
• All papers should be written using the American Psychological Association (APA) format. 

Types of Projects

Your semester project can take four different forms:

• Literature Review: Papers serve as a review of literature relating to a selected topic and should sufficiently cover the selected topic. References should primarily come from refereed (peer-reviewed) journals (i.e., not citations from popular press sources such as Psychology Today or CNN).
  • Your chosen topic should be related to psychology, neuroscience, or a similar field, as discussed and approved by your mentor. You are not required to write about the research project you are working on.
  • Most students select this option.
  • A minimum of 7 references from refereed journals are required.
• Intro/Methods: Papers serve as an introduction to the primary project you are working on and the project's methods.
  • A minimum of 3 references are required.
• Proposal for Future Study: Papers serve as a proposal for a future study, with an introduction and study methods sections.
  • A minimum of 3 references are required.
• Poster: Physical poster focusing on a selected topic. Spring semester is good timing for this option, aligned with submitting to the Undergraduate Symposium (so students get a chance to present their poster).
  • Your chosen topic should be related to psychology, neuroscience, or a similar field, as discussed and approved by your mentor. You are not required to write about the research project you are working on.

Exceptions

• Senior thesis students will turn in complete and polished versions of the Intro and Methods sections of their senior thesis at the end of the Fall semester, and will turn in their entire senior thesis at the end of the Spring semester.
• Bio/Bot/Zoo 152 and URS students will turn in copies of their project papers at the end of the semester.

Papers: Basic Structure

Papers should be 5-8 pages in length, not including the references or cover pages. Your semester paper should begin with a cover page that includes the following:

• The title of the paper
• The type of project you are completing (literature review, Intro/Methods, Proposal for Future Study)
• Your name
• The current date
• The number of the course you enrolled in for research credit (ex: Psych 621)
• The name of your supervisor.

The cover page and citations page(s) do not count towards the paper's total length (put citations as the last pages of the semester paper).

Format your paper draft and final version as follows:

• Line Spacing: Double space between lines of text on the page.
• Margins: 1-inch margins on the top, bottom, right and left sides.
• Font: 12 pt. Times New Roman
• Check your spelling and grammar.

Poster: Basic Structure

Consult your mentor for specific requirements. Generally, poster content should be clearly displayed and easy to follow in the absence of a presenter. Appropriate headings/labels should be included to improve understanding.

Rubrics

Please consult the appropriate rubric to help you craft an "A" level project. Rubrics can be found in the Canvas Project Outline, Project Draft, and Final Project Submission assignments. Be sure to reference the rubric pertaining to your project and stage (outline, draft, final submission). Rubrics can be found in Canvas.

What Counts Toward Research Credit Hours?

Time spent on your semester project and peer review does not count toward your lab work hours. This is part of a separate academic effort. However, meeting with your supervisor about your paper does count toward your lab work hours. You can expect your supervisor to be willing to meet with you on two occasions to discuss your paper and to read one draft. Supervisors are not obligated to spend additional time assisting students with their papers.

Due Dates

Due dates can be found in Canvas for each assignment, as well as on our KB page: Important Dates

Peer Review

Undergraduate research credit students will participate in a peer review of project outlines and a peer review of project drafts. This allows you to receive feedback before turning in your final submission. You will be assigned 2 outlines and 2 drafts to review and provide feedback. More information can be found on Canvas.

• Note: Senior Thesis and URS students are not required to participate in the peer review process but are welcome to do so. If you are a senior thesis or URS student and would like to participate in the peer review process, please contact jane.lambert@wisc.edu. 
• Due dates can be found in Canvas for each assignment, as well as on our KB page: Important Dates

Plagiarism Guidelines

Research credit students are required to read through the UW-Madison Libraries Intro to Plagiarism mini-course at the beginning of each semester. The mini-course serves as "an introduction to complex plagiarism issues, including plagiarism types and examples, citations in the U.S., how context influences citations, and how to paraphrase and quote." 

Generative AI Guidelines

Important:

• Research credit students (including URS students) are required to read through CHM's Generative AI Guidelines at the beginning of each semester.
  • For URS students, the Generative AI Guidelines Required Reading will be due 2 weeks after the student's orientation.
• The guidelines below are intended for the semester project.
• Failure to follow the generative AI guidelines could impact your grade.
• If you are involved in computer programming or coding, please consult your supervisor for guidance on using generative AI tools. The guidelines below do not apply to computer programming or coding.  

Key Learning Outcomes

• Generative AI Tools: Machine-learning models (such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Grammarly, and Gemini) that are trained to create new data, including audio, code, images, text, simulations, and videos.

The purpose of completing course assignments is to gain knowledge about significant research and develop a comprehensive understanding of the scientific method. As generative AI-powered tools become increasingly prevalent in different areas, it's crucial to evaluate their impact on learning and whether they improve or hinder it. We have established guidelines for using generative AI tools to enhance your learning and fulfill academic requirements at the Center for Healthy Minds.

Learning Goals

The best way to learn more about relevant research in the field is by taking the time to understand research papers on your own. While generative AI tools can be useful, we don't want them to interfere with your learning.

• Reviewing and Understanding Literature: Understanding the background, methodologies, and implications of the research papers you read is crucial. The best way to attain this understanding is by taking the time to comprehend the research papers on your own.
• Idea Generation: It would always be best to generate your own ideas and questions when reading research papers. This helps with digesting different concepts and methodologies across various papers.
• Structuring Your Ideas: In research, one must comprehensively understand the concepts and methodologies involved. One way to organize and strengthen your understanding is by creating outlines and providing supporting evidence to the points you wish to convey.
• Communicating Your Ideas: Learning to communicate your ideas through scientific writing is vital to research. After structuring your ideas, it is essential to practice writing them concisely within the flow and structure of a paper and to learn how to revise your writing based on constructive feedback from others.

When You Should Not Use Generative AI Tools

1. Summarizing Papers: Generative AI tools that give you summaries of papers impede learning because they bypass the step of understanding the sections of a research paper that combine to paint the complete picture of the study or set of studies.
2. Searching for High-Quality Sources: We recommend using databases available through UW-Madison Libraries and tools like Google Scholar to search for high-quality sources to read and possibly include in your paper. Generative AI tools can sometimes provide false citations that do not exist, so it is not recommended to identify high-quality sources.
3. Creating Paper Outlines: Generative AI tools can quickly spit out an outline for your paper, which can even include thesis statements, supporting ‘evidence’ citations, and elaborations of the points in your paper in seconds. However, deciding what points and references to include in your paper would allow you to facilitate your understanding of the concepts being discussed while also giving you the chance to apply and express what you have learned in a way that would make sense to readers.
4. Writing: Generative AI tools have the capability to rewrite sections of your paper or rephrase parts of sentences. It is plagiarism to accept these changes without rewording them. If you’re unsure, a good rule of thumb is that at least every three words should be different.

When You Can Use Generative AI Tools

1. Rephrasing Your Sentences: If you are unsure whether your point is being articulated properly, generative AI tools can be a resource to assess the language and suggest alternative ways to express what you want to say. You can use these suggestions to help generate ideas about how you would like to re-work your sentence, but this sentence should be in your own writing and cannot be in the original format that the generative AI tools suggest. 
2. Grammar and Style Check: Once you have organized and articulated your ideas into your paper and supported it with relevant references to support your points, it may be acceptable to use generative AI tools to comb through some parts of your work that you may be less confident about. These tools can aid you in correcting grammatical errors, improving your sentence structure, and checking for tone.
3. Organizing the Flow of Your Paper: You can consult generative AI tools to reorganize your paper in a way that is more meaningful to readers.
4. Furthering Understanding/Clarifying Concepts: You should not use generative AI tools to draw conclusions about research papers. However, using these tools to better understand what the authors are arguing or to understand the methods in the paper seems like an efficient and acceptable use of these tools.
   • For example:
     • Unacceptable use: “Please summarize this paper for me.”
     • Acceptable: “What is the [insert] theory.” “What is the history of this theory” “Why would you use [insert statistic]” “What are the limitations of “[insert stats method]” “What is a P value” “Why might you use [insert stats method] over [insert second method]” “What is a Bonferroni correction and how does it influence the interpretation of [insert]”
5. Adherence to Academic Writing Styles: Academic writing often adheres to standardized guidelines. For example, it is common for papers in psychology to adhere to the guidelines set by the American Psychological Association or APA style. It is acceptable for you to ask generative AI tools whether your writing adheres to the APA guidelines. This may look like asking these tools to check your paper's formatting and that you’ve formatted your in-text citations correctly. You can also use generative AI tools to format your citations.
6. Constructive Critique: You may submit the prompt for your essay and your essay to generative AI tools and ask them to critique your paper based on the assignment prompt and rubric. While you cannot accept the recommendations of generative AI tools verbatim, you can use generative AI as a tool to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your paper in relation to the prompt.

Citing Generative AI Tools

When using generative AI tools in any of the ways mentioned in the section above, you should cite them and include how you used them in your paper. 

• APA Style advises doing the following: “If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. You might describe how you used the tool in your introduction for literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers. In your text, provide the prompt you used and any portion of the relevant text generated in response.” (see the example below)
• Please ensure that you should try and find the primary source when you make a scientific claim. These should come from the literature and be traceable back to a specific source.
• For further details, you can view https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt

Writing Resources

Writing resources are available to help you craft your project: Writing Resources