infants’ language experience influences the development of a word-learning heuristic

1. 

Manual of Style: 

For detailed information concerning the sections 

– Title Page 

–  References 

– Quotations References in Text 

–  Examples and Data 

– Orthographic and Formal Conventions

2. 

Before you start 

In preparation for this essay, you should formulate a title (topic), the aim of the essay, and, ideally, the research question you will address. The topic, aim, or research question must be closely related to the study or text I have attached in the file area. 

 3.  Structure:  contextualisation into current research contexts 

6. References 

7. Statement of non-plagiarism  

 !  Title Page: 

Make sure you choose an appropriate title for your essay. The title should go beyond listing the
paper(s) you discuss. You should choose a title that gives an overview of the (larger) topic you cover.
One option is to use the research question as the title or you include the variables investigated in the
title (e.g., “Effects of input quantity on grammatical development”). For details about how to design
the title page, consult the ‘Manual of Style’. 

! Introduction: 

The introduction has two parts. First, a thematic introduction and second an overview of the essay.
In the thematic introduction, you present the area of investigation, the topic and the research
question. Start out broad, though focussed, and become more specific. You may also define some key
terms in the introduction, and explicitly state the purpose of your essay (e.g., “The present essay
investigates ….”).
In the overview, you give an overview of the structure of the essay, that means you tell the reader
how many sections there are and what each section deals with.   

 ! Review of Background:

 The aim of this section is to contextualize the study or text, that I attached in the files, in the context of theories,
models or key previous research findings; it is NOT to give exhaustive overviews of previous research;
rather, you use previous research in your argumentation and for your purposes. In other words, you
write this section in a goal-directed manner. Hence, you provide a comparative and concise review of
the relevant theoretical background, potentially including some key studies. Make sure that this
section is directly relevant for your research question.  

Use present tense to report opinions and past tense to report findings by others. For example: “X
and Y (year) argue that semantic priming affects word recognition. They designed an experiment in
which the participants had to…”

 ! Summary of study/text presented in the file area: 

 The study  that I have attached below should be summarised relatively briefly. The aim of
the summary is to introduce the study or text briefly to have a point of departure for embedding it into
the research context and/or for comparing it to other studies. The form of the summary is comparable
to an abstract. The purpose of the abstract is to give the reader a brief overview and summary of a
study or text, and it address the following questions: 

–  What is the topic of research? 

– What is the research question? 

– How did the authors address/investigate the topic and research question? 

– What are the results? 

–  What are the main conclusions?    

!  Placing a study/test within the research context: 

 In this part, you refer to (a) the review of the background in the beginning of your essay and (b) other
studies or research. You assess how the study or text contributes to research in the field and theories
and how it relates to other studies or research in the field. You also critically evaluate possible
limitations of it. In particular if there have been advances in research or theory since, you discuss how
some aspects of the study or text may need to be reinterpreted or reconsidered.
It may be useful to find ways to group and compare research, studies and other types of literature
(reviews, theoretical articles, etc.): for example, experiments vs. survey studies, theoretical
frameworks, languages, participants, methods, findings, etc. Note that when you summarize other
studies or texts, the more space you attribute to them, the more relevant or important they should
be. Make sure you structure this section well: Provide the reader with pointers and short summaries
throughout, so that it is always clear as to WHY you are writing about a particular aspect. Make sure
that a reader who is not familiar with these studies or texts can understand what they were about.   

  ! Comparison: 

The two studies or texts that you compare should ideally have similar research questions or topics.
Typically, you can formulate a common research question/topic they address. However, they might
differ in focus, perspective or in the method they use to investigate the research question (e.g.,
comprehension vs. production methods), in the participants (age, languages) or the linguistic domain
they investigate (e.g., past tense versus passive voice). Importantly, they might even differ in their
results and conclusions and thus in the way they speak to your research question. The aim of the  comparison section is to address these differences and discuss in which way they are relevant for
answering your overall research question.    

  ! Conclusion and Outlook:

 In the conclusion, you readdress the research question laid out in the introduction. State briefly how
you approached this question, and answer it by way of a brief, non-technical summary of the results
and your interpretation of them. Make a final summary statement of the conclusions you have drawn.
When appropriate, comment on the importance and relevance of your findings and give an outlook
and suggestions for further research.   

!  Appendices

 Appendices are for including materials which you cannot put into the main sections. Typically, you do
not need an appendix in an essay. However, you could add more detailed results or additional
statistical comparisons of the results in appendices if these are necessary.