Category: Writing

New Preprint on OSF

My collaborators and I have completed a new manuscript that is close to in-press for the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. It is a meta-analysis of several replication attempts of a highly-cited study about how self-esteem is related to Facebook usage motivations and perceptions. We found that the replications clearly replicated two of the four findings of the original article, failed to replicate one of them, and there was mixed evidence for the other finding. This tells us a bit more about how robust the original study’s findings were, and helps people who are interested to begin looking for moderators that we did not study.

The process was great because I had four great co-authors and we all worked together to get it done and out the door. I learned how to do meta-analysis in the process! We earned journal badges for Open Data, Open Materials, Preregistration, and Replication.

The prepress manuscript is on PsyArXiv at https://psyarxiv.com/sx742/

Leighton, D. C., Legate, N., LePine, S., Anderson, S. F., & Grahe, J. E. (2019, January 1). Self-Esteem, Self-Disclosure, Self-Expression, and Connection on Facebook: A Collaborative Replication Meta-Analysis. Retrieved from psyarxiv.com/sx742

The original article by Forest & Wood (2012)  is at Psychological Science: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797611429709

 

Scrivener overview tutorial

I am using a writing program called Scrivener for my academic work lately. It is a very compelling program for academic writers, because it allows for the construction of documents in a very non-linear, non-top-down approach. As I research for an article or chapter or paper for class, I can add parts of the document and not worry about how those parts are connected to the rest of the parts. After I have all the parts laid out, I then start to see connections and can begin to assemble the piece in a way that provides a sensible narrative.

A fellow academic has produced a tutorial outlining some of the features of Scrivener and why it makes sense for academic writibng over a more linear approach such as a word processor. Word processors are great for 2 things I think: relatively short documents such as letters or short papers where there aren’t lots of pieces that have to be interconnected. They are also great for the final assembly and polishing of a manuscript. I like Scrivener for the ability it has to produce the manuscript from bits and pieces of thoughts.

Here’s the tutorial: Five Essentials Tutorial