Chapter specific application exercises will help you think about research design in practice or have you explore a relevant resource.

Exercise 1: APA Style

Under the heading “Primary Versus Secondary Sources” above, locate the referenced article “Prevalence and Characteristics of Youth Sexting” taken from the journal Pediatrics. Rewrite the citation so that it conforms to APA style.

Exercise 2: Comparing Primary and Secondary Sources

Locate the original Pediatrics and New York Times articles on sexting cited above under the heading “Primary Versus Secondary Sources.” Carefully compare these two articles and answer the following questions:

• What information in the original Pediatrics article is missing from the New York Times article? What content, if any, in the New York Times article cannot be found in the Pediatrics article?
• Assuming the New York Times article is written to help and inform parents, what writing techniques can you identify that are used to interest and motivate such readers and maintain their interest?

Exercise 3: Search Terms and Boolean Operators

Write down all of the search terms you might use to get a comprehensive listing of scholarly papers on social media.

Combine these search terms using Boolean operators to then focus your research on:

• Social media and youth
• Social media and romantic relationships
• Social media and public relations

Note that this is not just an exercise in Boolean operators; it is also an exercise in vocabulary. For example, social media may prove to be too broad a search term. What terms other than social media could you use to narrow your search? Note also that youth, romantic, and public relations all have analogous terms that might give you better or worse search results. For each of these three terms, identify an alternative word or words that you might substitute to narrow or expand your search.

Exercise 4: Writing a Literature Review

Search the Pew Research Center Internet, Science & Tech Project website—www.pewinternet.org—for the topic “elections and campaigns.” You will find a series of reports on U.S. elections for the years 2000 through 2015. Write a brief literature review summarizing how the role of the Internet and social media in U.S. elections has changed since 2000. Cite all sources correctly using APA style. For most years, you will find several different reports, so you will need to be selective in your reading and writing.