If you are considering applying to graduate school, you may not yet know much about what funding looks like during graduate school. Even if you are currently a graduate student you still may be confused about different options for funding. So I wanted to walk you through different types of funding. As always, this mainly applies to HDFS, psychology, and similar programs, with a focus on graduate programs. Other programs may differ. In addition, I’ve only ever been affiliated with 3 graduate programs (UCLA psych, Penn State HDFS, UConn HDFS), all public universities, so there may be other options at other universities that I’m unfamiliar with.

• Assistantships: The most common type of doctoral funding is through an assistantship. Usually, you work a set number of hours per week and then the assistantship covers your tuition and a stipend and usually provides access to health insurance. Usually, your assignment is as a teaching assistant, a research assistant, or a combination of the two. For some programs, teaching your own course is another option in an assistantship position. Number of hours varies; for some programs the norm is 10 hours per week of work; for others 15 or 20. Assistantship rates vary dramatically by program. In 1998 when I was admitted to developmental psych doctoral programs, one program offered me $7000 a year, and another $12000. But, when comparing assistantship rates at multiple programs, don’t just think about the dollar amount. You also need to consider the number of hours of work, and, perhaps most importantly, the cost of living. Affording rent as a UConn graduate student while living in northern Connecticut is vastly different from affording rent in Boston, for instance. You can look at UConn’s current rates as one example.
• Paid hourly labor: Some programs hire students in various roles on an hourly basis, particularly students who were not guaranteed funding. Paid labor would not cover with tuition support. Departments or faculty may hire you to grade papers, to work on a research project, to do departmental tasks, or in the case of clinical programs, to work as a clinician. Unlike an assistantship, this type of funding does not include tuition coverage. Increasingly, graduate students are becoming unionized, and in some instances, the union prevents departments from hiring students for an hourly rate.
• University fellowship at entry: Many universities have fellowships that they use as recruiting tools. These are usually either for your first year, or for 2 or more years beginning at entry to the doctoral program. Usually you will learn about this fellowship either when you are admitted, or some time before the April decision deadline. Many programs do not even require that you separately apply for such a fellowship – you learn about it after you are admitted. These fellowships usually cover your tuition and provide an (often generous) stipend and access to health insurance. Sometimes there are specific fellowships for students from underrepresented ethnic/racial groups. Here are examples from UConn.
• University dissertation fellowship: Universities often have 1-2 year fellowships. These often (not always) are specific to your last/dissertation year. Often they come from endowments – someone donated to the university to support graduate students in a specific area. They may be specific to a discipline or area of study, or may be more general. They usually cover tuition and provide a stipend and access to health insurance.
• University scholarships: Here, I distinguish between fellowships, which cover tuition and a (hopefully) livable stipend, and scholarships, which are a lump sum but do not include tuition. Note that some awards are named fellowships but do not include tuition. Many universities have these smaller scholarships, at the department, college, or university level. They may offer anywhere from a couple hundred to several thousand dollars. They may be very specific to an area of research, for any dissertation research, or may have certain other criteria (e.g., service to the university). You may have to apply, or your department may have to nominate you. These rarely provide enough money that they can be your only source of funding.
• Institutional training grants: As I described in my post about post docs, this category includes T31’s from National Institutes of Health, which are relatively common in HDFS and related fields. A team of researchers at your university will have already applied for and secured the training grant. So, your application process is generally not immensely complicated, and is internal to the university. These address a specific topic (for instance, at UConn there is one on the social processes of HIV/AIDS). Support on a training grant usually involves a commitment to attend a seminar and/or speaker series, to identify multiple mentors in the area, and to commit to research on that topic for a 2-year period. Depending on the training grant directors, they sometimes involve a stipulation that you cannot do research assistant tasks but instead must be involved in more independent research processes like analyses and writing for your own work. They usually come with a fair bit of professional development training – activities such as support for writing papers, support for writing and submitting grants, and support for going on the job market/applying for post docs. When the PI’s apply to renew the T32, they usually have to report on the current status of all of their alumni, which makes the team of mentors highly invested in their fellows’ success.
• External Individual training grants: The most common one related to HDFS (and psychology) is the F31 from NIH. It requires that you put together a training plan – not only the research you plan to do, but all aspects of training. How do you plan to train to be the scholar you want to be by the end of the plan? It may include, for instance, mentoring in fMRI if your dissertation will require techniques you have not yet used. It might include specific advanced methodology courses. The training plan should include a lot of detail on your activities, not only your specific research study. F31s are generally very involved applications to write, and then provide stipend and tuition for 2+ years of doctoral study. 
• External fellowships: These include a huge range of possible fellowships. Perhaps the best known (and funded!) is from NSF, which provides 3 years of generous support for students from a range of disciplines. Students generally apply in their second year of graduate school. It may cover one year, or multiple years.
• External scholarships: To be clear, a lot of these programs actually call themselves fellowships, but I’m using the term scholarship to indicate that they do not cover tuition. Some universities will provide a tuition grant when students receive this type of funding. Sometimes the stipend amount is generous enough that you can cover tuition and still have enough for living expenses. Sometimes it is only a couple thousand dollars (which can still help, just isn’t enough to support you). These are often one year, frequently the dissertation year. They may be general to social science, they may cover a specific topic, may require membership in a specific organization, or they may be for a specific group of scholars, e.g., women, underrepresented ethnic/racial minorities, individuals from a specific country, etc. Sometimes they may specifically provide support for international travel or research outside of your university’s country, either generally, like the Fulbright, or to a specific country. Sometimes universities will let you have an assistantship and this type of external funding – and other times not. So it’s important to check with your university if the amount will not be enough for you to support yourself.
• External grants: Rather than providing money to the individual per se, grants cover funding for a specific project. Applying often involves a budget, and the funds should be used to cover research expenses, such as travel, data collection, and/or data analysis. More so than other external sources, they very frequently involve a particular discipline or topic.
• Dissertation completion fellowship at other institution: Increasingly, I’ve noticed specific universities offering support for dissertation year funding for students from other universities to be in residence at their university. Sometimes this arrangement involves some teaching, other times not. It seems more common, though not limited to, smaller, prestigious liberal arts colleges that do not have doctoral programs. Often, they involve the potential for future employment by the university. These fellowships frequently are specific to students from underrepresented ethnic/racial backgrounds to improve the university’s diversity long term.

 
Of course, students sometimes have jobs outside of their university. Other students work full time and attend school part time. And students sometimes take out loans to support their graduate education. Here, I focused on funding related to your graduate training.
 
What did I miss? Feel free to comment or email me if you believe I neglected another form of funding.
 
“Different types of funding during graduate school first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 27, 2018.”

Lefkowitz, E. S., Vasilenko, S. A., Wesche, R., & Maggs, J. L. (in press). Changes in diverse sexual and contraceptive behaviors across college. Journal of Sex Research.
 
I did it – I have now blogged about all of our published and in press papers from the past three years, posting weekly about our research papers for about three months. So, this post is the last one about a specific paper until we get another paper published (and there are currently four submitted, two with R&R’s, so fingers crossed it won’t be too long).
 
In my continued efforts to be fully transparent, particularly for the benefit of junior scholars, this paper took a while to publish. I’ve written before about publishing perseverance and the time it took us 8 years and 4 rejections to get a paper published.
 
I don’t think that the paper I’m writing about today had QUITE as long a road to publication. Well, let me go look up the details. So, it looks like I proposed this paper about 7 years ago, had a draft of the intro and methods 4 years ago, added the results about 3 years ago, and had a full draft over 2 years ago. And it looks like I first submitted it only over a year ago, and that it was only rejected from one journal (somehow, my memory is of more rejections – funny). So I guess the delay was much more in my writing it, than in multiple review processes. I think I remember more rejections because I really saw this paper as a developmental paper and therefore wanted to publish it in a developmental journal, even after the first rejection from a developmental journal. But between submissions I eventually changed my mind and recognized it was a better fit for a sexuality journal, where it found its home.
 
As with many of our other papers, we approached this paper from a normative developmental framework of sexuality. Our perspective is:

1. It is typical, appropriate, and healthy to express interest in and explore sexuality during adolescence and young adulthood
2. A healthy framework shifts the focus from identifying risk factors to understanding a range of sexual experiences, some of which (e.g., kissing, touching) do not confer the same physical risks as vaginal and anal sex
3. To recognize that individual and contextual factors like gender and relationship status influence and shape sexual experiences
4. To acknowledge that sexuality is a developmental phenomenon that changes across adolescence and young adulthood with both age and context
5. Despite risks of sexual behavior, sexual behavior also confers benefits to physical, mental, and relationship health

 
The unique aspects of this paper were that we:

1. Examined rates using longitudinal data with frequent assessment – assessing participants every semester for seven semesters. Most work in this area uses cross-sectional data; existing longitudinal data generally have long gaps between assessments, which may fail to capture variability during a time of rapid change
2. Considered a range of sexual and contraceptive behaviors in the same sample, rather than simply focusing on vaginal sex and/or condom use
3. Considered performing and receiving oral sex separately, given conflicting data on gender differences in rates of oral sex
4. Included both condoms and non-condom contraception, to include more female-focused contraceptive behaviors
5. Considered time-varying changes in romantic relationship status and their association with sexual and contraceptive behaviors

 
We found that:

• Likelihood of kissing, touching, performing oral sex, receiving oral sex, and engaging in penetrative sex in the past 3 months increased with time
• Men were more likely to report receiving oral sex and using condoms in the past 3 months than women were
• Students were more likely to report kissing, touching, performing oral sex, receiving oral sex, and penetrative sex in semesters they were in a serious relationship than semester they were not. They were less likely to report using condoms when they were in a serious relationship compared to when they were not.
• There was a three-way interaction for both contraceptive behaviors. Specifically, consistent use of any contraception in the past three months decreased over time more for men in semesters they were not in a relationship than for men in semesters they were, or for women. In addition, condom use decreased for men regardless of relationship status, and for women in semesters they were in a relationship, but not in semesters women were not.

In summary, rates of participation in penetrative and nonpenetrative behaviors generally increase, whether young adults are in relationships or not. Still, relationship status was an important determinant of engaging in all types of sexual behaviors, as well as consistently using any contraception. Our findings suggest the value of continued sexual health promotion across college, not limited to the first year orientation.
 
 
“ Developmental changes in diverse sexual and contraceptive behaviors across college first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 25, 2018.”

Previously I shared some big picture recommendations and smaller tips for writing papers for graduate courses. Another important skill to master in graduate courses is course participation.
 
I went to a relatively small university with many undergraduate courses of 10-20 students and high expectations of participation. If anything, students were over-engaged in class discussion, talking over each other or feeling the need to contribute to every point. When I became a graduate TA at a large state university, I was shocked that in my TA-led discussion sessions of undergraduate students, it was hard to get students to participate. That sense has continued at the two other large state universities I have worked as a professor. When I teach large classes in particular, it can be challenging to get even one student to answer one of my questions.
 
Once you’re in graduate school, particularly in the social sciences, the expectation is generally that you will contribute during discussion in graduate seminars. The specific expectations vary. In some courses, you need to run a whole class or part of a class with PowerPoint and content that you developed in advance. Students often (not always – your results may vary) find that type of participation easier because it is a structured, prepared contribution. But today I’m referring to more informal, but no less important, discussions where you participate in a discussion of a specific reading, set of readings, or specific topic. In some courses, a portion of your course grade relies on class participation (I often do make class participation part of the grade in graduate seminars).
 
Students approach this expectation with varying degrees of enthusiasm… and dread. Some students love the opportunity to share their reactions and opinions, and like the switch from more lecture-oriented course sessions to more interactive sessions. Other students are petrified at the idea of having to speak up in this informal way. Here are some things that I’ve learned through the years that students may find helpful for grad class participation – both for students who are afraid to speak up, and for students who speak up frequently but don’t receive the participation grade they would like.

• Come to class prepared: It should go without saying that if you want to contribute to class discussion, you should have done the readings in a thoughtful way. While you are reading, take notes on questions you have or points you may want to make during class. Don’t ask a question unless you’ve done the reading. It’s awkward when someone asks a question that makes it clear the student didn’t do the assigned readings. It’s fine to ask for clarification of ideas in the reading you didn’t fully understand, as long as you make it clear that you actually read it. Thoroughly reading the assigned papers and coming to class prepared also makes it easier to jump in when someone makes a point that relates to notes you have taken. It’s easier to make connections to others’ points if you all read the same papers.
  
• What are good contributions? There’s obviously a range of points that will further the discussion. But, much like in response papers, the types of points that can particularly impress the instructor, or can help move discussion forward, include:
  • Making connections between one or more readings
  • Making connections between theoretical constructs and empirical findings
  • Making connections to earlier weeks or, sometimes, to other courses
  • Saying something appropriately critical of a reading (but not just criticizing for the sake of criticizing)
  • Thinking about extensions/applications. For instance, can we apply these findings to intervention or clinical settings? 
  • Responding to other students’ comments
  • Disagreeing with other students’ comments, as long as it’s respectful
  • In the context of student presentations, asking classmates a question or following up on one of their points
  • Considering other ways to measure constructs in empirical work
  • Based on questions or future directions the authors posed, thinking about how to respond to those points
  • Considering cultural changes over time, and how applicable the theory or findings are in light of these changes, particularly if the reading is more than 10 years old. Do these ideas still apply in the current world?
  • How universal is this perspective? That is, can the theory be applied to people of all possible categories all over the world?
  • Describing your own thoughts on a perspective, e.g., I really liked this theory because…
• Ask questions: Asking the instructor or other students questions is always a relatively easy way to contribute. Simple questions to ask include:
  • Clarification questions
  • Has anyone ever considered this research topic in this different context? (e.g., different population, different constructs, etc.)
  • Has there been subsequent work on this topic?
• Learning how to jump in: One thing I realized through the years is that some students in general, and international students in particular, can find it challenging to jump into discussions. I’ve had students say that they have an idea but that so many other people contribute that by the time the discussion quiets down, it feels too late to make that point (or the class has moved onto a new point). So, even learning some key phrases for jumping in can be useful to students. Here are some phrases that students may find useful:
  • Related to Sara’s point…
  • Following up on Nate’s point…
  • I also wanted to say that…
  • That part of the paper made me think about…
  • That’s an interesting point. I also thought that…
  • Does that make you think about…?
  • Given what Carla said I wonder if…
  • I see what you mean about X. I also wonder if…
• Apply the concepts to your own research area: It can be interesting to classmates if from time to time you share how a particular theory or research area may apply to your own area of research – you are extending the topic and bringing in new ideas. Just don’t be the student who every single week pulls the week’s topic back to your own area of research.
• Sharing personal experiences: The issue of sharing personal experiences is a challenging one. I find that some students, rather than thinking about the work at a higher, conceptual level, think about the reading in terms of how it relates to their own lives (not even their own research). Which sometimes is fine. But there is always the student who, every week, turns the readings into self-disclosure that seems to go beyond that week’s readings. The, “my brother used to do that” student. I used to just let these students go when they talked about these personal experiences, because as an instructor, I find it awkward to stop them (how do you interrupt a student talking about her parents’ divorce?). But once, someone noted in my teaching evaluations that they wished I had done more to stop students’ discussion of personal experience. Since then, I’m more aware when a student goes into “my brother used to do that” mode. Instead of cutting the student off, though, I try to bring the student back to the topic, which is something you could also try to do if you want to share a personal experience. So, for instance, if the topic is parenting style and adolescent outcomes, and a student shares that her parents used to be really strict, and her brother was rebellious, I might then ask, does that illustrate the expected outcome of an authoritarian parent? What would the readings suggest your parents should have done differently to lead to your brother being less rebellious? How could the reading be used as general parenting advice? So, if you want to share a personal experience, make sure that it clearly relates to, and expands on, the readings rather than simply… sharing a personal experience.

 
Do you find it challenging to participate in grad class discussion? What tricks do you use?
 
“Participating in graduate seminar discussions first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 20, 2018.”

Wesche, R., Kreager, D. A., & Lefkowitz, E. S. (in press). Sources of social influence on adolescents’ alcohol use. Journal of Research on Adolescence.

Peer relationships contribute to adolescents’ alcohol use, but the mechanisms are not fully known. Adolescents may influence each other’s attitudes; they may model each other’s behaviors; or they may spend time in unstructured socializing settings without adult supervisors present. In this paper, we considered all three potential sources of influence: attitudes, behaviors, and unstructured socializing. We also considered three different types of peers: friends, romantic partners, and romantic partners’ friends.
 
We used data from the PROSPER study, a longitudinal study of rural adolescents followed beginning in sixth grade. Each wave, adolescents nominated friends and romantic partners, and we used these data to determine friends’, romantic partners’, and romantic partner’s friends’ alcohol attitudes and behaviors. We used participant report of unstructured socializing with friends and romantic partners, and romantic partners’ reports for unstructured socializing with romantic partners’ friends.
 
Behavior: Adolescents were drunk more frequently in waves when their friends, romantic partners, and romantic partners’ friends were drunk more frequently. However, when all in the same model, only friends’ and romantic partners’ friends’ behaviors remained significant.
 
Attitudes: adolescents were drunk more frequently in waves when their friends, romantic partners, and romantic partners’ friends had more positive alcohol related attitudes. However, when all in the same model, only romantic partners’ attitudes remained significant.
 
Unstructured socializing: Unstructured socializing was not associated with adolescents’ drunkenness.However, there was an interaction with time for unstructured socializing with friends. Older adolescents increased their drunkenness frequency when they engaged in more frequent unstructured socializing with friends, but this association was not there at earlier ages. In addition, there was an interaction with gender and time for unstructured socializing of romantic partners with friends. Older girls increased their drunkenness frequency when their romantic partners engaged in more frequent unstructured socializing with friends.
 
Finding suggest that multiple peer relationships matter for alcohol use. Findings also indicate that the mechanisms differ by type of relationship. Friends’ and partners’ friends’ behavior seem to matter more than their attitudes. In contrast, romantic partners’ attitudes matter more than their behaviors. It may be that friends and partners’ friends serve as behavioral models, whereas romantic partners’ beliefs may have more influence. This difference may be because we limited friends to same sex friends, and partners to heterosexual partners, adolescents may model peers of the same sex, but, within a romantic context, adhere to the belief system of the other sex. Findings also suggest the increasing importance of unstructured socializing as a potential setting for dangerous levels of alcohol use.
 
“Adolescents’ friends, romantic partners, and romantic partners’ friends matter for alcohol use first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 18, 2018.”

Last week I wrote about some general guidelines for writing reaction papers and other grad class papers. Today I want to cover some smaller issues that arise in writing graduate papers.
 
Multiple times in my upper level undergraduate courses I’ve had students complain that I marked off for writing quality – spelling, grammar, clarity. Students’ argument is generally, I already took my W (writing) course, why should I be graded on writing in a non-W course?
 
Hopefully by graduate school you recognize that clear, accurate writing is important in any writing setting [well, hopefully you realize this in undergrad, but if not…]. So, here are some things to be aware of in your writing. Note that these issues are based on ones that I’ve noticed most frequently in graduate student class papers. Some of them arise more frequently because of the kinds of classes I teach (e.g., adolescence vs. adolescent).

• Identify your writing foibles: A general point is that everyone has different writing issues. The ones I’m listing are those I notice frequently; yours may be different. Start to notice what errors your instructors and/or advisors note on your writing. And then be aware of them. I know for myself, for instance, I have issues with consistency. So before I submit a paper, I figure out what terms I am using interchangeably, decide which ones I want, and go through and search and replace. I had an international student who had great English, but often confused she and he. Figure out yours, and check for them before submitting papers.
• Tense switching: An easy one to go back through your paper and check on. Make sure that you are not being inconsistent.             
  • Incorrect example: Lifetime rates of kissing and touching are similarly high for male and female adolescents and college students (Garcia et al., 2008; O’Sullivan et al., 2007; Regan et al., 2004), but reported daily rates were higher for female than male students (Patrick et al., 2015).
  • Corrected: Lifetime rates of kissing and touching are similarly high for male and female adolescents and college students (Garcia et al., 2008; O’Sullivan et al., 2007; Regan et al., 2004), but reported daily rates ARE higher for female than male students (Patrick et al., 2015).
• Singular/plural switching: Make sure that you consistently use singular or plural. So don’t go back and forth between describing people vs. a person. For instance:
  • Incorrect: An adolescent who feels rejected by his/her peers may be less open to seeking out new friendships. Feeling rejected by peers, therefore, may lead adolescents to perpetuate future rejection.
  • Correct:  ADOLESCENTS who feel rejected by THEIR peers may be less open to seeking out new friendships. Feeling rejected by peers, therefore, may lead adolescents to perpetuate future rejection.
• Too long sentences: Think about your sentence length. You will lose the reader if it goes on too long. It’s relatively easy to break up your points into two separate sentences.
• Contractions: Avoid contractions in formal writing. I get to use them in blog posts; but don’t use them in manuscripts, theses, or class papers
• While vs. although/whereas: Use WHILE for comparing time. Use ALTHOUGH or WHEREAS for comparing arguments:
  • Incorrect: While limited past work has examined longitudinal changes, our findings are in line with prior cross-sectional work…
  • Correct: ALTHOUGH limited past work has examined longitudinal changes, our findings are in line with prior cross-sectional work…
  • Incorrect: Some research demonstrates similar reported rates of couple-level oral contraception use for men and women, while other research demonstrates…
  • Correct: Some research demonstrates similar reported rates of couple-level oral contraception use for men and women, WHEREAS other research demonstrates…
  • Correct: While the participants completed surveys, the researcher surreptitiously rated their Tanner level.
• Since vs. because: Use BECAUSE for logical arguments; only use SINCE to describe time.
  • Incorrect: Since multilevel models allow for incomplete data, we retained all measurements…
  • Correct: BECAUSE multilevel models allow for incomplete data, we retained all measurements…
  • Correct: Researchers have recognized the value of human subjects protection since several high profile unethical research studies.
• That/which: This rule has taken me the longest to learn of any grammar rule, I think. Use THAT if the clause (defined as a restricted clause) is critical to the sentence’s meaning. Use WHICH to add additional information (nonrestrictive clause).
  • Future research might consider whether such health benefits are especially true for nonpenetrative behaviors, WHICH do not have accompanying risks of unwanted physical health outcomes.
  • We excluded behaviors THAT do not have accompanying risks of unwanted physical health outcomes from other analyses.
• Relationships/associations: People have relationships; variables have associations. This distinction is particularly important when writing about relationships. Otherwise, you end up with sentences like “the relationship between relationship satisfaction and depression was…”
• Male/female vs. women/men or boy/girl: APA style says to only use male/female as adjectives when referring to humans; use them as nouns only for non-humans. Use women/men or boy/girl for humans. Yes, this wording can be challenging when describing adolescents. Depending on the age, we sometimes use boys/girls, sometimes young men/young women, sometimes male adolescents/female adolescents.
• Adolescents vs. adolescence: For whatever reason, students often mix up these two forms. I know if asked which is used when they could quickly identify; I guess because they sound similar, in writing quickly students sometimes mistype them.
• Plural vs. possessive: Students often use apostrophes when they intend the plural form, or vice versa.
• Others: See my other posts for how to dis the this; use consistent ordering (different from consistent terms); and vanquish the vague.

 
Getting a handle on these issues, and your other writing foibles, early in your academic career isn’t just about getting better grades. It’s about your ability to communicate your ideas and your research with other academics and outside of academia.

What are your writing foibles?
 
“ first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 13, 2018.”

Lefkowitz, E. S., Wesche, R., Picci, G., & Hochgraf, A. K. (in press). Daily associations between kissing and affect during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Journal of Research on Adolescence.
 
A few weeks ago I wrote about our paper considering what distinguishes first year college students who have never kissed a partner from students who have. We followed up that paper by examining daily associations between kissing and affect in the same sample. Our examination of kissing and affect was motivated by a normative developmental framework, and an interest in understanding the value of kissing during adolescence and the transition to adulthood. We know that kissing is a meaningful and important experience for several reasons.  

Prior work in this area considered predominantly between person differences – do people who kiss (ever) or people who kiss more frequently differ from those who never kiss or kiss less frequently? In this paper, we used daily diary data to consider whether positive and negative affect on a given day was associated with kissing on that day. We used seven semesters of data, with students completing daily diaries for two weeks each semester.
 
We found that kissing was associated with affect at the daily level – students reported more positive and less negative affect on days they kissed compared to other days. This association existed even after controlling for a number of known correlates of affect, such as vaginal sex, weekend days, relationship status, and demographic factors. A number of control variables were also associated with affect, which we describe in detail in the paper.
 
Thus, our findings demonstrate that it is not simply that students who tend to kiss more frequently have more positive well-being. Instead, it’s that on days when students kiss a partner, they experience more positive and less negative affect. These findings inform comprehensive sex education, suggesting that such programs could incorporate an emphasis on the value of kissing as an alternative to vaginal sex if individuals do not feel emotionally ready, or do not have the means to adequately protect themselves from STI’s or unintended pregnancy. 
 
“Late Adolescents Are Happier on Days They Kiss first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 11, 2018.”

Last week I wrote about reading journal articles and chapters for graduate courses. For many graduate courses, once you have finished reading, you have to create a written product. Oftentimes the format is a reaction paper. Many students never had to write reaction papers in undergrad, so it is a new format as a first year grad student. Other times the instructor may provide questions or prompts for you to frame your paper. Either way, though, you are frequently taking multiple readings and trying to respond in a clear way that goes beyond summarizing the readings and presents your own ideas.
 
Here are some suggestions for writing strong reaction papers:
 

• Citations: I know I sound like a broken record, but cite any sources. Sometimes students think that because they are writing about a reading assigned for class, they do not need to provide a citation. You still do. You need to attribute the source, and you need to start good habits of citing other people’s ideas, even if you aren’t quoting word for word.
• Stick to the page/word limit: Most reaction papers have word limits. Instructors do not only place word limits because they don’t want to read too much (though let’s be honest, that could be part of the motivation). If there’s a word limit, it means the instructor thinks you can achieve the task in that many words or pages. The rest of your career will be filled with word limits, for journals, grant applications, tenure narratives, etc. Practice sticking to them.
• Avoid repetition: How do you stick to the page/word limit? Get to the point quickly, and avoid repetition. Just about any time I have graded a paper that is too long it is quickly obvious to me that there are redundancies that could be cut. Or…
• Avoid irrelevant details: there are irrelevant details that do not need to be in the paper. Rarely does a reaction paper need to include specific details about the sample, such as the sample size or how the sample was recruited. Of course, there are exceptions if relevant to a point you are making, but make sure that what you write responds to the prompt or moves your arguments along.
• Be clear, don’t be vague: Be specific about what you say, and avoid being vague. Vague language does nothing to forward your argument.
• Make connections: I’ve previously discussed the importance of integrating across multiple studies in journal article introductions. Integration and making connections are also important in reaction papers. Instructors do not want you to simply summarize the readings. They know the papers – they assigned them. Instructors want you to demonstrate your own critical thinking. To do so, you need to integrate across the readings, and make connections between them.
• Limitations/future directions: Another way to demonstrate your own critical thinking is to describe limitations of prior theories/research, and suggest future directions in this area. I’ve previously written about how, in an article introduction, you shouldn’t focus on others’ weaknesses but instead should write about your strengths. A reaction paper is a bit different in that you aren’t presenting your own data/analyses, so you have to spend more time critiquing prior work. Prior work often has flaws, and it’s fine to critique it. However, do remember that just because someone didn’t ask a specific research question in their work, doesn’t mean their study was flawed. It just means they asked a different question. You can discuss new directions/next steps without calling it a flaw in prior work. One pet peeve of mine is when writers (not just students) suggest future work without explaining why. An easy go to is, future work should consider samples that are X. E.g., this sample was all White and middle class, and future work should consider more diverse populations. That’s probably true, but explain why. What differences might you predict? Perhaps families from lower economic status have fewer resources and thus time spent supervising homework might be more challenging for that sample, and less indicative of poorer parenting quality. Explain why considering these other groups may be important.  
• Know your instructor: I would never suggest catering to your professors. But paying attention to your instructors and the kinds of arguments they may can be useful in thinking about the kinds of arguments they may find compelling. It can also be useful in the details. In grad school, we had an instructor who often used the expression “on the one hand… on the other hand” during lecture. I made sure that every reaction paper used those phrases, and the instructor consistently wrote “good point!” next to those points in particular. Other instructors might prefer a more one sided perspective. You can get a sense of the instructor, and write accordingly.
• Outlines: When you are working to improve your writing, I recommend two outlines. First, write an outline before you start writing, to help organize your writing. I imagine everyone knows about that outline already. But I also recommend writing a second outline of your paper after you finish writing, based on your actual paper. This second outline helps demonstrate the logical flow (or lack thereof) of your paper, can point out repetition to you, and generally helps you see your paper in another way.
• Don’t write the first sentence first: Students often get stuck on first sentences. Jump in, and return to it later.
• Timing: Do not start your paper the day before. There is no way you can fully proofread your paper if you write it all in one day. Write it at least 2 days before, so you can reread it the day before. I even save drafts of every blog post I write and read them 24+ hours later before posting them. I still have errors, as I don’t spend as much time rewriting them as I would more formal writing, but I definitely notice and fix errors and find ways to make my points more clearly.
• Read aloud: If you’re struggling with awkward writing, try reading your paper aloud. It can make a huge difference in noticing when your writing is awkward or unclear.
• Talk to your professor: If you want to improve your reaction papers, and aren’t sure how, go talk to your professor about one you’ve already written and received feedback on. Don’t go in asking to get a better grade on that paper. Go in asking to understand how to improve in the future. Professors want their students to do well, and are generally happy when students reach out to try to improve. They just don’t like grade grubbing.  

 
“How to Write Strong Papers in Grad School first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 6, 2018.”

Waterman, E. A., Wesche, R., & Lefkowitz, E. S. (in press). Longitudinal correlates of peer sexual communication quality in young adulthood. Sexuality Research and Social Policy.

I’m excited to say that today is July 25th. But (hopefully) you are reading this post on September 4th. Which means I have succeeded this summer at getting ahead of blog posting, and getting 2 posts up a week, consistently from May 25 through at least September 4. I feel like Andrew Gelman. Okay not, because he posts daily and I think he is now something like nine months ahead (how? how?). And also for many other reasons that have nothing to do with frequency of blog posting. But still, I am going to savor this moment of feeling happy about it before I start realizing there is less than one month of summer left and I need to turn my attention elsewhere.
 
And now, turning my attention to today’s topic. In my own prior research, and more broadly, frequently in the literature, people consider how communication with friends about sex is associated with outcomes of interest, particularly sexual attitudes and/or behavior. In this paper, we wanted to understand what is associated with peer communication itself. That is, how might we be able to understand characteristics that relate to better or worse communication with friends about sex?  In addition, we were interested in within person differences. That is, not just knowing how people who feel comfortable talking about sex different from people who don’t. But, more specifically, understanding what differentiates when people feel more or less comfortable talking about sex. For instance, we didn’t just want to understand whether being sexually active was associated with better communication about sex (a between person question). We wanted to understand whether students had better sex communication quality in semesters that they were sexually active compared to semesters they were not (a within person question).
 
We considered individual characteristics (gender, sexual behavior, sexual attitudes) and peer characteristics (romantic relationship status, frequency of peer sexual communication, and perceived peer approval of sex). We followed college students across college, assessing them four times from Fall of first year to Fall of fourth year. We asked about sex communication with their closest same sex friend at university.
 
Overall, quality of communication with friends about sex improved across college.
 
Individual factors: Women had better quality communication than men. Although individuals who were sexually active during more semesters generally reported better communication quality, there were no within person associations with behavior. However, both the between and within person levels were significant for sexual attitudes. That is, overall, students who had more conservative attitudes about sex had worse communication about sex. And, during semesters when students had more conservative attitudes, they had worse communication about sex.
 
Peer characteristics: Peer communication quality did not differ by romantic relationship status. Frequency of communication mattered at both the between and within person levels. That is, students who overall talked about sex more had better communication, and students had better communication in semesters when they talked about sex more. Perceived peer approval was not associated with quality of communication.
 
In summary, findings demonstrate that both individual and peer characteristics matter for communication quality. Findings also have important implications for peer led health promotion programs, which often rely on trained peers to lead sex-related discussions.
 
“Peer Sexual Communication Across College first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on September 4, 2018.”