To get started with this assignment, you will need to choose a film and three interpersonal communication concepts that you can relate to your film. Consult your textbook or the Communications Concept Grid to find appropriate concepts, which may include self concept, culture, listening, nonverbal communication, or verbal communication.

For example, one concept I might choose for Freaky Friday (2003) is kinesics, which is a study of nonverbal body movements, gestures, and facial expressions. As you can see in the movie poster, the posture and facial expressions of the mother and daughter communicate who is trapped in which body.

Remember - you are looking for articles about the CONCEPT, not about the film. It's up to you to connect the information about your concepts to the film you have chosen. In this example, I'd want to look for an article about kinesics and then use the information from that article to help me make my argument that the posture and facial expressions of the characters are communicating who each person really is. The article itself will have nothing to do with Freaky Friday.

Academic Journal Articles: By Professionals For Professionals

Academic journal articles are often identified by:

Confused? 1.5 minute YouTube video from the University of Cincinnati about how to identify an academic article.

This chart will also help you figure out whether you are looking at a magazine article or an academic journal article.

Some (but not all) academic articles undergo a peer-review process. This means that before an article is published, a panel of experts in the field review the article and ensure it has the highest quality.

Start on the Research Databases & Online Resources page and choose PsycARTICLES. For this paper, the Psychology databases work best, but you may also expand your search to include other database if you are having trouble finding articles.

Click on the "Choose Databases" link to add Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection to your search. Now you're saving some time by searching two databases at once! If you are having trouble finding articles, you can try adding in some of our other databases to your search as well, including Academic Search Complete, Humanities Source, ERIC, or Social Sciences Full Text.

Set up your search to pull up what you need.

• Since you are looking for an academic journal meant for professionals, search for the technical term. That's what a professional would use when discussing the concept. If you get too many articles, try using the "Select A Field" menu to only search in specific fields, like Title, for your term.
• Limit your search to FULL TEXT by checking the box. Now you'll be able to read all of the articles that come up!
• Limit your search by YEAR OR PUBLICATION or PUBLISHED DATE to retrieve articles that are published in the time frame specified by your instructor.
• Limit your search to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. Now you know all results will be Academic/Professional articles.

Too many articles returned? Try adding in another search term. For Freaky Friday, I might want to add words like mother or child.

Trouble searching? Try the EBSCO video tutorials for help setting up a search or reading an article. Or ask a librarian for help.

What you need:

• Additional Academic Articles 
• Magazine Articles (hint: magazine articles are meant for the general public and would use more general terms - like "nonverbal communication" or "body language," instead of kinesics).

How to find them:

• Try different databases! PsycARTICLES and Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection may have what you need, but so might Academic Search Complete or Academic OneFile.
• Uncheck the "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals" limit  from the search screen or results screen.
• Sort by source types to view magazine or scholarly journals.

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