SOLUTION: 1 1 The Communication of Commitment in On-Again/Off-Again Dating Relationships Rachel K.

The Communication of Commitment in On-Again/Off-Again Dating Relationships

Rachel K. Green

Department of Communication Studies, University of San Francisco

COMS 203: Communication & Everyday Life

Dr. Eve-Anne M. Doohan

October 15, 2020

Communication of Commitment in On-Again/Off-Again Dating Relationships

Start typing your paper here. This should be an introductory paragraph in which you state the topic of your review and why it is important for communication researchers to examine this topic. You do not need to, nor should you, preview each of your sources in your introductory paragraph, although you can cite general information about your topic. For instance, I could define on-again/off-again relationships and commitment here in this first paragraph. You should offer a preview of the organization of your literature review, which should match the titles of the subheadings in your paper. A preview for this paper would look like this: This paper will examine the nature of on-again/off-again relationships, the influence of dissolution strategy on these relationships, and relational satisfaction in on-again/off-again relationships. A critique of the research will also be presented and areas of future research will be discussed.

Literature Review

The Nature of On-Again/Off-Again Relationships

This is the first section of your paper (your first “theme”). You will talk about your first theme here, appropriately citing your sources according to APA format, 6th edition. Remember that you will be focusing on the Method, Results, and Discussion sections of the sources you have reviewed, concentrating on the main findings. For example, you may cite information from Dailey, Pfiester, Jin, Beck, and Clark (2009). That is a lot of authors! So in APA format 7th edition, every time you cite a source with three or more authors you use this format: Dailey et al. (2009). This includes the first author’s last name and “et al.” references all of the co-authors. When you only have two authors, you cite both authors every time, like this: Solomon and Knoblach (2004). You can also cite material like this: Dissolution strategy seems to be related to whether relationships become cyclical or not (Dailey et al., 2009; Solomon & Knoblach, 2004). When you begin a sentence by citing the researcher(s), then the date follows in parentheses. However, if you cite the author(s) at the end of a sentence, then the entire citation is placed in parentheses (see, again, the two different examples above).

The Influence of Dissolution Strategies on the Status of On-Again/Off-Again Relationships

This is the second section of your paper (the second “theme”). Remember that you should be paraphrasing your sources and will only include direct quotes (appropriately cited) when absolutely necessary (i.e., you cannot state the material in any other way). You should only have, at most, two short (no more than one sentence in length) direct quotes in your paper. Direct quotes are always placed in quotation marks and you must provide the page number at the end of the quote. Here is an example: “Individuals experiencing increased interference from partners may quite naturally entertain doubts about the viability of their continued involvement in the relationship” (Solomon & Knobloch, 2004, p. 813). Please remember that I am demonstrating APA formatting in this paper. In your literature review, you will always discuss more than one article in every paragraph and in every section. This is because you are synthesizing across the sources and organizing the literature thematically. If you find that you are citing only one article in a paragraph and a section, then you are most likely summarizing the sources individually rather than synthesizing across the articles.

Relational Satisfaction in On-Again/Off-Again Relationships

This is your third section (the third “theme”). You should have three thematic sections of your literature review. Remember that because you are concentrating on the Method, Results, and Discussion sections of the articles you review, you should be able to avoid secondary citations. Secondary citations occur when you cite information that another author is also citing. You should avoid doing this, because it demonstrates that you have not reviewed the original source. However, if you have to do it once (in particular perhaps to provide a definition), this is how you do it: Lee (1984) found that when partners did not terminate the relationship quickly, but instead slowly “scaled down,” partners reported greater confusion about the status of the relationship (as cited in Dailey et al., 2009). This shows that I reviewed Dailey et al. (2009), but not Lee (1984), and as such the citation for Lee does not appear on my reference list.

Critique of the Literature

This is where you will offer a critique of the sources you have reviewed. Consider two aspects of the literature when formulating your critique. First, what was positive and what was limiting about the specific studies you reviewed? You may want to review aspects of the methods used (e.g., is there something limiting about the participants used, the questions asked, or the method of data collection?). Second, is there a gap in the literature that you reviewed overall? What questions about your topic do you feel are not answered by the research studies you examined? This critique of the literature should lead logically to your presentation of a hypothesis(es) and/or a research question(s). You need only pose one hypothesis or one research question, but you can pose more if you like. A hypothesis is posed when the previous research you have reviewed allows you to make a prediction (i.e., an educated guess). Hypotheses must always be grounded in previous research, never on your personal experiences or observations. A research question is asked when there is no existing research on a given subject or when there is contradictory research. In both cases, you are unable to formulate a prediction, so you instead will ask a question.

Based on the above critique of the literature, the following research question and hypotheses are posed:

RQ: Formally state your research question here.

H1: Formally state your first hypothesis here.

H2: Formally state your second hypothesis here.

References

Dailey, R. M., Hample, A. D., & Roberts, J. B. (2010). Relational maintenance in on-again/off-again relationships: An assessment of how relational maintenance, uncertainty, and commitment vary by relationship type and status. Communication Monographs, 77(1), 75-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637750903514292

Dailey, R. M., Pfiester, A., Jin, B., Beck, G., & Clark, G. (2009). On-again/off-again dating relationships: How are they different from other dating relationships? Personal Relationships, 16(1), 23-47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2009.01208.x

Solomon, D. H., & Knobloch, L. K. (2004). A model of relational turbulence: The role of intimacy, relational uncertainty, and interference from partners in appraisals of irritations. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 21(6), 795-816. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407504047838

Please note that according to APA format, if the doi (digital object identifier) is not provided (which will sometimes occur for older articles) you need to cut and paste the entire web address after the citation. Here is an example:

Please also note that the above are examples of how to cite journal articles. There are different ways of citing books and book chapters, but you should not be using books for your literature review.

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