Excelsior Psychology research and writing in the major (PSY 490)

[WeAintGotNoBadges]

Hi. I'd appreciate some content feedback on PSY 490, Excelsior's Research and Writing in the Majors course for the psychology major.

I have read the existing threads on this board, as well as the course description, but they don't really address course content in details. I'm trying to see how could prep for this course to make it easier, as my workload is going to be hellish when I actually take it next quarter, due to other constraints. I understand that the course is not self-paced.

I know that the final product is a paper in APA format. What is the number of pages (or number of words?) for the paper, and what is the required content (e.g. hypothesis/methodology/experiments/stats/conclusions)?

Is the subject/content imposed or suggested by the professor, or is it something to be chosen by the student? In the latter case, do you have to make the content up (such as coming up with your own made-up hypothesis, experiment(s) and stats content); and if not--i.e. you have to work from real existing experiments and data-- how do you avoid plagiarism?

What material would be useful to review (on the web or book form) to see examples or approximations of the format for the final paper?

As you can tell, I'm pretty much in the dark. I know that I may be on the wrong track here, so please set me straight if this is the case

Thanks in advance for any info,

W.

[TMW2010]

I just finished my R&W for the Social Sciences class. When I signed up for it, there wasn't any individual field classes (Crim Justice/Psych/Whatever) so it was basically me (psych major), a bunch of CJ majors, an English major (She got to do an MLA format paper,) and someone who was working towards a teaching degree.

The paper my class had to do was argumentative, so we really didn't end up using the APA headings system (or, at least no one who's paper I'd seen had used it.). We came up with an issue important to our field of study, picked a side to support, and the research was articles, books, and so on. For example, my topic (and paper) ended up being 'The RxP Initiative - Why Psycholgoists Should Be Given Prescriptive Authority.' So, there's no experimentation on your part, its just finding data & articles that support your thesis, along with the various arguments and response to opponents of your thesis.

In the first 3 weeks of the class, it was a bunch of discussion topics on the picking & formulating a thesis and such, and we had to decide on our thesis and start researching articles and books for the paper. at the end of week 3, we had to turn in an annotated bibliograph of four of the sources we'd chosen so far. Week 4 & 5 was more discussion, with a full (8 references minimum) annotated bibliography of the references you're using in the paper. (The syllabus said that by week 8 you should have 12-15, but I got away with less.)

By midweek of week 6, the draft of our paper was due, and by the end of week 6, you were expected to have done a peer review of another class-member's paper. Week 7 was revision, and then week 8 the finished paper is due for grading.

The requirements for the paper were:

• Title page
  
• An 8-10 page esay with an introduction, body and conclusion
  
• In text citations for your sources (as necessary)
  
• A minimum of two quotes
  
• Use of 12-15 sources indicated that will be indicated in the item #6 below
  
• Bibliography, Works Cited or References page, depending on your chosen style
  
• Abstract/Summary
  

The sites we used a lot were
The Purdue OWL site
& Diana Hacker's writing site (which I can't think of the link right now, but you can google. She's also the author of the 'required' writer's guidebook for the course.

A note on the books 'required' for the course.. I didn't use my writers guide once (Everything it talks about seems to be available on the web anyway) and I did use the APA guide a little.. At least Amazon had it for $12 when I ordered it for the class. If I could go back, I wouldn't have picked up the writer's guide by Hacker.. All it did was sit on my desk. YMMV.

Before this class, I'd not written a paper more than two or so pages in length. The teacher I had for my class was very communicative and answered a ton of questions that I had (By the end of the course, I'd sent over 38 emails through the system to her, asking various questions about function, form, and what she was looking for in certain things.)

The breakdown for the class grade was
Discussion Boards 20%
Annotated Bibliography (first one) 20%
Annotated Full Bibliography (first one plus the new ones) 20%
Pro and con chart 10% (I'm not sure why this is part of the main bulk of the grade and the peer review is not... Its kinda silly.)
Final Paper 30%

A few pieces of advice on the course -
Keep up on the dicussions, because the teacher may make a comment in someone's thread that may a gotcha to watchout for when writing your paper. And it means the difference between being able to get an A and getting a c in the class if you're the type that doesn't bother with them at all.

Week 6 - When submitting the paper for the peer review, also submit it to Smartthinking (The writing tutor service that's free for EC students.) The teacher didn't give us any input on the draft on week 6, everything we got was from the peer review. If I'd gotten input from the teacher or Smartthinking, I would likely have had gotten a higher grade on my paper, just from reading the comments on my final paper. (Don't end your paragraphs with citations, end it on a dominant voice, and such like that. It doesn't cost you anything to submit it to smartthinking and they have a turnaround of a couple days, so you'll have their comments back in time to start the revision process.

Lastly, know and understand how, when, and where you need the inline citations in your paper. Otherwise, APA format is a snap (especially with the available APA templates for MS Word or some of the other WP software that's made specifically for APA format.)

[WeAintGotNoBadges]

Hi. Thanks a lot for taking the time to provide this excellent info and tips. I’ll be taking this course during the July-Aug session and now I clearly understand the format of the course and why it’s not self-paced.

I had checked out and saved the link to the Purdue web site already, based on another of your post: it has good templates and guidelines. Also, after looking up a few websites, I can see why the book will probably be redundant. I also found an APA research writing template on Diana Hacker’s web site.

Thanks again, all of this will come in very handy

W.