Guidelines for preparing papers
Your tasks
- Choose a topic, find primary sources, and have your plan approved
- Plan your paper with an outline (to be turned in to the TA). The goals
of the paper are:
- Review the relevant theories and data from your primary sources
- Critically assess them:
- Which theory or theories does the data support? Back up your claims
explicitly.
- Propose an experiment that would either distinguish between two
theories or test a prediction of one theory
- Write the paper and hand it in by the last day of class.
Choose a topic
This must be selected from among the topics covered in the course, and
must be more specific than one of the major topics in the course. For example,
instead of "attention", you might choose "inattentional blindness", or rather than "language",
you might choose "top-down knowledge and visual word recognition." If you
are having trouble finding a topic, you might move on to the next step,
and browse some current journals.
Find some primary sources
Prior to your meeting with the TA or professor to have your topic approved,
you must find at least 3 or 4 primary sources. The best source for this
research is
"PsycInfo"
, an electronic database available through the library. You ought to be
able to come up with some good keywords from the assigned readings. If you
need more help, try the on-line help, ask for for help at the Psychology Library,
or come see me during my office hours.
Some of the best cognitive psychology and cognitive science journals are
available on-line through the Columbia Library. You might browse recent
issues of any of the following:
Psychological
Science
Cognitive
Psychology
Cognitive
Science
Trends in
Cognitive Sciences
Journal of
Memory and Language
You can also get access to full-text (html) versions of articles published
in the journals of the American Psychological Association, such as Psychological
Review, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology (General, Human Perception
& Performance, and Learning, Memory and Cognition) at the
PsycArticles
site.
Have your topic approved
Make an appointment with the TA or professor to have your topic approved
(see course homepage for the deadline). Bring (1) a brief, written description
of your topic to give to the TA or professor, including the 3 or 4 (or more)
primary sources you have found so far and (2) those primary sources (just to show the prof or TA, not extras).
Structuring your term paper
Don't try to write your essay without a plan. Very few people can pull
off writing a solid essay without an outline. I recommend that you use the
3-part thesis format. The basic parts are (1) introduction and thesis statement,
(2) body, and (3) summary and conclusions.
- Introduction and thesis statement
- Tell readers what you're going to say
- The emphasis should be on the 'big picture' (what is the issue you're
addressing?) but you should also foreshadow the major points you'll cover
in the body of your essay
- Here's a very terse example, with the thesis statement underlined:
In many areas of cognition, there are debates over the relative
importance of nature and nurture. This is especially true in the domain
of language acquisition. I will review evidence for primary roles of nature
and nurture in language learning. Then, based on some recent experiments
using artificial grammar learning paradigms, I will argue that many theories
over-emphasize the role of nature.
- Tell them the details, with one major point per paragraph
- Tell them what you said
- The emphasis should again be on the big picture, and especially
on the implications of the arguments you've made (or summarized, etc.),
and how they support your thesis
This may look like a redudant format. It is. But redundancy can be a good
thing when you are trying to articulate a complex argument. The trick is
to be redundant without repeating yourself verbatim; foreshadow in the intro,
details in the body, and implications in the summary and conclusions. Note
that this format is what is used in nearly all the primary source readings
this semester.
Write and turn in your outline
This should be broken down according to the three-part structure I just
described. Include a thesis statement in the first section (see above).
Use a standard outline format (e.g., number each major heading and use
letters to label minor headings, etc.). Writing an outline will actually save
you time and improve your writing. When I do this, I notice connections I
hadn't seen before, as well as logical inconsistencies in the flow from point
to point. If you have a plan for connecting your points, the writing comes
a lot easier, and you're less likely to write yourself into a corner.
Make sure you turn your outline in by the date specified on the course
homepage!
Writing your term paper
We will hand back your outline with comments as soon as we can. But don't
wait too long to start writing; your paper is due the last day of class.
Do use a spell checker before you hand your paper in. Do
proof-read your paper. Your paper will be evaluated on structure
(20%), logic (30%), integration of primary sources (30%) and quality
of writing (10%).
Be careful not to plagarize. Short paraphrases are acceptable,
but your content, structure and thesis may not mimic or borrow substantially
from any source. Plagarizing will be dealt with harshly.