Guidelines for preparing papers and bulletin board postings
Structuring your term paper and bulletin board postings
Don't try to write your essay without a plan. Very few people can pull off
writing a solid essay without an outline. A basic form that you might try
for both your weekly bulletin board postings and your term paper is the 3-part
thesis format. The basic parts are:
- 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
- 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.)
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 basically what is used in nearly all the readings we've
done this semester.
This might also seem like a lot of work just for your bulletin board pieces.
It will actually save you time and improve your writing. Before you start,
just take a couple minutes to make a 3-part outline, with one outlined point
per paragraph for the body. 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.
Researching your term paper
Once you've identified a topic for your paper, you're ready to find sources.
While you might find enough material in the required and recommended readings
or sources cited in those readings, you might need others or you might want
to look for current research on your topic. The best source for this research
is "PsycInfo", an electronic database available through the library.
To use it, go to a CU Library web page, e.g., the psychology library page:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/psych/
Then click on the "E-Resources" button. From there, select "Databases", and
from the next page, select "A to Z Listing". Now scroll down to or search
for PsycInfo. Click on it, and then follow the prompts until you get to the
search screen.
You ought to be able to come up with some good keywords from your initial
readings. One tricky thing about the search page is that if you click on
'perform search', it automatically does a keyword search to subject headings.
If you want instead to search for a particular author, for example, enter
the name and then click on the 'author' button (up above the search history)
instead of hitting return or clicking 'perform search'. There are also special
search buttons for title and journal, and some more advanced options.
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.