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Paper Writing Tips for 210 Theories of Personality


A) Style

1. Be sure to follow APA style conventions throughout.
Pay special attention to formatting and style of the:
  • Title page
  • Citations in the text (only include page numbers when you are quoting directly from a source)
  • Reference page
    • See sample paper for an example of an APA style student paper.
    2. Introducing a research study:
    Cite the authors in the usual way (e.g., (Rothbard & Shaver, 1999)). Do not include the title of the paper, the authors’ institutions, and avoid introducing the study in a way that sounds like the first sentence of a story, (e.g.,“A study was conducted by Rothbard and Shaver…”).

     

    3. Use objective, scholarly language:

  • Avoid first person
  • Avoid telling personal anecdotes or stories
    •  
    4. The names of theories (psychodynamic theory, behaviorism) are not capitalized.
    B) Contents
    Make sure you read the description of the paper assignment.
    The requirements of the paper include, but are not limited to the following:
    1) Briefly describe the phenomenon you are writing about.
    2) Discuss why it is important to study the phenomenon.
    3) Describe how two personality theories (theories must be from the list contained in the syllabus) could explain the phenomenon.
    4) Summarize a piece of empirical research from a scholarly journal that is relevant to the phenomenon. In your description, be sure to include brief descriptions of the methods and measures used by the researchers and their findings. If the researchers investigated more than one question, you can focus on those aspects of the study that are most relevant to the phenomenon.
    5) In your conclusion you should analyze how these research findings are relevant to the two theoretical explanations of the phenomenon (3). When you do this analysis some questions to think about include: Do the findings support or contradict either theory? Do they raise issues not addressed by one or both of the theoretical explanations of the phenomenon? Explain.

     

    Remember:
     

    When you make a claim or statement (e.g., Depression is one of the most prevalent and disabling mood disorders among adults in North America and Europe.) you will need to back up the claim with evidence. Often your evidence will be the source of the information such as a textbook, but it can also be a published work that either provides empirical evidence or a theoretical argument that backs up the claim.


     

    The Paper is due Tuesday, November 26  in class.

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