See the attached PDF for instructions.
Psychology Final
Four to seven pages (double-spaced).
Topic: My idea is to identify course topics such as schemas, specifically the Schematic
Processing Principle, the forgetting curve, and flashbulb memories to make sense of the
experience I had when I broke my left arm in fifth grade at a trampoline park and how I
still vividly remember it.
Instructions. Use the following section headings:
1. Issue. Begin by describing the personal goal, problem, experience, or
phenomenon that you will be addressing. Explain briefly why it is interesting
or important to you. (One paragraph)
2. Course Topics. Identify the topics from the course that you will be applying,
including the relevant facts or theories you will make use of. (One paragraph)
3. Application. Apply information from the course to analyze your experience,
create a plan for achieving your goal, find a solution to your problem, etc. Be
sure to cite the specific sources for the ideas you are applying. You can also
refer to general principles from the course readings and lectures. (2 to 3
pages)
4. Empirical Evaluation. Evaluate the strength of the evidence for the “facts”
you are applying from topics in the course. If, for example, you applied the
idea of “retrieval practice” to help you study more effectively, you might say
something like, “The idea that retrieval practice leads to better memory is
something we can be highly confident is true, because it has been repeatedly
supported by well-controlled experimental evidence.” Or if you applied the
idea of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to identify things that were interfering
with your academic achievement you might say, “Although intuitively
appealing, the ideas described in Maslow’s Hierarchy are things we can have
very little confidence are true, because they are mostly based on only intuition
and observational research, not repeated and well-controlled
experiments.” Try to cite specific empirical evidence to support your
conclusions whenever possible. This can include primary sources such as
journal articles. (The library has a Guide for Research that is very helpful.) (2
to 3 pages)
5. Conclusion. Sum up what you have done, and briefly discuss which
information from the course you found most applicable to your issue. Also
briefly talk about what questions you still have or what further information you
think you might need. (1 to 2 paragraphs).
6. References. Provide an APA-style reference list for any source you used in
your paper, whether it is a journal article, textbook chapter, course lecture,
website, content-generating tool such as an AI system, or anything else that
is not common knowledge or your own words and ideas. Each entry in the
References list should also correspond to an APA-style in-text citation in the
text of your paper. Each entry in the References list must include a DOI, or if
no DOI is available it must include a URL that links to the source.
• Following instructions. Are the 5 sections listed in the instructions above
clearly labeled and in the correct order? Does it follow instructions for form
and content in general?
• Application. Does it apply relevant ideas from the course in a way that
makes sense? Are they specific, or only vague and general ideas from the
course? Does the way that they are applied to your issue make sense?
• Empirical Evaluation. Is specific empirical evidence cited for the ideas that
are being applied? Are references provided? Is there a clear evaluation of
how confident we should be that the ideas are true, and are clear reasons
given for that evaluation?
• Clarity and style. Is it written clearly and logically? Do paragraphs have
clear topic sentences and supporting ideas? Is everything written in
complete, grammatical sentences? Are there too many direct quotations?
• Length and formatting. Is it 4 to 7 pages of text, not including title,
references, etc.? Are the font-size and margins reasonable? Is it double-
spaced?
