Psychology in Action PIA- 17Practice Quiz How much do you remember?
Pick the best answer.
- Which of the following is NOT one of the mnemonic techniques
described in this chapter?
a. method of loci
b. rote memorization
c. linking
d. peg-word
2. “My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas” is a
mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets in our solar
system (including poor, downgraded Pluto, of course). What kind
of mnemonic is this?
a. method of loci c. peg-word
b. linking d. verbal/rhythmic organization
Writing Papers
PIA.7 Describe the key steps in writing papers for college.
Several steps are involved in writing a paper, whether it be a short paper or a long one.
You should begin all of these steps well in advance of the due date for the paper (not the
night before):
- Choose a topic. The first step is to choose a topic for your paper. In some cases, the
instructor may have a list of acceptable subjects, which makes your job easier. If
that is not the case, don’t be afraid to go to your instructor during office hours and
talk about some possible topics. Try to choose a topic that interests you, one that
you would like to learn more about. The most common mistake students make is to
choose subject matter that is too broad. For example, the topic “autism” could fill a
book. A narrower focus might discuss a single form of autism in detail. Again, your
instructor can help you narrow down your topic choices. - Do the research. Find as many sources as you can that have information about
your topic. Don’t limit yourself to textbooks. Go to your school library and ask the
librarian to point you in the direction of some good scientific journals that would
have useful information on the subject. Be very careful about using the Internet to
do research: Not everything on the Internet is correct or written by true experts—
avoid other students’ papers and “encyclopedia” Web sites that can be written and
updated by darn near anyone. - Ta k e n o t e s. While reading about your topic, take careful notes to remember key
points and write down the reference that will go along with the reading. References
for psychology papers are usually going to be in APA (American Psychological
Association) style, which can be found at http://www.apastyle.org.
Ta k i n g g o o d n o t e s h e l p s y o u a v o i d u s i n g t h e m a t e r i a l s y o u f i n d i n t h e i r
exact or nearly exact form, a form of cheating we’ll discuss more in a later module
of this chapter. - Decide on the thesis. The thesis is the central message of your paper—the message
you want to communicate to your audience—which may be your instructor, your
classmates, or both, depending on the nature of the assignment. Some papers are
persuasive, which means the author is trying to convince the reader of a particular
point of view, such as “Autism is not caused by immunizations.” Some papers are
informative, providing information about a topic to an audience that may have no
prior knowledge, such as “Several forms of autism have been identified.” - Write an outline. Using your notes from all your readings, create an outline of your
paper—a kind of “road map” of how the paper will go. Start with an introduction
(e.g., a brief definition and discussion of what autism is). Then decide what the body
of the paper should be. If your paper is about a specific type of autism, for example,
your outline might include sections about the possible causes of that type. The last sec-
tion of your outline should be some kind of conclusion. For example, you might have
In earlier times, people actually had to write
or type their first, second, and sometimes
third drafts on real paper. The advent of
computers with word-processing programs
that allow simple editing and revision has no
doubt saved a lot of trees from the paper
mill. This also means there is no good
excuse for failing to write a first draft and
proofreading one’s work.