Psych Papers

Hey guys,

Life update: My least favourite thing to do is evaluate my peers' psychology papers in college. In particular because they are so bad. I just wanted to share that tidbit of info with you. I also want to briefly talk about what makes a good and bad paper.

1. Spelling
Especially in college, spelling things incorrectly is a huge deduction that I hope all of my psych classmates get. Seriously, I've never seen worse spelling errors in my life than when I have to evaluate psych papers.

2. Examples
If your paper is going to have examples, or if the criteria of the paper requires you to provide examples, make sure that they are relatable and concise. You do not want to be grasping at straws with a terrible example of a concept that no one understands.

3. Tone
The tone of a paper is often overlooked as a basis for a good paper, but it is many times what makes a paper great. This is because people don't often think that they are judging the paper on its tone, but they are. I would even argue that there is no more judged aspect of any paper than tone. One way to improve overall tone is stay out of first and second person tenses. Don't tell me what to do in your paper, and don't tell me what you do. "If you would like to train your dog to jump through a hoop, here's what I suggest you do." This is an example of the apocryphal thing that too many do. Using two tenses, "I", and "You" is a sure way to fail many college essays.

Anyway, tomorrow I will be sharing with you a scary story.
Matthew