Psychology 2932 -
Lanning
Spring 2008
Revised Syllabus for Psychology 2932:
Writing in Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences
Psychology 2932
is intended to help
students to write more fluidly and clearly.
To some extent, clear
writing requires clear thinking, and so our discussion in this course should
help students to think more clearly about psychology and human behavior. Writing (both in and
out of class), reading, discussion, and peer review are the primary methods we will use
to achieve these goals. A portion of student work will be an iterative
(draft, revise, resubmit) process, under the guidance of the instructor.
Instructor
Dr. Kevin Lanning (lanning@fau.edu). My office is
WB 220; office hours are
Tuesdays 8-9:30 and Thursdays 8-9:30 and 1-4.
Requirements and grading
The class will center on written
assignments based on readings from three sources - the psychology journal
Current Directions in Psychological Science, the periodical
The New York Review
of Books, and the website
The
Edge. Eight of these written assignments (numbers
1-4, 6-8, and 10 in the table below) should each be
approximately 1.5 - 2 pages long. These will be
graded on an acceptable/unacceptable basis.
Assignments 5 and 9 will be expanded treatments of previously submitted
papers, and each should be 4-5 pages in length. Taken together, these
assignments will be the basis for 80% of course grades.
The remaining 20% of course grades
will be based on contributions in the classroom. Students will either
(a) lead discussion of one of the short papers between February 26 and March
18 or (b) provide a brief presentation of one of the two longer papers
between April 1 and April 15. In addition, students
will also be expected to attend class,
review the papers of classmates, and contribute constructively to class
discussion.
All but the first and last written
assignments should be
electronically submitted using the following format:
Send your paper to
lanning@fau.edu. Your subject
line should read "Writing in psychology."
The paper should be
double-spaced, with margins of at least one inch, and sent as an
attachment in MS Word or compatible format. The name of the
attached file should combine three elements separated by spaces: your
last name, "writing sp08", and the number of the assignment (e.g., "smith
writing sp08 2.doc").
For credit, papers must be
received by Monday 5 PM (the day before class).
The header for your email should
look something like the illustration above.
Other
In
our discussion, we will occasionally reference The writer's FAQ, which
functions as the Honors College style manual, and is a required text for the
course.
Harris, M. (2007). The Writer's
FAQ: A pocket handbook (3rd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. (Other
editions are acceptable).
In
enrolling in this course, students agree to abide by the Honor Code of the
college, whose full text can be found
here.
