Project Guidelines

Project Purpose:

• Deepen students’ understanding about psychology topics that pique their individual interests
• Sharpen students’ investigative & critical thinking skills
• Introduce students to APA style
• give students an opportunity to exhibit competence outside of the written examination paradigm

Project Overview:

• Pick a topic in psychology that is of interest to you or your group.
• Prepare a 10-15 minute presentation in the manner of your choice to present to the class at the end of the semester.
• Include a complete bibliography formatted in APA style.
• Choose a presentation style that you think best captures the essence of your topic.
• Tell me what YOU think. Don’t just regurgitate what “they” said.

Scoring Criteria:

• Creativity: 20 points max
• Content: 20 points max
• Clarity: 20 points max
• Bibliography: 20 points max
• Participation: 20 points max

Project Timeline:

• Identify teams & topics Thursday, June 12, 2008
  
• Short statement/Bibliography Thursday, June 19, 2008
  
• Outlines/Mockups Thursday, June 26, 2008
  
• Presentations Wednesday, July 2, and Thursday, July 3, 2008
  

Presentation Format:

• approximately 10-15 minute presentation by all team members
• approximately 5 minutes question/answer
• time boundaries will need to be strictly monitored so that everyone has time to present
  

Some Topic Ideas:

• The Nature/Nurture Debate
• Daycare: Beneficial or harmful to child development?
• What is intelligence and how do we measure it?
• Is the nursing home environment detrimental to aging people?
  
• Compare/Contrast famous theorists (Erickson/Piaget, et cetera)
  

Some Project Ideas:

• Poster presentation
• PowerPoint/Keynote presentation
• Make up a game/study aid & demonstrate
• Write a song
• Perform a skit
• Movie/Picture montage

Important Points to Remember:

• Use proper spelling and grammar
• Cite everything!
• Have fun & be creative

APA style (light - very light)

Basic page setup:
1" Margins
Times New Roman or similar font (no fancy/fun/weird fonts)
Same font throughout
Font size 12 throughout

Citations:
Journal Articles:
Author, J. B. & Another, T. C. (2007). Title of the journal article. Title of the Journal, (volume#)issue#, 134-145.

Books:
Author, J. B. & Another, T. C. (2007). Title of the Book. City: Publisher.

Websites:
Author, J. B. & Another, T. C. (2007). Webpage Title. Available: http://psyc2301.blogspot.com. Accessed January 17, 2007.

Common writing pitfalls!
Know the Difference!

There - They’re - Their
There - someplace away from the speaker, as in “over there”
They’re - a contraction meaning, “They are.”
Their - a possessive pronoun meaning, “Something belonging to them."

Its - It’s
It’s - a contraction meaning, “It is.”
Its - a possessive pronoun meaning, “something belonging to it.”