The Assignment Process

What should I write about?

There is a list of possible topics for your paper, which can be found on the Topics page. You can choose any of these topics for your paper. However, each paper you write should address ONLY ONE of these questions. Also, each Rough Draft and Final Revision pair (i.e., one "Paper") that you write must be about a different topic.

Formatting

Header

Please use a header at the top of your paper. If you do not include this information, there’s no guarantee that your grade will be accurately reported! It is the only way we have to keep track of your work. It is therefore VERY IMPORTANT that the information you enter in the header is accurate. The header should be left-justified and match the following format:

Name: Your Name
ID: Your University-issued student ID number (PLEASE NOTE: this is NOT the same as your social security number!)
Assignment: "Rough Draft" or "Final Revision" #X
Topic: Insert the Topic here.

For example, if your name were "Jane Doe", your student ID number was 123456789 and you were submitting the Rough Draft of Paper #2, for which you had decided to do the "Illusions" topic within the "Experimental" Theme, your header would look like the following header:

Name: Jane Doe
ID: 123456789
Assignment: Rough Draft #2
Topic: Illusions

Paper.

Answer the question you've chosen to the best of your ability. Please use the following guidelines when formatting the body of your paper:

The paper must be between 750 - 850 words in length. Penalties on scores may be assessed for papers that are shorter or longer than this range.
It must be double spaced, left-justified, with 1 inch margins on the left and right.
You should use a standard font like Times New Roman, Courier, or Arial.
If you cite external sources in your paper, please use APA style for the references.
Extensive quoting of external sources is NOT permitted, even if the quoted material is cited correctly.

Paper Filename.

Please use a standardized filename when saving your paper. This will ensure that we don’t give your grade to someone else! Save your paper with the following name:

“LastName_IDnumber_PaperNumber.ext”

Where LastName = your last name, IDnumber = the last 3 digits of your student ID number, and ext = the file format of your paper. For example, “John Smith”, whose student ID number is 123456789, uses Microsoft Word to write Paper #1. The filename of his paper should be:

Smith_789_1.doc

More about the Writing Process

The entire writing process will be conduted electronically (see University Policy on Computing). All papers will be submitted via turnitin.com (Visit the section entitled "Using_Turnitin" for detailed instructions about how to do this). Papers are due at 11:59:00 pm PST on the relevant due date. Please note: there is a strict late policy for turning in papers after the due date. Please visit the Due Dates page for more details.)

For each of the papers you write, you will first submit a Rough Draft. When a Rough Draft is submitted, it will be evaluated and graded by your Psych10 Reader. Your Rough Draft should be a good faith attempt at writing the best paper possible. You can expect to have your Rough Draft returned to you in an email with a PDF attachment,one week from the due date of the draft.

Your Reader will evaluate your Rough Draft according to a rubric that considers the mechanical and compositional elements of the draft, and will provide you with a paper grade (see Grading) and feedback.

Your Reader's feedback may include comments on the grammatical structure of sentences, the use of punctuation, word choices, content-related comments, etc. The specific comments will be included in your paper in the form of marginal notes. the purpose of this feedback is to help you improve the paper; therefore it is necessary for you to consider the feedback and incorporate it in your Final Revision.

Viewing your feedback

When you receive the graded Rough Draft back from the Readers, retrieve the attachment from the email by saving it somewhere on your computer. Then, open the attachment in Adobe Reader and look at the comments in the margin of the document.

You will need PDF reading software like Adobe Reader to view the feedback on your Rough Draft. If you don't have the free Adobe Reader software, make sure you’re connected to the internet, then click on this icon to start downloading:

If the submission is a Final Revision, then you will receive a grade and Final Comments. The Final Comments made by Readers on Final Revisions are intended to help you get a better grade on subsequent Papers.

Plagiarism

All submitted drafts and revisions will be analyzed by turnitin.com for possible plagiarism. As detailed on the turnitin.com website, each submission will be associated with an Originality Report related to the content of the submission, and to the likelihood that the content of that submission is plagiarized.
You may indicate in writing to Dr. Lachs that you refuse to participate in the Turnitin.com process, in which case the PSYCH 10 Readers will use other electronic means to verify the originality of your work. Instructions for getting started with Turnitin.com can be found in the section entitled Using Turnitin.
When you submit a paper to Turnitin.com, an Originality Report will instantly be generated. You can use this information to see if there are any problematic portions of your submitted paper. You can continue to revise your paper and submit updated versions of it until the due date.

The University Policy on Cheating and Plagiarism is explicit about the definitions of "cheating" and "plagiarism". If, after evaluation by turnitin.com and at least three readers, including the PSYCH 10 Coordinator, it is concluded that any part of your paper is plagiarized, your overall grade will be reduced by twice the credit you could have received on the assignment. Students may also be referred to the Chair of the Psychology department for further disciplinary action.

More information...

There are important details about the Writing Assignment, including details about how grades are assigned, on the Grading page. Click on the appropriate button on the left hand side of this page to read more.