Getting your references right

The people marking your essay will be expecting you to use a standard referencing style. For Durham psychology students, this means APA style. APA style is described in detail in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, now in its 6th edition. Note that earlier editions define the referencing style in slightly different ways, so you need to keep up to date by following the new edition.

You will find copies of the 6th edition in the library. A very useful brief guide to the referencing style is provided by the Library of the University of Waikato, New Zealand. You can also find information on APA style here.

Getting referencing style right means two things. Firstly, you have to get your in-text citation style right. This refers to the way you reference an article or book in the body of your essay, e.g. Jones (1990). Secondly, you have to make sure your reference list at the end of the essay is up to scratch. Here, you need to pay attention to issues such as: punctuation, indents and paragraph style, citing secondary sources, citing edited books and chapters in edited books, citing information gleaned from the web, etc. The rules may seem complex and long-winded, but they are extremely important. APA is a very widely used style and it's worth getting it right from the start.

You also need to check that everything you cite in the body of the essay appears in the reference list, and vice versa. Markers will be very sensitive to style errors (some psychologists even say that they think in APA style) so you need to check this aspect of your essay very carefully.

Remember that your word count usually excludes the reference list at the end, but of course you need to check your handbooks and other instructions to establish what applies for each particular piece of work.

As an exercise, see if you can spot the errors in the following paragraph (with thanks to Elizabeth Meins). I'll post answers in a later post.

Considerable evidence has now accrued to support Bowlby’s 1969, 1973, 1980 contention that attachment security is transmitted from one generation to the next. The link between autonomous parental attachment representations as assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI: George, Kaplan and Main, 1985) and a secure infant–parent attachment relationship has been found in various countries and in wide-ranging populations, (e.g. Aviezer et al., 1999, Dozier, Stovall, Albus and Bates, 2001, Fonagy, Steele & Steele, 1991, Main, Kaplan & Cassidy, 1985; Pederson, Gleason, Moran, & Bento, 1998; Steele, Steele, & Fonagy 1996; Ward & Carlson, 1995).

Related articles

• How to Write an APA Paper (psychology.about.com)
• A Guide to APA Format (psychology.about.com)

Writing essays under fire

It's that time of year, and you will all be thinking about how best to deploy your essay-writing skills in the heat of the exams. Much depends on your revision preparation, of course, and on how you manage to pull it all together on the day. Of course, everything that has been discussed on this blog is potentially relevant to putting together a good essay in the exam room. But I think there are also some useful things you can do specifically in getting ready to write a lot of words in a short time.

To show what I mean, I'm going to suggest that you go back to some of those earlier issues about structuring an essay. Remember that I suggested that you start by looking at your word limit and then work out a possible structure in terms of paragraphs. The same strategy can work in an exam.

In an exam, of course, you don't have a specific word limit. But you do have a time limit, so start with that. Let's imagine that you have a two-hour exam in which you are going to have to answer two questions: one hour per question.

Planning is of course as important in an exam as it is in coursework (have a look back at these two posts). You are going to want to spend at least 10 minutes of your hour in planning this essay, and you may want as much as 15 minutes. Remember to include your essay plan in your answer book, so that the examiner can see what you intended to say, even if you didn't get round to saying it all.

Let's say 10 minutes for an essay plan. That leaves 50 minutes for writing your essay. How much can you write in 50 minutes? That's up to you, and your own particular writing style and speed. But if you can work out some decent estimates on this before you get into the exam, you will effectively have set yourself a rough word limit for the essay. And then you can simply go back to the advice in that earlier post about paragraph structure. Work out how many words (roughly) you are going to be able to write, break that up into paragraphs, and you'll have the beginnings of a plan.

The best way of working out your writing speed is simply to set yourself some timed essays. If you don't trust your own powers of self-discipline, then get together with a friend or two to do this. Afterwards, work out how much you have been able to write by estimating the word count: count the number of lines you have written and try to work out a rough estimate of words per line, then multiply the two.

One other crucial thing to remember. Writing is a physical skill. The words on the page are formed by muscles in your hands, and those muscles need to get into shape. You will remember from previous exam periods (A-levels or whatever) how much faster you write when you have had the practice of a few weeks of exams. Get your writing hand into shape now, so that you are up to full speed when your first exam starts.

Practice writing timed essay plans and timed essays. Go back and look at what you've written, or get a friend to read it for you. How could you improve on the essay? What have you missed? What do you need to think more about or add to your notes? What are you still not clear on? This kind of practice will get you into good writing shape, and it will of course bed down the knowledge much more effectively than simply staring at your notes.

Good luck!

Structuring an argument

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Last time we looked at how to come up with a simple structure for an essay using words and pictures. This should have allowed you to get your ideas really clear in your head, in a structure that makes it very obvious where any gaps are and where you need to go back and do more reading and research. The second part of this process involves ordering your ideas into a proper essay plan, and making those crucial decisions about what should go in and what should be left out.

I'm going to ask you to do something rather counter-intuitive at this stage. I suggest that the first thing you do is look back at your word limit for the essay. Word limits are a necessary evil (we'll be talking some more about them in later posts). But they can also be a force for the positive, and here's how.

Let's say you've been given the following question for your assignment: Critically evaluate Theory X as an explanation for Phenomenon A.

You have 1500 words to write an essay on this topic. Question: how many paragraphs is that?

If that sounds like a dumb thing to ask, please bear with me. I'm hoping that the answer you will give me to the Paragraph Question is somewhere around the 8 to 10 mark. If you wrote many more paragraphs than that, they would be very short and your essay would risk looking rather bitty. If your paragraph count is much lower than that, then your paragraphs are going to be too long and your essay will not be an easy read. Either way, it will seem as though your assignment has not been carefully planned, and as though you are regurgitating all the facts you know without paying attention to structure and flow. Somewhere between eight and ten paragraphs will look good on the page, and (as we will see) will help you to structure your essay. Of course, if you have a bigger word limit then you will be able to use more paragraphs. Think of the right length for a paragraph as being around 150-200 words (for comparison, this paragraph is 177 words long). 

(If you don't know how to answer this question at all, because you never use paragraphs, then you've got a problem. Perhaps what follows will help.)

What is the point of a paragraph? Simply put, a paragraph is a home for an idea. Give each point or section of the argument its own paragraph, and then start a new paragraph for each new idea. Have a look at how the writers you are reading do this. You will find that they take paragraphs seriously (editors and publishers insist that they do). Make sure that you too are following this basic convention of connected prose. Your essay will be much the better for it.

Let's say you've plumped for eight paragraphs. You know your own writing; choose a number that works and feels comfortable for you. You've immediately got a ready-made template for your essay. To see how, list your paragraphs (1, 2, 3...) on a single sheet of paper, spreading out so that you use the whole page. Now, what's Paragraph 1 going to be? That's easy: the introduction. And Paragraph 8 is (just as easy) the conclusion. We'll be talking about both of these essential parts of an essay in later posts.

Two down, six to go. Here's where you really start making decisions about what will go in your essay. There are no right and wrong answers here: the structure depends on the question. But one general question you can ask is: Am I going to come down supporting one theory or another at the end of all this? Do I think that, on balance, the evidence supports one side of an argument over another? If so, deal with your favoured position towards the end. Spend your first couple of paragraphs setting up the 'weaker' argument, and then show why it is the weaker in the remainder of the essay. (This is a standard trick of rhetoric: set up the position you oppose and treat it fairly, and then demolish it by the force of your argument. Save the knock-out blows to the end.)

Let's go back to Theory X. Let's say I know that Theory X was proposed in the 1980s on the basis of some very strong evidential support. But things have changed since then. There have been new findings, methodologies and technologies which support another theory, Theory Y. Meanwhile, over on the West Coast, a small but vocal group are plugging Theory Z. The jury is still out, but from your reading Theory Y fits the evidence best.

So here's a suggestion. Dedicate Paragraph 2 to Theory X. You'll use this space to show why the theory was important and valuable (particularly in historical context, when nobody had yet come up with any decent explanation for Phenomenon A), and to explain its theoretical details. In Paragraph 3, you can show how well it accounts for the evidence, both then and now.

Start Paragraph 4 by showing how Theory X was eventually found lacking, and how Theory Y grew up to challenge it. Give us the theoretical details on Theory Y. Then use Paragraph 5 to show how Theory Y accounts for the evidence, both that which Theory X could and couldn't handle, and also the new findings that have emerged since then.

Paragraph 6 could have a flavour of 'compare and contrast'. Put the two theories side by side and show how they match up. Bring Theory Z in as well for a further comparison. If you have a strong view of your own, then make your case (on the basis of the evidence you have discussed, not on the basis of hunches or personal opinions). If you think that all the theories are as bad as each other, treat them fairly while making it clear what the problems are in each case.

You might want to leave Paragraph 7 aside for loose ends. There are no debates (in psychology, the social sciences, and many other disciplines) that are completely sewn up. There is always scope for more research, and your essay needs to look to the future like this. There is always dissent, and contradictory or equivocal evidence. This penultimate paragraph can be set aside for discussing those issues that are to be continued and resolved (hopefully) in the future. You must be able to show that you know what the limitations are to our current understanding of the phenomenon, and that you understand your science's future priorities for it.

You now have a pretty good plan for what your argument will look like. What you've come up with should look very much like the kind of essay plan you will write in an exam, and that's no coincidence: we're talking about the same thing. Do exactly the same in planning an exam answer, and you'll be on firm ground. 

Knocking your ideas into shape

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You've thoroughly researched your topic and done all the reading that (for now) seems relevant. Now you're ready to pump up the coffee machine and type through the night in a frenzy of inspiration. Well, you can do that if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it. Long before you start typing, you need to go completely back to basics. I'm going to deal with this part of the process in two posts (the second part will follow next week).

First of all, let's go back to the essay question. You have of course read the question thoroughly, put yourself in the mind of the question-setter and worked out his/her reasons for putting the question in this way. Be honest, now. Have you?

First of all, ask yourself what sort of assignment title you've been given. Is it one that makes a statement and asks you to discuss it? In that case, you need to ask yourself why this particular statement has been chosen. What makes the statement controversial or interesting in some way? Is it patently out of date, and superseded by recent research? In which case, there's a heavy hint that this is the stuff you are meant to be writing about. What different theoretical perspectives does the statement encapsulate? How does the 'Discuss...' part of the title ask you to use evidence, empirical and otherwise?

Other assignment titles have more of a flavour of a command. They ask you to do something, and it would be nice if you did so. Are you being asked to compare and contrast? To critically evaluate? To describe, outline, itemise? If the essay title is a true question, then why has the question been phrased in this way? How does it separate out a particular aspect of a topic and invite you to focus on that aspect, rather than simply vomiting out everything you know on the subject? Does the question come in two parts, or more? If so, make sure you address them all. It's worth bearing in mind that we don't just think of the first essay title that comes to mind and then hand it over to you. Assignment titles are carefully scrutinised, first by the teaching team and then by the external examiners. The wording you can see there has been chosen for a very good reason, and you need to do some careful thinking to work out what those reasons were.

Now as ever, you already have some important information to guide you in this process. Go back to your learning outcomes and ask yourself how this particular question assesses the knowledge and skills that you are meant to be picking up on this course. The most common complaint made by markers is that candidates have not answered the question. Feel free to ask your lecturer if you have any questions of interpretation. (Using the Discussion Boards on Duo is a great way of doing this). But bear in mind that your lecturer will not provide detailed feedback on essay plans. You are being assessed on your own ability to carry out this research, and it has to be your own thought and effort that goes into the assignment.

Now that you really understand the question, you're ready to start knocking your answer into shape. This is the point at which I put everything away except for a single sheet of A4. Notes, books and computer files can come out later. Remove all other distractions, and give yourself some time alone with your ideas. Be prepared to make mistakes and to go down blind alleys. If it's going wrong, recycle that piece of paper and start again. Keep it simple. Don't get bogged down in detail. All you need to be writing down at this stage are the key points of what you can remember: from your reading, from your lectures, from your conversations with others. Jotting down those key ideas, and beginning to see how they fit together.

I myself am not a particularly graphical thinker, but lots of people are. Such people find it invaluable to draw mind maps or other graphical depictions of their ideas, with the connections between them. There are lots of ways of doing this, and you might find this site useful. Try different ways of representing the findings you have read about. Make a table, for example, listing the key studies on a particular topic, along with information about whether they support or refute a particular theory, whether they found the same results, how their methodology differed, and so on.

Above all, don't get bogged down. Don't feel that you should be writing detailed notes on all the papers you've been reading. There's a chance that you'll never get started if you go down that route. You'll end up not being able to see the wood for the trees, and you certainly won't be able to see how different studies, theories and ideas fit together. Move lightly. Get yourself into a place where you can quickly respond to your ideas, jot them down and develop them. Dictate into a voice recorder. Stick post-its on the wall. Do whatever works for you, but keep it simple. The thing you're aiming for is a rough sketch of how your answer is going to look. You won't have written much, but you'll have taken a big step towards completing your assignment successfully.

Next week I'll be giving some more detail on how you can build on this basic structure. Happy essay-writing until then.