How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays. Paul Dickerson
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Attempt one: Word substitution
You might think that rather than simply copying these sentences as they are, which you understand is plagiarism, you will change it a bit, but retain the essential sentence structure:
Kelley pursued Heider in arguing that the wide location of the cause – within the person or without – was an essential target of our attribution thinking. Kelley also split the grouping of without to distinguish stimulus (a constant feature without the person) from circumstance (something targeted at this example of the behaviour). For Kelley, we all (faultlessly) follow a causal analysis that is similar to an observationally orientated scientist …
The changes above look far-fetched in places, but are, alas, not uncommon. While the paragraph uses several of Kelley’s key terms and phrases (stimulus, circumstance and ‘location of the cause’), the substituted words, synonymous though they may be, reveal an unthinking process and a lack of understanding, rendering much of the text inaccurate and incomprehensible.
Attempt two: Making it your own
This attempt does not use all of the information in the target passage. The distinction between types of external causes has been left to one side for now. A crucial consideration is what you want to do in the paragraph you are working on and how the information that you come across can facilitate that.
A key feature of Kelley’s Covariation Model of Causal Attribution is its emphasis on the importance of distinguishing between internal and external causes of behaviour. From this perspective, the key question driving our causal reasoning concerns the location – internal or external – of the cause of whatever we are making an attribution about. For Kelley, we ideally locate the cause as being internal (to the person whose behaviour we are trying to explain) or external (to them) by using a causal reasoning process that is like a scientist, logically reasoning from the evidence that they encounter.
This second attempt makes it much more the author’s own work. Do you notice there is a sense of confidence in the writing, that the author is not afraid to make well-grounded claims? The assertion that the internal/external distinction is ‘a key feature’, the reference to the ‘location’ of the cause and to ‘logically reasoning’ are informed by the target passage, but certainly not shackled to it. Some of this freedom can come by bringing in a wider understanding, informed by other sources. It also comes from thinking about how you can use the details and arguments that are at work in this passage, what points you want to emphasise so that it is easier to pick them up – perhaps to debate them – later in your essay. Table 2.7 demonstrates how you might think about a target passage, identifying the constituent parts of what is being described and argued, thinking about what is debatable or could be contested (which is great for a critically evaluative essay) and, crucially, reflecting on how you can use these ideas in your essay.
Table 2.7
Break it down, then rebuild it
One of the key reasons that we might struggle to make a passage our own is that we are trying to: (a) reduce time, and/or (b) reduce thinking. If you are short of time, don’t start swapping words left and right, turn to Chapters 10 and 12 for clarity about what you should focus on. Alternatively, if you want to reduce your thinking because you do not have confidence in your ideas, stay with this chapter (and the ones that follow); we can really build your well-placed academic confidence together.
To really make the passage your own you will need to do something that might seem crazy, off-putting, pointless – you need to break it from the coherent whole into the constituent ideas so that you can assemble it as your own whole. In this way, you have taken the raw material ideas referred to and made an argument with them – that is, you have used them to do a particular job in your essay. As mentioned above, the skill of note-taking is drastically undervalued, and almost never taught, so if it seems difficult or off-putting, that’s hardly surprising. To get started, practise identifying and separating the detail and the argument in the paragraph that you are looking at.
Interrogate the argument
Interrogate the paragraph by asking it: What is being argued here? Is an idea or position being supported or is it being challenged (or perhaps a bit of both)? What idea is being supported, challenged or nuanced? Crucially, ask yourself: How can I strategically use this sort of argument – or a challenge to it – in the essay that I am developing? The focus of your essay and the original context of any specific paragraph are unlikely to be identical. And even if they are, your argument in addressing that essay is, or should be, distinct in some way. In the light of this, understand the argument being made and think how it relates to your argument(s) so that you can deploy it really effectively. In the context of an academic essay that means in a way that displays scholarly thinking – that ability to move between ideas, acknowledging contradictions, debates and syntheses, and to navigate an intelligent path through them to shed light on the specific issues identified in the essay title.
Assemble the details
Once you have a clear sense of what is being argued and how this may relate to the arguments you wish to develop in your essay, it is worth inspecting some of the detail to see how that might be used effectively. If it is an empirical study, what was done and what was found; if it is an idea or theory without empirical evidence, what specific points are being made?
Example two
Now imagine that your essay title is ‘Outline and evaluate the Equity Theory of intimate relationships in the light of relevant research.’ In addition to describing Equity Theory, you are required to draw in different perspectives.
Target passage
Wong and Goodwin’s (2009) qualitative study also raises important questions concerning how relationship satisfaction is thought about by individuals in relationships. In qualitative research across three cultures – the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Beijing – Wong and Goodwin (2009) found that there was an emphasis on the importance of ‘a stable relationship with the spouse’, ‘spousal support’, ‘partnership with the spouse’ and ‘stable family finance’. The cultural differences that emerged included ‘companionship’ being more important for UK participants and ‘harmonious marital relations’ being more important for Hong Kong respondents. Taken together, these issues might, indeed, be construable as ingredients that inform equity based calculations, but some of them are suggestive of something slightly different – perhaps a concern with an overarching ‘characterisation of the relationship’ rather than a calculation of the benefits and costs of its individual constituent features in the light of profit or fairness concerns. (Dickerson, 2012: 97).
Attempt one: Word substitution
Have a quick look through this passage, which merely tries to substitute some of the words, leaving the sentence structure and the organisation of the ideas untouched. To achieve this was easy and quick – the passage was copied over and some of the words that were not in quotation marks were substituted. The sentence structure and order were unchanged. This made it quick, and perhaps reduced the apparent risk of ‘getting it wrong’ in terms of misunderstanding the ideas referred to. It ‘got it wrong’ in a more fundamental way, however, by demonstrating a lack of understanding and by being a clear example of plagiarism.
Wong and Goodwin’s (2009) qualitative investigation also raises vital interrogatives respecting how relationship achievement is thought about by individuals in conjunctions. In qualitative research across three cultures – the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Beijing – Wong