Assignment: Psychology in the News

The "Applications" section, "Psychology in the News -Separating Fact from Fiction," at the end of chapter 1 should interest you. With a basic understanding of the principles of social science, you will see how mass media can frequently distort the results of various studies in order to make headlines more sensational or a story more appealing to mass readership.

Your Assignment

Your assignment is to look with a critical eye at any real-life mass media reports (in newspapers or magazines) that cite social science studies, and select an article that you will read and write about. Based on the guidelines provided in the "Applications" section "Psychology in the News," critically evaluate the article you selected on the basis of how believable the results appear (be skeptical), the source of the information, the presence or absence of a control group, potential errors in correlation and causation, assuming fact from opinion, oversimplifications, single cases/examples, and lack of repeatable results.

Critical evaluation involves evaluating, comparing, analyzing, critiquing and synthesizing information.

What You Turn In

Your essay should be one to two pages in length. Use one-inch margins and a 12-point font.
The first paragraph should contain a thesis statement in which you clearly present the argument you want to make in your essay.
Each body paragraph should begin with a topic sentence in which you clearly state the argument for that paragraph.
Be sure to support your arguments with brief, relevant examples.
Avoid the over-use of direct quotes. It is better to put the concepts into your own words. However, it may be appropriate to directly quote some aspects of the popular press article as support for your arguments. When you do so, be sure to limit your reliance on these quotes to prove your point. Use short quotes (one or two sentences) to support a statement that you have made in your own words.

Example:
The argument made in this article was flawed because of oversimplification.

The article attempted to summarize the scientific findings for the general public, but failed to report enough specific details on the limitations of the study to be trustworthy.

For example, they indicate that the new medication improves the mood of depressed patients, but fail to indicate whether or not there was a control group included in the study.

The statement that "this drug will surely revolutionize modern psychiatry" is presumptuous given that it is the first study of this kind.

Scoring

This Assignment is worth 25 points. Your teacher will be using the template below to score your essay. You should review your essay using this template and revise it as necessary before turning it in to your teacher.

Assignment Focus	Notes
How well did you read and understand the essay question?
How clear and precise is the thesis statement? Is it focused on the essay question?
Were topic sentences used for each supporting paragraph?
How well did you use supporting evidence to back up your arguments?
How well did you demonstrate what it means to write a critical evaluation?
Did you analyze rather than simply summarize the article?
Did the essay demonstrate an understanding of the ways that information can be misleading?

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