Читать книгу How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson - Страница 110

Look through the sample opening sentences again. What is each one actually doing?

Here are some of the ways in which you might characterise what the sample sentences are doing:

1 Launches into a description of Kelley’s covariation model

2 Provides a chatty sense of what attribution might look like in everyday life

3 Demonstrates a clear conceptualisation of what Kelley’s model means in psychology

4 Tries to emphasise the importance of the topic for humanity

5 Tries to give a very global sense of attribution’s relevance

How would you fit these characterisations to the samples that we have just looked at? Please note, some do overlap (for example, 4 and 5).

Sample (a) – I think this __________________________________

Sample (b) – I think this __________________________________

Sample (c) – I think this __________________________________

Sample (d) – I think this __________________________________

Sample (e) – I think this __________________________________

The less effective sample opening sentences could work in other contexts. The chatty style of sample c could be a reasonable opening to a relationship-focused magazine article. Similarly, sample b’s emphasis on the importance of attribution could be relevant for introducing attribution to a non-specialist audience who were not previously familiar with it. Perhaps it could work for a very general psychology-orientated website? But the academic essay is a special form of writing. Your reader does not seek the chatty examples or the emphasis on global significance; they want to see your scholarly understanding.

Let’s look at reader feedback on the above sample orientating sentences:

1 Attribution is all around us… This is just so generalised. The essay is about Kelley’s Covariation Model, not life, the universe and everything. More precision is needed here.

2 Human beings are cognitive creatures for whom thinking is crucial… This is generalised and involves truisms, why should we be told that thinking is important to humans? A more precise focus on the significance of Kelley’s work for psychology, not attributions relevance for humanity, is what is needed.

3 Your friend blanks you – why?… I can almost see the colour photos that could accompany this text in a magazine article. For an academic essay, you don’t need to draw in your reader in this way. Show them a scholarly understanding of the topic of the essay and its relevance for psychology.

4 Kelley’s covariation model of causal attribution outlined the way in which we decide whether a cause is internal or external… Where is the orientating sentence? Where is the introduction for that matter? This has simply launched in with a description of Kelley’s Covariation Model. It is true that it is not over-generalised, but it is also not an introduction.

5 Kelley’s covariation model of causal attribution could be understood as representing a particularly important example of applying a rational framework to understand human cognitive functioning… This is not perfect, but it does address Kelley’s work by conceptualising what it has brought to psychology. This really conveys a sense of a mind at work – there is thinking and understanding about the focus of the essay title and its significance within psychology.