Читать книгу How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson - Страница 80

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