HERMAN GEORGE CANADY

Biographical
Essay
For your final project, you will write a Biographical Essay
of an important psychologist of your choosing that did not appear in the
textbook. The biographical essay will outline the main events in the person’s
life, the mentors and ideas that shaped his or her ways of thinking, and his or
her major contributions to psychology. Be sure to evaluate these contributions
critically, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of these ideas as well as the
ethical conduct of the psychologist.
Before you write this biographical essay, you will need to
gather information on your psychologist of choice. You will need at least six
reliable sources for this paper, but more is better. You should give first
preference to peer-reviewed sources. However, as a historical researcher, you
may also need to use other sources as well. In doing so, critically evaluate
the reliability of the source. For instance, anything published by the APA can
be considered reliable. In addition, consider the credentials of the author. Do
not cite encyclopedias such as Wikipedia in your paper; however, these
resources may provide you with references that you can access and read on your
own.
The biographical essay must be written in standard APA
format. These means the paper must include a title page, abstract, and list of
references. Including these, your submission altogether must extend to at least
2,000 words. Furthermore, the 20% rule applies to this assignment as well. (See
the section on “Originality” below.) Specifically, your biographical essay must
have a Turnitin similarity score of less than 20%, including references. This
means that your essay must be written in your own words, without reliance on
paraphrasing or quoting from your sources. A sample biographical essay on John
Dewey is provided in D2L under the “Biographical Essay” tab.
This assignment has two learning objectives. The first learning
objective is for you to demonstrate that you are able to research a scholarly
topic in psychology, integrate information from various sources, write
effectively, and format that writing in APA style. As a graduate of the
Psychology program at GGC, you are expected to take these skills with you into
your future career, so this is your final chance to hone them.
The second learning objective is for you to continue your
investigation into the history of psychology by researching an important
psychologist who was not mentioned in the book. You are especially encouraged
to research and write about a woman, minority, or non-American psychologist.
However, the choice is yours. You may have heard about a particular
psychologist in one of your other classes that you want to learn more about.
Otherwise, you can find lists of psychologists by gender, ethnicity, or
nationality on the internet.
Before you begin your project, be sure to check the Person
Glossary in the back of the textbook to make sure the psychologist you are
planning to write about was not mentioned in the textbook. A submission of a biographical essay about a person listed
in the Person Glossary will receive a score of zero points for this assignment.
In summary, the three rules that applied to the reaction
papers apply (with some modification) to the biographical essay as well.
Namely, no submision will be accepted that:
·
Consists of less than 2000 words.
·
Contains 20% or more overlap with sources
according to Turnitin, including title page, abstract, and references.
·
Is submitted after the deadline.
Please note that this assignment will be graded according to
the four Psychology Program Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) listed above under
Course Outcomes. See the rubric for this assignment in D2L for more details.
One final note on the biographical essay: This is not an
assignment that can be finished quickly. You will need to begin your research early
and work on it throughout the semester. At the same time, I hope you will also
experience the thrill of doing historical research and completing an original
project.
Grading Criteria
The reaction papers and the biographical essay will be
graded on the following four criteria:
·
Organization.
The submission should be organized in proper essay format, and paragraphs
should be organized around a single topic.
·
Mechanics.
The submission should be reasonably free from errors in spelling, grammar and
punctuation as well as free of awkward phrasing.
·
Content.
The submission should discuss important topics from the reading.
·
Development.
The submission should include a well developed discussion that demonstrates
critical thinking of each topic that is raised in the essay.

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