OU Admission Application Questions

?Essay Crafting Guide for Psychology Students
Before you publish your essay it's important to analyse the task and understand exactly what the essay question is asking. It is potential your lecturer will give you some advice - pay out attention to this as it will help you plan your answer.
Next conduct preliminary reading based upon your lecture notes. At this stage it's not crucial to have a robust understanding of key theories or studies, but you should at least have a general 'gist' of your literature.
After reading, plan a response to the task. This plan could be within the sort of the mind map, a summary table, or by crafting a core statement (which encompass the entire argument of your essay in just several sentences).
After producing your plan conduct supplementary reading and refine your plan and ensure it is way more detailed.
It is tempting to skip these preliminary steps and just compose the initially draft whilst reading for the same time. However, reading and planning will make the essay producing method easier, quicker, and ensure a higher high quality essay is produced.
Now let us appearance at what constitutes a nice essay in psychology. There are quite a few important functionality.
A Worldwide Structure - structure the material in the way that permits for a rational sequence of ideas. Every single paragraph / statement should follow sensibly from its predecessor. The essay should 'flow'. The introduction, main body and summary should all be linked.
Just about every paragraph should comprise a main theme which are illustrated and developed through quite a few points (supported by evidence).
Knowledge and Understanding - recognise, recall and exhibit understanding over a vary of scientific material that accurately reflects the main theoretical perspectives.
Critical Evaluation - arguments should be supported by proper evidence and/or theory from the literature. Evidence of independent thinking, insight and evaluation with the evidence.
Good of Written Communication - crafting clearly and succinctly with applicable use of paragraphs, spelling and grammar. All resources referenced accurately and in line with APA guidelines.
Inside main body of your essay every paragraph should demonstrate each knowledge and critical evaluation.
There should also be an applicable balance around these two essay factors. Try to aim for about a 60/40 split if workable. Most students make the mistake of composing too substantially knowledge and not enough evaluation (which is the difficult bit).
It is ultimate to structure your essay according to key themes. Themes are illustrated and developed through quite a few points (supported by evidence). Choose relevant points only, ones that most reveal the theme or help to make a convincing and interesting argument.
Knowledge and Understanding
Remember that an essay is simply a discussion / argument on paper. Don't make the mistake of creating all the related information you know regarding a particular topic.
You want to be concise, and clearly articulate your argument. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences.
Every paragraph should have a purpose / theme, and make a lot of points - which desire to be assistance by significant premium evidence. Be clear why just about every point is is relevant to the argument. It would be useful on the beginning of every paragraph for those who explicitly outlined the theme being discussed (.e.g. cognitive advancement, social progression etc.).
Try not to overuse quotations on your essays. It is a bit more ideal to make use of original content to demonstrate your understanding.
Psychology serves as a science so you must assistance your ideas with evidence (not your very own personal opinion). Once you are discussing a theory or research study make sure you cite the source in the knowledge.
Note this isn't really the author of the textbook you have learn - but the original source / author(s) belonging to the theory or research study.
Bowlby (1951) claimed that mothering is almost useless if delayed until after two together with a 50 percent to three years and, for most children, if delayed till after 12 months, i.e. you can find a critical period.
Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to obtain certain needs. When a person absolutely need is fulfilled a person seeks to fullfil the next just one, and so on.
As a general rule make sure you can find at least a person citation (i.e. name of psychologist and date of publication) in every single paragraph.
Remember to answer the essay question. Underline the key words inside the essay title. Don't make the mistake of simply crafting everything you know of the particular topic, be selective. Just about every paragraph into your essay should contribute to answering the essay question.
Critical Evaluation
In quick terms this means that outlining the strengths and limitations of the theory or research study.
There are a number of ways it is easy to critically evaluate:
Methodological evaluation of research -
Is the study valid / reliable. Is the sample biased or can we generalize the findings to other populations? What are the strengths and limitations of your method utilized and facts obtained?
Be careful to ensure that any methodological criticisms are justified and not trite. Rather than hunting for weaknesses in every study; only highlight limitations which make you doubt the conclusions that the authors have drawn - e.g. where an alternative explanation can be equally most likely on the grounds that something hasnât been adequately controlled.
Compare or contrast different theories -
Outline how the theories are similar and how they differ. This could be two (or considerably more) theories of personality / memory / child growth etc. Also try to communicate the value with the theory / study.