How Marijuana Affects Memory & Attention
How Marijuana Affects Memory & Attention
The written report should address the biological study of a specific behavioral or mental phenomenon (normal or pathological) covered in your assigned readings and/or videos. You should select a behavioral or mental phenomenon (e.g., language, schizophrenia) and then select a biological strategy (e.g., hormones, neurotransmitters, physiology, imaging).
As an example, the theme of your report might be imaging approaches to the study of schizophrenia. Your paper should summarize fundamental issues, questions, and controversies and provide a general overview of the topic. It should also elaborate on your understanding of the brain processes that are revealed through imaging research in schizophrenia. To accomplish this, you will have to use research articles to illustrate relevant points. You may use any of a number of resources to find research articles that deal with your topic, including the library and the Internet.
This paper is not a “commentary” or “editorial” style paper, but rather a formal research paper using scientific references as the basis for your topic. Personal experience, while sometimes relevant, should not be included for this assignment unless these experiences are linked to course concepts and the brain. Also, you should avoid using personal pronouns such as “I” or “myself” in this type of paper.
The requirement for the research articles that you select is that they must have appeared in a peer-reviewed (i.e., refereed) scientific journal. (Please contact your instructor to confirm whether a particular journal is peer-reviewed.)
You must use at minimum two peer-reviewed scientific articles and they must be recent, i.e., have appeared in the literature no earlier than 2006. You might use the online databases from MEDLINE and PSYCH ABSTRACTS as a source of full-text articles from refereed journals. Newspaper or magazine articles should not be used as your major reference, but can be useful if they lead you to the appropriate research article. You should avoid simply repeating the articles in summary form; rather, use them within the text of your paper to illustrate important points.
To ensure that you are on the right track, you will need to post your paper topic in the Paper Topic Discussion area during Week 2; this discussion area should be used as a place to brainstorm your topic, so ideas, but not full topics, are allowed to be submitted and we will work together to formulate them into a topic. Post early in the week so we have enough time to work through and secure your topic. Your topic must be approved by me by the end of Week 2 for you to be able to submit your paper. Any student without an approved paper topic will not be allowed to submit the final paper.
Your paper is to be 6 to 9 pages, or about 1,800 words in length (abstract and body of paper), excluding the title page and references.
It must be typed (12 pt font), double-spaced, with one-inch margins, and fully referenced in APA format (see http://www.apa.org).
Check the course schedule for your due date. Late papers submitted without written notice to me will not be accepted. If you have an issue meeting the deadline for the paper, you need to email me first before submitting the paper late. After you are approved to submit the paper late, a 5-point deduction will be applied for every day the paper is late. NO papers will be accepted (regardless of emails about late submissions) after 11:59PM eastern on the final day of the semester.
In the event of an emergency or illness, please contact me to determine a new submission date for your paper; appropriate documentation, such as a doctor’s note, etc. is required.
APA format general guidelines
Four main paper sections:
Title page: is required and a page header (or running head) is required to appear on each page in the header section. Do not place the header in top portion of the text of your paper, it must be in the header section in the word document.
Abstract: The text of your paper should be preceded by an abstract (about 100-200 words) that summarizes the key points in the paper (i.e., statement of problem, major findings, conclusion). All abstracts will be posted in a discussion during the final week of class for all students to review. You should respond to these abstracts to stimulate discussion. Your responses will be evaluated and will constitute part of your grade for online conference participation during Week 8.
Body: is the text of your paper that should include an introduction and conclusion. Properly formatted in-text citations are REQUIRED. Papers without properly formatted in-text citations will receive a grade of zero.
**No quoted material is allowed in the final paper. All references must be paraphrased. The inclusion of quoted material will result in a 30 point deduction from your final paper grade.**
References: appear on the final page(s) of the document. The list needs to be in alphabetical order and indented according to APA standards. Further, all pertinent information must be included for each reference, including volume numbers, issue numbers, authors, etc. Any reference that appears in this list MUST also be cited in-text and any reference cited in-text MUST also appear in the reference list. The lack of APA formatting for the reference list will result in the grade of zero for the paper. If you are unsure of how to format references in APA, please consult the latest edition of the APA manual, the UMUC library and/or Effective Writing Center, or the Purdue Online Writing lab (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/).
The paper will be graded on (1) content and understanding, (2) how effectively you have communicated your ideas in writing, (3) you adherence to APA standards, (4) and the proper use of primary source material. You will receive a separate grade for each of these elements, weighted equally. Content and understanding are evaluated on the basis of whether the paper (a) identified important issues, questions, and controversies; (b) used recent and relevant research literature to illustrate the issues; and (c) demonstrated an understanding of brain processes and how brain research revealed an understanding of the behavior in question. Effective communication is evaluated on the basis of (a) organization and structure that help communicate the ideas (e.g., headings throughout the text), (b) use of your own language and style (no cutting and pasting), (c) connecting ideas in the text with research papers, and (d) correct usage of APA format in the text and references.
If you would like to view an example paper formatted in APA, please see this page on the Purdue Online Writing Laboratory’s website.
Your paper is to be submitted in Microsoft Word format (e.g., .doc, .docx file) and formatted in APA style (please consult the APA Style Manual, sixth edition, for proper format). Additional resources for APA style include the UMUC library and/or the UMUC Effective Writing Center and the Purdue Online Writing lab.
Papers not in Word file format and APA style will not be accepted for a grade; in this case, a grade of “zero” will be assigned for the paper.
You can download Open Office for free to type your paper. Save your Open Office document as .doc or .docx. Here are instructions for how to save an Open Office document as a Word file. Files saved as .odt will not be accepted – please follow the instructions above to save your .odt file as a Word doc (e.g., .doc, .docx).
It is highly advised that you take care to use proper APA style. If you have technical issues related to Word, please notify me immediately so that an appropriate solution can be found.
You are highly encouraged to submit a draft of your complete or near complete paper to the Effective Writing Center (EWC) (located on the drop-down menu on the left side of the screen; under “Course Content,” click on “Writing Resources”) for review and comment, prior to the due date of the paper. This should be submitted well in advance of the due date, in order for the EWC to respond and for you to make the necessary corrections. Once you receive feedback from the EWC, you can copy and paste it into a Word Document, then post it in your assignment folder with your final paper by the due date, for your instructor to view as necessary. The EWC can help address questions regarding format, structure, writing style, and appropriateness of references.
**No quoted material is allowed in the final paper. All references must be paraphrased. The inclusion of quoted material will result in a 30 point deduction from your final paper grade.**
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