PSYCHLength: 750–1,250 words (3–5 pages, double-spaced, in 12-point font, not including title page and references list)
Weight: 12% of your final course grade
Objectives and Outcomes
Examine a personality theory in-depth.
Apply concepts that you have learned in the course materials.
Acquire knowledge about a specific topic or issue related to personality theories that is of interest to you.
Analyze and synthesize information about your chosen topic.
Practise writing an essay using APA style.
The three essay assignments for this course fit together and build on one another. The first essay explores a specific personality theory applied to a superhero character. The second essay explores a different personality theory from a different theorist applied to the same superhero character. The third essay provides discussion and concluding remarks.
Instructions*
Your first assignment is to choose a specific theory from one of the five perspectives (psychodynamic, humanistic/existential, dispositional, biological/evolutionary, learning-cognitive), and write about how it relates to the personality of a superhero in the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron that came in your course package. Please limit your comments to this DVD and not other films or comics that relate to the Avengers. (TONY STARK – PSYCHO DYNAMIC )
Choose with thought and care, because you will be analyzing the superhero that you choose throughout all three of your essays. It may be helpful to review the instructions for all three essays before beginning the first one. You may also want to ensure that you manage your time so that you can receive feedback from one essay before starting on the next one. (You can learn more about time management at: Support Services: Creating a Study Schedule ). You are advised to discuss your choice of superhero and specific personality theory with your tutor before you write this essay. Your tutor can recommend sources for your research and help with any problems that you may encounter in the various stages of your work.
Your treatment of your topic must reflect the purpose of the course; that is, your essay must address the psychological theories of the major personality theorists and apply the ideas presented in the research literature to the superhero’s personality. Remember, the aim is not to provide a film critique or your personal opinion of the film or particular superhero, but to engage with personality theory. The goal of the assignment is to demonstrate your understanding of the chosen theories and your ability to apply them.
When you are writing the first paper, after your introductory paragraph, describe the aspect of the theory that you have chosen to focus on and then present information from the research literature that further describes, illustrates, and supports that theory aspect. Once you have done this, then engage in an analysis of the movie character that you chose to focus on. The analysis of the character must use specific examples from the film and also must be connected back to the theory aspect and the research literature that you presented earlier in the paper.
For this first paper, you must use three to four academic (scholarly) sources. These may include original research articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and secondary sources—that is, books or articles written by someone with appropriate academic credentials that criticize a piece of original research or that compare several pieces of research on a single issue. Remember to consult the supplementary materials lists that you can find on the course home page, although you are not limited to using the resources in them. All of your sources should have been published within the past five to ten years. The only online sources that you may use are electronically published scholarly journals, such as those that you will find in AU Library’s journal database collection. Wikipedia, the Internet, newspapers, and popular magazines are not acceptable sources. Use of the textbook should be minimal. At least one of your sources should be a research report of an empirical study. You can read a brief description of empirical studies in Empirical Research in the Social Sciences and Education , from the Penn State University Library.
To learn more about how to search for and access material from AU Library, use the navigation bar—particularly “Get Help” and “Find Resources”—at the top of the Library and Scholarly Resources home page.
You will, of course, acknowledge all of your sources in a scholarly way throughout your paper. Please review the Essays page in the Course Information manual, particularly the sections on “Format,” “Citing and Referencing,” and “The References List.”
Structure
Introduction
The introduction to your paper should address these questions in a scholarly way:
What do you intend to do?
What issue(s) will you discuss and from what point of view?
What approach to your topic will you take?
What will be the limitations of your research and your discussion?
This section should define what you will and will not cover.
The most important part of your introduction is the thesis statement. St. Cloud State University’s Literacy Education Online has a clear and simple outline of what a Thesis Statement is and is not, and The University of Toronto’s Writing Advice provides information about Using Thesis Statements . Both resources are succinct and provide clear examples.
Body
In the body of your paper, you should follow through on what you said you would do in the introduction. Make sure that your interpretation of the superhero’s character is clear, and make sure that the theories, concepts, and research findings that you use to support it are directly relevant to the personality theory that you have chosen. It is important that you organize the paper in a meaningful way, that you express yourself clearly, and that you argue and document your ideas. You are encouraged to use quotations from the movie relevant to your character, but please use paraphrasing for the rest of the paper. Any ideas attributable to someone else must be acknowledged with proper in-text citations, and listed in proper APA reference format at the end of the paper.
The Form of the Essay
Your paper should be written so that your ideas flow logically, there are connections between your ideas, and you use new paragraphs for new sub-topics. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and typing errors will be taken into account in the assessment, as will your careful use of APA style in your paper in general, and in your in-text citations and your references list in particular. Refer to the Citing and Referencing section in the Course Information manual for several sources of information on APA style.
SAMPLE ESSAY can be provided.
