Final Paper Due tomorrow

SOC 1123 Section NA Psychology of Adjustment

V. Small, Ph.D.

Your Personal College Success Plan: Using Psychology of Adjustment as a Roadmap to Graduation

In this paper, you will be discussing different ways in which the basic principles of applied psychology covered in this course can be of help in developing and implementing your own College Success Plan.

Section I of your Paper: My Challenges

Begin your paper with a few paragraphs that discuss at least three of your biggest challenges that concern you in terms of possible interferences in your ability to make it to graduation. Feel free to mention four or five challenges if you like. For each of the challenges that you mention, discuss the ways in which that challenge developed and the range of variables/factors in your life at this point that make each challenge problematic or stressful.

Section II of your paper: Summary of My Challenges -

Develop a short phrase or sentence that describes each of the challenges that you identified in Section I as possible barriers to your path to graduation and list those challenges as numbered bullet points such as the following example:

1) Time management

2) Budgeting finances

3) Low self-esteem/ poor self-confidence

4) Maintaining a positive attitude

Section IV of your Paper: Outline Summary of My College Success Plan -

Summarize in outline form your College Success Plan discussed in Section III with a numbered list of strategies, step-by-step, describing what you plan to do next quarter to implement your Plan.

Section V: Footnotes & Bibliography Research Preparation to Write Section III of your Paper:

Before writing the rest of the paper, do some research about how to proceed with developing your College Success Plan by reviewing all of the material covered in the course whether in the assigned readings or in the Power points and pick out different psychological principles from that material that you relate to and that you can use to help you overcome the challenges that you noted at the beginning of the paper. You will be expected to mention in your paper at least 4 different psychological principles that were covered in the course so make sure that before you start writing your paper that you have made up a list of those 4 principles that might be able to help you overcome your challenges.

Section III of your Paper: My College Success Plan

Having completed Section I and Section II covering your challenges that you have identified, and then in the third section of the paper you will be describing your College Success Plan that discusses changes that you plan to make beginning with the next quarter to overcome those challenges in order to keep you on a steady path to college graduation.   As you write up your plan, make sure that you refer specifically to psychological principles that you identified in your research that you plan to use to help you stay on that path.  Your College Success Plan should minimally address ways you plan to overcome each of the major challenges you identified in the paper. It should take you several paragraphs to describe your College Success Plan.

Page (MLA Format)

The first time you mention in your paper a reference to a given psychological principle discussed in this course, please put a footnote number at the end of the phrase or sentence that mentions the principle. Then develop a list of footnote explanations at the end of your paper.

So for example, if you are going to commit to a new plan to increase the quantity and quality of your sleep in order to increase your energy and alertness for studying, then in the paper after you mention sleep hygiene strategies (1) you should put a footnote number in parentheses as I have done in this sentence.

At the end of the paper, create a footnote section that lists all the footnote numbers with explanations for the location of the resource (article or PowerPoint) where that psychological principle is mentioned. Since you are expected to mention in your paper at least four psychological principles then your footnote section will have at least four footnote explanations. If you mention more than seven psychological principles, be sure you have included sources for all of the footnotes in the footnotes section. Your footnote section might look like the following:

Footnotes (“In-text” citations include)

PLEASE FOLLOW HANDBOOK

Bibliography Page

You must include a Bibliography Page in MLA format. Note, this is a research assignment and you must reference materials read from the articles in class and any additional material that you utilized to assist you in becoming better prepared for college. In addition, you can also reference the Guest Speakers.

Format, Specifications and Submission Deadline for the Paper:

1. The paper needs to be at least 800 words. This is the equivalent of about three pages, typed and double-spaced with a 12-point font, with one-inch margins on all sides.

2. Put My Personal College Success Plan at the top of page one

3. Put your name at the top of each page and the page number at the bottom of each page.

4. Label each section of your paper as below and fill in the content of each section based on the instructions above for each section.

Section I: My Challenges

Section II: Summary of My Challenges

Section II: Description of My College Success Plan

Section III: Outline Summary of My College Success Plan

Section IV: Footnotes

5. At the end of the paper, type in the word count.

6. Submit a hardcopy, No Later than Monday, August 14.

Grading Criteria:

A paper earning a grade in the 90 to 92 range out of 100 points will show that you:

1) Did a satisfactory job of discussing in detail each of your challenges that concern you about progressing to graduation with a description of the way each challenge developed and the range of variables/factors in your life at this point that make each challenge problematic or stressful.

2) Mentioned in your College Success Plan at least four psychological principles covered in the course

3) Provided footnotes to identify the source of each of the psychological principles you mentioned

4) Followed all of the paper format instructions including labeling each of the five sections of the paper as instructed and filling in the proper content that should be covered in each of those sections.

5) Wrote a paper that was easy to read without many significant writing problems

6) Wrote a paper that was at least 1200 words in length.

A grade of 94 plus will be reserved for papers that go above and beyond the assignment (such as mentioning more than 7 psychological principles or discussing more than four challenges, etc.)

Encouragement to use the Writing Tutors at the Academic Support Center: If you know that you have problems in your writing skills, I strongly encourage you to allow yourself enough time before the deadline to bring a draft of your paper to a tutor in the Academic Skills Center for help in revising your paper to correct writing problems.

Note: Before submitting, this paper please be sure to review each of the 6 points noted above as the Grading Criteria and make sure that you developed the paper as requested.

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