Assignment

Instructions 

Written report, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, that addresses the biological study of a specific behavioral or mental phenomenon (normal or pathological). Please select a behavioral or mental phenomenon such as language or schizophrenia and then select a biological strategy for investigating it, such as hormonal or genetic mechanisms, neurotransmitters, drug treatments, or localization of brain processes by imaging. 

Written paper. 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 using the biological line of investigation you chose. 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 recent research articles (published within the last five years) to illustrate relevant points. You may use any of a number of electronic databases to find research articles that deal with your topic, including the library and the Internet. The one requirement for the research articles that you select is that two of them must have appeared in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. You may wish to consult with the library staff or your faculty member to confirm whether a particular journal is peer-reviewed.

Newspaper or magazine articles should not be used as your major reference, but they are sometimes useful when they lead you to the appropriate research article. You should avoid simply repeating the articles in summary form, but rather use them within the text of your paper to illustrate important points. You are welcome to discuss your choice of topic with your faculty member to make sure you are on the right track.

Your paper should be 1,600 words, or about 6 to 8 pages, in length (use the word count as a guide to length). It must be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, and fully referenced in APA format (seehttp://www.apa.org). The due date is May 1st. The text of your paper should be preceded by an abstract (about 100 words) that summarizes the key points in the paper (i.e., statement of problem, major findings, and conclusions).

PowerPoint presentation. The PowerPoint presentation should summarize and illustrate the topic of your written paper. The PowerPoint presentation should consist of a minimum of 6 slides of the area in your written report. If you do not have access to PowerPoint, you may use free, publicly available software such as Prezi or Open Office Impress instead. 

Consider the following tips in preparing your presentation:

1.your first or second slide should be an outline of the presentation in which you identify main points and then follow the order of your outline for the rest of the presentation

2.there should be about four or five points per slide

3.use a standard font (Times Roman or Arial) and at least an 18-point font size with different sized fonts for main points and secondary points

4.use a font color that contrasts sharply with the background

5.use graphs rather than charts and words, and always title your graphs

6.proof your slides for spelling and grammatical errors

7.use a conclusion slide to summarize the main points of your presentation and to suggest future avenues of research