Proposal Controversial Psychological Topic

Final Paper:

Controversial Psychological Topic: _______________________________________________

What is your research question? _______________________________________________

This is a solo project!

1. State your conclusion. (although you may begin your formal writing here, but sure that the

conclusion follows from your reasons). As you work, this is the last part this is filled in, not the

first.

2. Give three reasons (or some other number) that support your conclusion. Include an APA

formatted in-text citation for each premise.

a.

b.

c.

3. Rate each reason as weak, moderate, strong, or very strong.

Rating for a:

Rating for b:

Rating for c:

4. Give three counterarguments (or some other number) that weaken your conclusion. Include an

APA formatted in-text citation for each counterargument. Rate how much each counterargument

weakens the conclusion: little, moderate, much, or very much.

a.

Rating for a:

b.

Rating for b:

c.

Rating for c:

5. List any qualifiers (limitations on the reasons for or against—for example some evidence may

be restricted to early childhood)

6. List any assumptions.

7. Are your reasons and counterarguments directly related to your conclusion?

8. What is the overall strength of your argument: weak, moderate, strong, or very strong?

Now that you have completed this worksheet, rate the overall strength of your argument.

List at least three authoritative sources (peer reviewed articles from scholarly journals) in APA

format:

1.

2.

3.

Please note that you may not use random websites or popular magazines as sources (i.e.,

YouTube, psychologytoday.com, cnn.com, wikipedia.org, etc.). You may use the SFSU library

database to search for articles: https://library.sfsu.edu/