Some Pointers about Writing.

To become a good writer, you need to do your own editing. You must become sensitive to the kinds of problems that occur repeatedly in your writing, and you must learn to correct your own mistakes. The following are some common problems in students’ writing.

Work from a plan. Your assigned paper is very short – just two pages. Still, it is good to work from a plan. Prepare an outline that lists the main points you plan to make in your paper. Make sure that your ideas logically progress and are related to one another. Your paper should not be just a random series of “free associations.” Remember, there are two parts to your assignment: 1) describe a personal experience, and 2) relate this experience to some research or theory in psychology. If you emphasize just one part of the assignment (e.g., you describe a personal experience) but neglect the other part (you don’t relate your experience to psychological research or theory), you will lose points.

It is always a good strategy to define your terms. For example, if your goal is to explain your fear of dogs in terms of classicial conditioning, then you must define classical conditioning and its main concepts.

Get to your point quickly. I (the reader) should know within a sentence or so what the main topic of your paper is. The following is an example of a weak paper introduction, because it doesn’t get to the point quickly:

“Psychology helps explain so much about our lives. Research in psychology holds the promise of explaining our behavior problems and helping us to solve them. Little did I know that when I enrolled in Introductory Psychology that it would apply to so much in my life. It has helped me understand my personality, how memory works, and even some of my fears….”

In contrast, the following is a good introduction, because it gets to the point quickly and tells the reader immediately what the paper is about:

“Throughout much of my life I have been terrified of dogs. In this paper, I will apply classical conditioning theory to my longterm dog phobia in an attempt to understand how my fear developed and how I may reduce it….”

Do not “b.s.” in your paper! Most professors are smart enough to know when you are “padding” – just writing words to fill space.

Verbosity. Good writing is "lean and mean." Every word counts; there are no extra words. The following excerpts provide some examples of “flabby” writing.

Example: "The Social Learning Theory according to Bandura & Walters is the theory, that proposed that behavior is primarily learned by observing and imitating the actions of others, and secondarily by being directly rewarded and punished for our own actions."

Rewrite: "Bandura and Walters’ social learning theory proposes that behavior is primarily learned through observation and imitation, and secondarily through reward and punishment." (Notice too how the rewrite achieves better parallelism between the two parts of the sentence. …more on this later.)

Example: "There are many different causes of aggression. Some may have to do with the way a person was reared and some may just be genetic, but violence on television is one thing that influences aggression in real life."

Rewrite: "There are many different cause of aggression, including the way a person was reared and genetic factors. In our society, television violence is an important cause of real-life aggression."

Awkward constructions. Many students write sentences that are so awkward and unwieldy that it's hard to know what they are trying to say.

Example: "However, findings still suggest that aggressive scripts, or guides for behavior and problem solving that are developed and stored in memory and are characterized by aggression, are most dominantly formed by direct observation of those whom we constantly interact instead of from TV violence."

Rewrite (and I had to do some guessing here): "However, findings suggest that aggressive scripts -- that is, learned, sequenced patterns of aggressive behavior in social settings -- are more often formed by observing real-life aggression than by observing TV violence."

Example: "An example of when control theory of self-regulation was present when I reached an age when living at home with mothers rules where not bearable."

Rewrite (there are multiple errors here): "The following real-life experience provides a good example of the control theory of self-regulation. I reached an age when living at home and following my mother's rules became unbearable…."

Use Proper Tone and Avoid Overly Colloquial Usage. A good writer knows what tone to use in a piece of writing. I do not expect you to write like a college professor. Nonetheless, you are writing a university-level paper, and your tone should be appropriate to a university-level paper.

Example: “In high school I used to hang out with bad dudes, and this got me into trouble with the law.” Note: The phrases “hang out” and “bad dudes” are too colloquial for a university-level paper.

Rewrite: “In high school I associated with a bad crowd, and this got me in trouble with the law.”

Example: "But as I got older I realized that this Christianity thing isn't exactly a piece of cake."

Rewrite: "As I got older, I realized that following Christian moral principles was not as easy as I had earlier imagined."

Example: "Now it wasn't only your actions that got you into some heat, but also your attitude toward things.

Rewrite: "Now, it wasn't only your actions that got you into trouble, but your attitudes as well."

Example: "I envisioned myself messing up my lines and stuttering over words."

Rewrite: "I envisioned myself forgetting my lines and stumbling over words."

Example: "This particular episode was what I would call 'normal' for this TV series. It contained several fight scenes…."

Rewrite: "This particular episode was fairly typical for this TV series. It contained several fight scenes…."

The following are specific writing problems that often occur in student papers:

Changing tenses. Tenses (the use of past, present, or future verbs) should generally stay consistent within sentences and within paragraphs. When tenses change needlessly, it is jarring. Try to avoid needless tense changes.

Example: "Growing up in a rural community was challenging at best when trying to see out into the "real world." The farming community has held prejudicial views because often times, it is difficult to travel out of the area because the demands that the responsibilities of farming/ranching entails. Being in the lower to middle classes doesn't allow extra money to travel or to experience multi-cultural events either."

Rewrite (I'm going to make a lot of changes here; but note in particular how the tenses jumped around in the previous passage and how I make them more consistent in the following passage): "Growing up in a rural community made it difficult for me to experience the 'real world.' My farming community fostered prejudiced views, in part because if was difficult for residents to travel out of the area, due to the responsibilities of farming and ranching. Being lower to middle class, many residents did not have extra money to travel…."

Lack of parallelism in clauses and sentence structure. In general, good writing makes strong use of parallel structures. This means that two clauses in the same sentence or two successive sentences should often have the same structure (i.e., the same order of subject on verbs, the same listing of things).

Example: "The town's citizens were anxious about the new members of their community. There was fear and a distinct anxiety."

Rewrite: "The town's citizens were anxious about the new members of their community. They felt fear and prejudice." (The subjects of the two sentences are now parallel.)

Example: “Fear made my life a living hell. I was also depressed, which was like a prison.”

Rewrite: “My fear became a living hell, my depression a suffocating prison.” (Notice the parallelism of the two parts of the rewritten sentence.”

Example: “Some of the problems that resulted from having a mentally ill parent were: poor self-esteem, I was unable to focus on my studies, and blaming myself for everything that went wrong in my life.” (Note how the three listed “problems” are not parallel in form.)

Rewrite: “Some of the problems that resulted from having a mentally ill parent were poor self-esteem, constant self-blame, and an inability to focus on my studies.” (Note how the three listed “problems” are more parallel here – they are all nouns.)

Dangling modifying phrases. Make sure that phrases that introduce a sentence are modifying what they should. A "dangling" phrase is "dangling" because it's not next to the noun it should be modifying.

Example: "By writing down these thoughts when they happen…it was not hard to see the truth…."

Rewrite (who is "writing down the thoughts"?): "By writing down these thoughts, I readily saw the truth…."

Example: "Looking particularly at my relationship with my boyfriend, nonverbal cues and behaviors can be a large part of our communication."

Rewrite (who is doing the "looking"?): "Looking particularly at my relationship with my boyfriend, I see that nonverbal cues and behavior form a large part of our communication."

Mismatched numbers. When nouns and pronouns refer to the same people or things, their number must match.

Example: "Due to the fact that my actions as I perform my job contradicts my morality…."

Rewrite [note that the number of the subject ("actions") does not match the number of the verb ("contradicts")]: "Because my actions, performed in the course of my job, ….contradict my morality…."

Example: "…when someone needs a drink -- usually a beer -- they whistle at the first person…."

Rewrite: "when someone needs a drink -- usually a beer -- he whistles at the first person…."

Example: "Just like a child is taught their alphabets at six years of age…."

Rewrite: "Just as a child is taught his or her alphabet at six years of age…." Or equivalently, "Just as children are taught the alphabet at six years of age…."

Example: "If the person feels forced to make a certain decision, they will not experience much dissonance; but if they are not forced to make a choice, they will…." (“Person” is singular; “they” is plural.)

Rewrite: "If the person feels forced to make a certain decision, he or she will not experience much dissonance; but if forced to make a choice, the individual will…."

Problems in the use of "their," there," and "they're." "Their" is a possessive pronoun ("I saw their new house"). "There" refers to a location ("I want you to put the chair over there"). "They're" is a contraction for "they are" ("They're happy in their new house"). Don't confuse these three constructions.

Example: "To the side of this gentleman, their is a medium-sized male…."

Rewrite: "To the side of this gentleman, there is a medium-sized male…."

Example: "People look at there past to view how different people act and react…."

Rewrite: "People look to their past to view…."

Problems with possessives. Possessive nouns require an apostrophe ( ' ). ("That is John's book." "My parents' first quarrel occurred when I was eight years old").

Example: "One time when I was at my aunts house…."

Rewrite: "One time when I was at my aunt's house…."

Problems with subject and objects pronouns (e.g., "I" vs. "me"). "I" is used as a subject. "Me" is used as an object.

Example: "He asks my sisters and I to give him hugs…."

Rewrite: "He asks my sisters and me to give him hugs…."

Example: "These resources drive the needs and wants of our society into a constant struggle amongst its inhabitants, which are people like you and I."

Rewrite: "These resources drive the needs and wants of our society, leading to a constant struggle among its members, who are people like you and me."

Problems with sentence fragments. A complete sentence has a subject and verb. Sentence fragment are incomplete and grammatically unacceptable sentences.

Example: "Ultimately becoming more inclined to use the aggressive scripts they have learned to solve social problems."

Rewrite: "Ultimately, they become more inclined to use learned aggressive scripts to

solve their social problems."

Example: "A feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is not consistent with one's attitudes."

Rewrite: "Dissonance is a feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is not consistent with one's attitudes."

Example: "In particular, external source being the situation and internal source being our attitude."

Rewrite: "Situations constitute an external influence on behavior, and our attitudes constitute an internal influence on our behavior."

Problems with run-on sentences. Do not run together two separate sentences without punctuation in between. Distinct clauses that express independent ideas need to be ended with either periods or semicolons ("." or ";").

Example: "Not all aggression comes from inside, most of it is reared into us but not by our environment, rather the television."

Rewrite (There are lots of problems here, but notice the run-on sentences): "Not all aggression comes from inside. Most of it results from our rearing, but a significant amount also results from watching violent television."

Example: "I still loved the field the difference was that I no longer felt the passion I once did for it."

Rewrite: "I still loved the field. However, I no longer felt the passion for it I once did."

Do not confuse the words "affect" and "effect." "Affect" is generally a verb, and "effect" is a noun. ("Research shows that temperature affects aggression." "At first, her abuse had no effect on me." "The experiment demonstrated two significant effects.") An exception in psychology is the use of the word "affect" to refer to emotion. Then it is a noun. ("The schizophrenic patient displayed a lack of affect.")

Example: "…their self-presentation can greatly effect their attitudes and behavior."

Rewrite: "…their self-presentation can greatly affect their attitudes and behavior."

Misplacing the word "only," and other words, such as "either." Be careful where you place the word "only." The placement of this word can dramatically change the meaning of a sentence. Example: "I only wanted to kiss her cheek." (The only thing in the world I wanted to do was to kiss her cheek.) "I wanted to kiss only her cheek." (I didn't want him to kiss any other part of her body!)

Example: "I would compare them with other students and only choose to remember positive aspects of my group…."

Rewrite: "I would compare them with other students and choose to remember only positive aspects of my group…."

Example: "In both conditions, the subjects were either offered $.50 or $2.50…"

Rewrite: "In both conditions, the subjects were offered either $.50 or $2.50…"

Example: "…since I only smoked three to five cigarettes a day…."

Rewrite: "…because I smoked only three to five cigarettes a day…."

Use of passive voice. The active voice ("I hit John") is stronger than the passive voice ("John was hit by me"). Sometimes we must use the passive voice in writing. However, many students use the passive voice too often. Avoid it, when possible.

Example: "A cognitive dissonance experiment conducted by Leon Festinger and Merrill Carlsmith in 1959 can be applied to my situation."

Rewrite: "A cognitive dissonance experiment conducted by Leon Festinger and Merrill Carlsmith applies to my situation."

Example: "The 'contact hypothesis' will be used to describe how my beliefs and attitudes have changed since attending college."

Rewrite: "The contact hypothesis can help explain how my beliefs and attitudes have changed…."

Example: "When this occurs, excuses are offered to repair the damage."

Rewrite: "When this occurs, people offer excuses to repair the damage."

Example: "Then each group was given the same information…."

Rewrite: "Then each group received the same information…"

Restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, and the use of "which" or "that" as relative pronouns. A restrictive clause is a subordinate clause that "restricts" the meaning of the noun it modifies. That is, it specifies what the thing is. For example, in the sentence -- "This is the dog that lived in the house that Jack built" -- the subordinate clause, "that lived in the house that Jack built," is restrictive -- it specifies which dog you are talking about. A nonrestrictive clause presents additional information, but it doesn't specify which thing (e.g., which dog) you are talking about. For example, in the sentence -- "There's Jack's dog, which I gave him as a present last year" -- the clause, "which I gave him last year," is nonrestrictive. You already know which dog it is (It's Jack's dog). The nonrestrictive clause gives you new information about the identified dog (I gave the dog to Jack last year). In general, restrictive clauses are introduced with the relative pronoun "that," and nonrestrictive clauses are introduced with the relative pronoun "which." Furthermore, restrictive clauses are not set off by commas; however, nonrestrictive clauses are.

Example: "As I type this paper…I am looking at the many action figures I have displayed on my windowsill that I have accumulated during my childhood."

Rewrite: "As I type this paper…I am looking at the many action figures I have displayed on my windowsill, which I had accumulated during my childhood."

Confusing "that" with "who" as relative pronouns. Use "that" for things, and "who" for people. Write, "Joan is the woman who is standing by the window," rather than, "Joan is the woman that is standing by the window." Furthermore, when the relative pronoun is an object rather than a subject, use "whom" rather than "who." (Joan is the woman whom I dated last year.")

Example: "I have never been the type of girl that wears dresses and flower-printed clothing."

Rewrite: "I have never been the type of girl who wears dresses and flower-printed clothing."

Misuse of the word "while." "While" means "at the same time." It should not be used in place of "although" or “whereas” in formal writing. Here's a correct use of "while": "Jan mowed the lawn, while I trimmed the hedges." The following are incorrect uses of "while."

Example: "While I still had some of my old fears, I now felt much better."

Rewrite: "Although I still had some of my old fears, I now felt much better."

Example: “An obsession is an uncontrollable thought, while a compulsion is an uncontrollable behavior.”

Rewrite: “An obsession is an uncrontrollable thought, whereas a compulsion is an uncontrollable behavior.”

Punctuation: Using commas properly to separate the clauses of a sentence. Independent clauses connected by the conjunctions "and" or "or" should be separated by commas. "This is a great class, and Lippa is a great teacher."

Example: "Back then I was only conforming to specific beliefs of my elders and even though I truly thought that I agreed with them I didn't."

Rewrite: "Back then, I conformed to the specific beliefs of my elders, and even though I thought I agreed with them, in fact I did not."

Place commas and periods inside quotation marks (this is correct American punctuation; it may vary in England).

Example: My mother yelled to me as flames engulfed the house, “You’ve got to jump out of the window”.

Example: My mother yelled to me as flames engulfed the house, “You’ve got to jump out of the window.”

WHEN IN DOUBT ABOUT PUNCTUATION, CHECK THE RULES, WHICH ARE USUALLY LISTED AT THE END OF ANY GOOD DICTIONARY.

Misuse of the word "like." The word "like" is a preposition: "Susie acts like me." "John owns a car like mine." It should not be used as a conjunction. For this purpose, use the words "as" or "as though."

Example: "It seemed like the entire school knew about it…."

Rewrite: "It seemed as though the entire school knew about it…."

Example: "Just like I learned this appalling behavior from my father…."

Rewrite: "Just as I had learned this appalling behavior from my father…."

Misuse of the word “since.” In formal writing, do not use the word “since” to mean “because.” Use “since” only to refer to the passage of time: “Since coming to Cal State Fullerton, I have learned that my study habits are inadequate.”

Example: “Since my fear of dogs resulted from classical conditioning, maybe classical conditioning theory could help me to extinguish my fear.”

Rewrite: “Because my my fear of dogs resulted from classical conditioning, maybe classical conditioning theory could help me to extinguish my fear.”

Split infinitives. Infinitives are verbs with "to" in front of them: "to be," "to hit," "to love," etc. In general, it's best in formal writing not to split infinitives. This rule has become more relaxed in recent years, but it's still good to avoid split infinitives when possible. It gives a "higher class" tone to your writing. (How would Shakespeare’s famous, “to be or not to be…,” have sounded if he had written instead, “to be or to not be”?)

Example: "I was able to not only cope with the stress, but also to…." (The split infinitive is: “to not only cope.”

Rewrite: "I was able not only to cope with the stress, but also to…"

Example: “I wanted to immediately go home.” (The split infinitive is “to immediately go.”)

Rewrite: “I wanted to go home immediately.”

Use of topic sentences and topic paragraphs. The first sentence is the most important sentence of your paper. It sets the tone for everything that follows. It should "hook" the reader and signal what is to follow. It is a mistake to start your papers with paragraphs that do not say much of anything. I sometimes refer to this kind of vacuous opening as the "cosmic introduction." Students sometimes write introductory paragraphs such as, "Social psychology is the study of how people's thoughts and feelings are influenced by the presence of other people. Social psychology is relevant to all aspects of our lives. Social psychological theories and research apply to a host of real-life events…." I keep reading and reading through such an introduction, and I still don't know what the subject of this paper is going to be. Avoid such "cosmic introductions." Get to the point quickly. In a two-page paper, the reader should know what your paper is about after reading just the first sentence or so.

Example: "Throughout my childhood and adolescence a very interesting, yet influential environment has surrounded me. I often reflect on why I believe certain things and hold the attitudes I do today."

Rewrite: Eliminate the first sentence, which is awkward and uninformative, and start instead with the second sentence.

Poor transitions. Many students have problems making transitions from one idea to another. Often, one sentence does not follow logically from another. Students often start paragraphs on totally new subjects without providing a transition for the reader. Their thoughts proceed in a haphazard fashion.

Example: "...A few days later my mother asked me how my speech went, and I told her I did horrible. It told her my professor did not give me enough time and because of this, I was not able to efficiently prepare for my speech. “We usually explain our self-presentation failures as being caused by external and uncontrollable events” (quote from the text book). This kind of behavior often occurs when self-presenters are unsuccessful in their presentation. I made excuses to protect my self-esteem and blamed it on outside variables.

Another theory I can relate to is high self-monitoring theory. When I am with my mother, I act like the dutiful daughter...."

Rewrite (and I had to do some guessing here; there are many errors in the previous passage; see if you can identify some of them, including a split infinitive.): "...A few days later my mother asked me how my speech went, and I told her I did horribly. The excuse I offered was that my professor had not given me sufficient time to prepare my speech. This excuse illustrates the text's assertion that ‘we usually explain our self-presentation failures as being caused by external and uncontrollable events’. My excuse clearly served to protect my self-esteem.

The social psychological concept of self-monitoring is also related to the ways people present themselves to others. Rather than addressing the excuses and self-serving attributions people make, however, self-monitoring theory addresses how people vary their self-presentation across situations. My behavior with my mother provides a good example of self-monitoring in action...."

Notice how, in the second paragraph of my rewrite, I take the reader "by the hand" and tell him or her how the new paragraph is related to the previous paragraph. Also, in the first paragraph, I take jumbled ideas and try to provide them with a logical flow.

Use the “spell check” of your word processing program!!! If there are spelling errors and typos that could have been corrected by running a “spell check,” you will lose points.

Good writing is hard work! Let me conclude with a passage from W. Strunk and E. B. White's, Elements of Style. (This excellent book on writing style is sold at the Titan Bookstore. Consider buying it.)

"Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style-- all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.

Writing is, for most, laborious and slow. The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in his blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up. Like other gunners, he must cultivate patience; he may have to work many covers to bring down one partridge.”

Good writing requires continual reading, rereading, rewriting, revision, and editing. No one can write a perfect paper, short story, or novel without considerable revision. Just as good musicians and athletes must exercise and practice endlessly, good writers must write, rewrite, and rewrite again. The existence of personal computers and word processing programs make revision much easier today than it was years ago. You can easily change your papers with a computer. You can readily “cut and paste” and rearrange paragraphs. And you can save old versions of you paper, just in case you decide you like the old version better than the new one.

It is a good idea to ask another person to read your paper and tell you if your writing seems clear, if your ideas make sense.

Remember too that computer “spell checks” and “grammar checks” are useful, but they cannot catch all grammatical and spelling errors (such as when to use “bear” versus “bare,” or “their” versus “there.”) There is no substitute for an intelligent, conscientious writer.