writing a paper

Published

Ok, so I just started my psychology 100 online. We have two individual papers and two team assignment papers we are doing during the quarter. I've been out of college for over 15 years and without a teacher to hammer the nitty gritty out with, I'm a bit unsure as to what to preset to him. He gave us a list of topics to chose from and then some basic instructions (blah blah- intro, body conclusion--silly stuff we learned in middle school) and then told us to follow the apa guildlines for structure. My question is- how long would a paper generally be? This is a 100 level class, so my thought was he doesn't expect a 50 page paper on each topic (doubt he'd want to read all those anyway). What is the norm now if anyone knows? 5 pages? 10 pages?

thanks for any help you can provide. so far the online discussion board is nothing but introductions. my group collaboration board has nothing but my personal postings.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Maternity.

i'll try to help you with this :)

make sure you have an introduction paragraph which clearly states what the essay will be discussing, and (if this is a research type of essay) try to fid 3 major points to the essay, and state them in you introduction paragraph as well. then, with the 3 major points, write a paragraph for each. then have a conclusion paragraph which will re state all of your information. a typical paper that i write is normally around 2 pages. hopefully this helps you. also (sorry if i missed it in your post) is there no way to contact your professor? seems kind of wrong that you couldn't have someone to clarify things with.

best of luck to you!!! :yeah:

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Just a simple 5 paragraph 2 page essay type deal is what you've found common? I can do that in two beats of a heart. :chuckle Siting resources and footnotes might take longer than writing it. We do have the professor to email, but feel weird asking a bunch of questions, like perhaps he feels that what he gave us is all we should need. *shrug* I don't know, I suppose I should just ask (only dumb questions is...and such).

Think it would be weird to ask my biology teacher what her opinion is? She used to be a psych teacher believe it or not. lol

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Im new to this site and am also writing multiple papers. I absolutely hate writing! I am currently writing one for Sociology 101. Its to be 5-7 body pages long in APA format. After all the indentions and double spacing it really isnt a whole lot. The bad thing is when you have multiple papers going at once. I have one going in each the following :Soc. 101, Biology 101, and English 101! I hope there isnt this much writing in the actual nursing program.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Maternity.
im new to this site and am also writing multiple papers. i absolutely hate writing! i am currently writing one for sociology 101. its to be 5-7 body pages long in apa format. after all the indentions and double spacing it really isnt a whole lot. the bad thing is when you have multiple papers going at once. i have one going in each the following :soc. 101, biology 101, and english 101! i hope there isnt this much writing in the actual nursing program.

yikes! a paper in biology? :stone i haven't had one of those!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

We have to do a "group" paper in biology as well. Our teacher is real good about giving us tons of info about assignments, so i'm not too worried about that one.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Yes we will have a group paper also, right now we have something called a synopsis due this week. One page long, not too bad. Its really the english papers that are killing me.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

thanks for all the help! Emailed my teacher and he expects 5-7 pages not including title, reference page. Double spaced 12 font should'nt be too hard though.

Anyway, wierd question, he states that not more than 20% of our papers should be cited material, either direct or indirect quotes. However, this isn't a personal opinion paper or written in first person. Therefore, where the heck is that other 80% supposed to come from? My paper is on the effects of early vs. late puberty. Well, since I didn't personally conduct any studies, write the definition of puberty, or discover any of the glands or hormones myself, how can these not be cited as coming from other sources (or in most cases many, many sources)? I've already emailed him twice concerning papers and then he posted information after I did. I feel like I must be the only one who doesn't know anything if I have to keep asking him.

Can anyone give me some insight into this?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
thanks for all the help! Emailed my teacher and he expects 5-7 pages not including title, reference page. Double spaced 12 font should'nt be too hard though.

Anyway, wierd question, he states that not more than 20% of our papers should be cited material, either direct or indirect quotes. However, this isn't a personal opinion paper or written in first person. Therefore, where the heck is that other 80% supposed to come from? My paper is on the effects of early vs. late puberty. Well, since I didn't personally conduct any studies, write the definition of puberty, or discover any of the glands or hormones myself, how can these not be cited as coming from other sources (or in most cases many, many sources)? I've already emailed him twice concerning papers and then he posted information after I did. I feel like I must be the only one who doesn't know anything if I have to keep asking him.

Can anyone give me some insight into this?

I think I can help you with this, speaking as a former college professor who made her students write until they were ready to scream. :) What he's saying is he doesn't want to get a paper that is basically a bunch of quotations and paraphrases interspersed with a few lines of your own text. Some students go overboard and cite long, long, LONG passages when a few relevant sentences from that passage will do fine. Or sometimes, just a reference to the fact that so-and-so found such-and-such [citation]. Those students usually don't get around to telling the reader why that quote is important, or what point it is supposed to be making! They just drop the quote in as if its relevance to the question at hand is perfectly obvious, when it often isn't. I used to tell my students to imagine me saying, "So what?" or "What does that matter?" or "And your point is..." so that they would stop and think when they used a quote. I'm sure I gave them nightmares.

He wants your paper to show that you researched it, but also that you can tell him what your research found without resorting to "the horse's mouth" all the time. In other words, interpret your research rather than regurgitate it.

That said, you do need to be careful to put citations for ideas that aren't your own, in addition to citations for direct quotes. It's an art, figuring out how much cite, but you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion