Teaching

Course Syllabi

The following are the syllabi from the most recent versions of these classes.

Alternatives to Consumerism (AMST/ENVS 273)
Clinical & Abnormal Psychology (PSYC 277)
Dreaming (PSYC 380)
Internship in Psychology (PSYC 300c)
Statistics and Research Methods II (PSYC 282)
The Study of the Person (PSYC 365)
Theories of Personality (PSYC 207)

Knox College has a very unique Clinical Psychology Term

General Course Policies

Plagiarism Policy
  Please be sure all sentences are in your own words or fully paraphrased or quoted if you are using someone else's ideas. If three or more words are in the same order as in the original text they must be in quotation marks and cited. Failure to put quotes in quotation marks (even if the source is cited) is a violation of the honor code. The following examples show what is and is not acceptable.

  Original Sentence: In brief, gender differences are modest in magnitude, consistent with gender stereotypes, and replicable across cultures.

  Plagiarized Sentence: Gender differences are consistent with gender stereotypes, replicable across cultures, and modest in magnitude.

  Plagiarized Sentence: Gender differences are moderate in magnitude, compatible with gender stereotypes, and consistent across cultures.

  Acceptable Sentence: We found that differences between genders were not very large, but did fit common stereotypes and were similar across the 26 cultures.

10 Writing Mistakes to Avoid in my Classes

The following are ten common writing mistakes to avoid in my classes. My policy is the following. If you make any of the following mistakes, I will note it within the document by writing down WM#, with the # referring to the writing mistake that you made (i.e., 1 for Fragmented sentences, 2 for run-ons, etc.). At the end of the paper I will tally the number of mistakes that you made and take 2% off of your grade for each mistake made. To be clear, if you have more than one mistake that falls under one of the categories (e.g., several fragmented sentences), you will receive 2% off each time you make the mistake.

If you had an 85% for the paper, but made 3 of the following mistakes, you would receive a 79%. If you make more than 10 mistakes from the following list, the highest possible grade that you will receive on the paper is a 65%, or a D. Additional points may also be taken off for other types of writing mistakes, including frequent typographical errors, incorrect citations, and poor organization, but these points will not count towards this 10-mistake rule. Well-written papers will be rewarded; if you do not make any of these ten mistakes anywhere in your paper, you will receive an extra 2% on the paper, e.g., a 98% rather than a 96%.

1. Fragmented sentences: Fragmented sentences occur when a sentence lacks either a subject or verb or when a sentence is actually a phrase masquerading as a sentence. Fragmented sentences are always incomplete thoughts. For example "Near the printer on my desk" has neither a subject nor a verb. "Twenty seven females and ten males" has no verb and "Went willingly to the room" has no subject. All necessary parts of speech must be within a particular sentence. So "The stapler sits near the printer on my desk" adds a subject (i.e., stapler) and verb (i.e., sits). "Twenty seven females and ten males participated in the study" adds a verb (i.e., participated). "She went willingly into the room" adds a subject (i.e., She). Sometimes a fragmented sentence does have an action and an actor, as in "Bill, running down the corridor." The problem here is that the thought is incomplete. "Bill ran down the corridor" is a complete thought, as is, "Bill, running down the corridor, smashed head first into Dean."

2. Run-on sentences: Run-on sentences occur when two clauses that could stand independently as sentences are smashed together into one seeming sentence, sometimes with a comma between them, although not always. "Measures of depression are commonly used, they really work" is a run-on sentence because "Measures of depression are commonly used" stands alone as a sentence, and "they really work" stands alone as a sentence (i.e., each has a subject and a verb). One way of fixing a run-on sentence is to make it two different sentences, as in "Measures of depression are commonly used. They really work." Another solution is to separate the two sentences with a semi-colon or sometimes a dash "Measures of depression are commonly used; they really work." Typically the best solution is to connect the two sentences with a comma and a type of conjunction, as in "Measures of depression are commonly used, and they really work." With this solution, the run-on is fixed and a transition is provided.

3. Pronoun-antecedent agreement: This problem often occurs when an earlier word in the sentence (the antecedent) is singular but the pronoun is plural, e.g., "When a person does not study for a test, they often fail." The problem is that "A person" is singular but "they" is plural. This problem can be fixed by making the antecedent plural, as in "When people do not study, they often fail." It can also be fixed by making the pronoun singular, as in "When a person does not study, she or he often fails." A third way to fix this problem is to reword the sentence to remove the pronoun, as in "People who do not study often fail."

4. Unclear references: This problem typically occurs when a pronoun refers to an earlier word (the antecedent) but it is not clear exactly what word the pronoun refers to. For example, "Lane told Joe that he had failed the course" could mean the Lane had failed the course or that Joe had failed the course. The reader has no way of knowing. This is easily solved by being clear and writing "Lane told Joe, "You failed the course."" Another type of unclear reference sometimes occurs with "which," as in "She avoided using slang, which greatly improved her speech." Here the reader can not tell whether the avoiding of slang or the slang itself improved her speech. It is your responsibility to make it clear to the reader that "By avoiding slang, she improved her speech."

5. Parallel construction: Parallel construction is necessary for clarity and involves making sure that lists of things are expressed with the same grammatical forms. So, in the case of "Joe went shopping, drank two beers, and one martini," there is a problem in grammar with the "and one martini" just hanging at the end of the sentence. In this case, the sentence could be fixed by writing "Joe shopped, and then he drank two beers and one martini" so that "shopped" and "drank" are parallel, and so it is clear what happened with the one martini. Another option would be to write "Joe shopped, drank two beers, and downed one martini" to add a parallel verb form that explains what happened to the martini. Parallel construction problems also occur in sentences like "Many professors work hard, taking no vacation." In this case "work" is not parallel to "taking." The sentence can be fixed by rewriting it as "Many professors work hard and take no vacation" or as "Many professors are working hard and taking no vacation."

6. Then vs. Than: "Then" refers to comparisons in time, as in "First she ran, then she swam," and to causal statements, as in "If I drop this, then it will hit the ground." "Than" is used for comparisons, as in "Joe is taller than Frank."

7. Effect vs. Affect: When discussing causality, "affect" is a verb whereas "effect" is a noun. So the following is correct usage: "Joe's statement affected Helen's self-esteem; this, in turn, had drastic effects on her performance on the test." Affect can occasionally be a noun, referring to emotion, as in "The researchers measured levels of positive affect." Effect can occasionally be used as a verb meaning "to bring about," as in "The earthquake effected great change in the highway system." Your best rule of thumb is to use "effect" as a noun and "affect" as a verb, except for the two exceptions above.

8. Who vs. That: When you refer to people, "who" is appropriate, not "that" or "which." Thus, "He is a person who smiles frequently," is correct.

9. Never and Always: Many students write sentences such as "She never smiles" or "He is always a hard grader." Both of these are likely overstatements and misuses of the words "never" and "always." "People never run faster than the speed of light" and "People always die eventually," are examples of proper uses of the words. The earlier sentences can be fixed by writing "She rarely smiles" or "He is usually a hard grader."

10. The apostrophe: Make sure to use apostrophes appropriately. They are used for possessives, as in "Joe's candy is tasty" and "One's health is important." The only exception to this is in the case of "Its" where no apostrophe is used for the possessive, as in "The paint can fell off the table and landed on its lid." Apostrophes are also used sometimes to make a plural, as with numbers and symbols. For example, it is correct to say "The poker player held three 7's in his hand" but it is not correct to say "The chips and the poker player's sat on the table." An apostrophe is also used for contractions such as "It's" (when referring to "it is") and "can't," (when referring to "can not") but such contractions are too informal for the writing in this class and should generally be avoided.