{"id":12439,"date":"2023-04-06T14:30:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T14:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/questions\/it-will-be-an-analysis-of-an-extended-claim-from-a-public-source-that-will-identify-its-most-important-fallacies-and-research-flaws-referring-to-the-concepts-of-the-class-and-to-published-research-re\/"},"modified":"2023-04-06T14:30:07","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T14:30:07","slug":"it-will-be-an-analysis-of-an-extended-claim-from-a-public-source-that-will-identify-its-most-important-fallacies-and-research-flaws-referring-to-the-concepts-of-the-class-and-to-published-research-re","status":"publish","type":"questions","link":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/questions\/it-will-be-an-analysis-of-an-extended-claim-from-a-public-source-that-will-identify-its-most-important-fallacies-and-research-flaws-referring-to-the-concepts-of-the-class-and-to-published-research-re\/","title":{"rendered":"It will be an analysis of an extended claim from a public source that will identify its most important fallacies and research flaws, referring to the concepts of the class and to published research relevant to the topic."},"content":{"rendered":"

The essay should be 1500-2000 words in length, excluding<\/p>\n

references (2000 words is a hard maximum).\n<\/div>\n
It will be an analysis of an extended claim made in a public platform\n<\/div>\n
(e.g., political arguments based on social science research; media\n<\/div>\n
reports of psychological research; publicity for a product or service\n<\/div>\n
relevant to psychological processes; etc.) We expect you to choose\n<\/div>\n
a claim that you can identify one or more flaws in that are relevant\n<\/div>\n
to the material of this class. That is, doing nothing more than\n<\/div>\n
praising a well-founded and solid claim, or picking at irrelevant\n<\/div>\n
flaws, will not be considered a valid reply to the essay question.\n<\/div>\n
In your essay you should use the analytic tools provided in the\n<\/div>\n
module to criticize the weakest points of the argument, while at\n<\/div>\n
the same time recognizing good practice.\n<\/div>\n
Importantly, your essay should evaluate the claim with respect to\n<\/div>\n
some area of published research (e.g., political psychology, social\n<\/div>\n
psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology,\n<\/div>\n
cognitive & neuropsychology). Drawing on research in other social\n<\/div>\n
science or in medicine is also acceptable, but keep in mind that you\n<\/div>\n
will be better equipped to evaluate research in Psychology due to\n<\/div>\n
your training as a Psychology student.\n<\/div>\n
The essay should be structured as follows (but do not number these\n<\/div>\n
sections):\n<\/div>\n
1.Choose and briefly describe your target claim. Your description\n<\/div>\n
and explanation of the context of the claim should not take more\n<\/div>\n
than a short opening paragraph. Due to the length of the\n<\/div>\n
assignment, it is better if you spell out its features in the course of\n<\/div>\n
critiquing it. The claim should:\n<\/div>\n
a. Be made in text(if you want to analyse a claim made in a\n<\/div>\n
video or audio format, you will need to provide a transcript).\n<\/div>\n
b. Be citeable (see APA Publication Manual for guidance on\n<\/div>\n
citing online sources).\n<\/div>\n
c. Be accessible to the public or to someone with a University\n<\/div>\n
of Kent login. Example sources are: peer-reviewed articles in\n<\/div>\n
journals; media reports of research found online (e.g., Guardian,\n<\/div>\n
Daily Mail); websites or social media posts promoting a product;\n<\/div>\n
opinion posts or articles online (e.g. Spectator, New Statesman).\n<\/div>\n
The source material should not be behind a \u201cpaywall\u201d that is not\n<\/div>\n
accessible to the people marking the essay.\n<\/div>\n
For ease of marking you are encouraged to include the\n<\/div>\n
verbatim material as an Appendix if it is of reasonable length (no\n<\/div>\n
more than 10 pages). This will NOT count as plagiarism!\n<\/div>\n
d. Give enough material for a sufficiently deep critique. This\n<\/div>\n
means that the assignment is easier if the claim is flawed in a\n<\/div>\n
number of ways that are interesting to analyse. Flaws are easier to\n<\/div>\n
find the further away from the peer-reviewed literature you get (but\n<\/div>\n
this is not to say that published articles cannot have their problems!)\n<\/div>\n
Sometimes good source material is found in two or more \u201clayers\u201d \u2013\n<\/div>\n
that is, there is a relatively brief news story but your critique also\n<\/div>\n
includes the University press release and\/or published paper it is\n<\/div>\n
based on.\n<\/div>\n
2. Choose and explain 2-4 of the most important flaws in the claim.\n<\/div>\n
If there are flaws that completely invalidate the main point being\n<\/div>\n
made, focus on these. Otherwise, pick those that cast doubts on the\n<\/div>\n
conclusions that a na\u00efve reader might take away\n<\/div>\n
from the claim. These flaws should also relate to the research\n<\/div>\n
literature in the following ways:\n<\/div>\n
a. If the flaws come from misinterpretation of published research,\n<\/div>\n
or from flaws in published research, you should cite the\n<\/div>\n
published article and use it as a basis of your critique.\n<\/div>\n
b. If the flaws in reasoning are made without reference to\n<\/div>\n
published research, you should cite and describe published\n<\/div>\n
research that is relevant to the point being made. For\n<\/div>\n
example, if you are evaluating a claim that fish oil\n<\/div>\n
supplements improve memory, you will want to look up and\n<\/div>\n
briefly summarize any research literature that exists on the\n<\/div>\n
topic. Pick related topics if a truly novel (bizarre!) claim is\n<\/div>\n
being made. If you still can\u2019t find any research literature, you\u2019ll\n<\/div>\n
want to choose another claim.\n<\/div>\n
3.(optional) If there is room, describe some of the more minor flaws\n<\/div>\n
in the claim. Explain why these are less important.\n<\/div>\n
4.(optional) If there is room, describe 1-2 points of good practice in\n<\/div>\n
the claim\u2014specifically, points where the authors acknowledge the\n<\/div>\n
limitations of their evidence, in a way that can be related to the tools\n<\/div>\n
for criticism given in the class.5.Conclude with a brief overall\n<\/div>\n
evaluation of the claim, whether the problems you identified\n<\/div>\n
completely or only partially invalidate it, and what it would take for\n<\/div>\n
the claim to become more perfectly justified.\n<\/div>\n
You will be evaluated on how good (i.e., thorough, clear,\n<\/div>\n
appropriate) your evaluation is. In other words, assessment of the\n<\/div>\n
essay will hinge primarily on how well you demonstrate mastery of\n<\/div>\n
course material.\n<\/div>\n
This mastery can come from correctly identifying logically flawed\n<\/div>\n
claims (the fallacies from the early part of the course), flaws in\n<\/div>\n
presentation of research data, flaws in inference from research\n<\/div>\n
methods and results, or more than one of these.\n<\/div>\n
You should not only identify flaws, but specifically explain how the\n<\/div>\n
claims are flawed, referring back to the principles in class material.\n<\/div>\n
The mark will also depend on the quality of your writing (i.e., the\n<\/div>\n
clarity of your argument, how well you express yourself, do your\n<\/div>\n
points follow on one another, etc.)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The essay should be 1500-2000 words in length, excluding references (2000 words is a hard maximum). It will be an analysis of an extended claim made in a public platform (e.g., political arguments based on social science research; media reports of psychological research; publicity for a product or service relevant to psychological processes; etc.) We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"disciplines":[196],"paper_types":[],"tagged":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/12439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/questions"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/12439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=12439"},{"taxonomy":"paper_types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paper_types?post=12439"},{"taxonomy":"tagged","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tagged?post=12439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}