IR report Draft 1

Brigid Meagher

2/2/15

English 102-59

                                    Writing in the Field of Psychology

            Writing in the field of Psychology can be used in several different ways. Psychology is the study of the mind and it’s relation to human behavior, and there are a few different branches to which writing plays a great role. The first would be therapeutic psychology, or therapy. Here, psychologists take notes and keep documentation on patients who feel like they need medical or professional help to work through their problems. Another field would be experimental psychology. In experimental psychology, professionals conduct social experiments and tests to determine if one variable is correlated to another. After these experiments are concluded, however, long write-ups are conducted to explain the behavior or reaction that was displayed in the experiment and why it is correlated to a given variable. These are the ways that writing is used in Psychology.

            During an interview with Jessica Hutton, a graduate student and Psych 301 TA here at the university of Louisville, she shared how she used writing throughout graduate school and how she uses it now with her job at the university. After studying within the field of experimental psychology for about eight years now, Jessica says that the most commonly used writings are research based writings, or kids of writings relating to treatment methods. When discussing her honors thesis paper, where she and other students developed and conducted their own experiment and wrote an individual and extensive paper discussing the results and the reactions that they observed during the experiment, she says that “a ton or revision goes into it, because behaviors are constantly changing and different people react different ways to certain things, therefore a lot of writing has got to go into it because you may write one things and have to go back and change it later because the data can change at any moment.” In a scholarly article titled “Academic Boot Camp for the Writing of Psychology Research Reports,” found in an EPSCO database, it is discussed specifically how writing techniques are developed in psychology. “Attempts to improve the writing skills of psychology students have been evaluated and reported in the teaching of psychology literature (e.g., Fallahi, Wood, Austad, & Fallahi, 2006; Johnson, Tuskenis, Howell, & Jaroszewski, 2011; Lut- trell, Bufkin, Eastman, & Miller, 2010; Stewart, Myers, & Cul- ley, 2010). These researchers have typically focused on developing specific skills (e.g., writing style and APA referencing) and using writing exercises to enhance understanding of course materials and higher order skills such as critical thinking.” (Skues and Wise 2). When writing reports in psychology, it’s useful to use certain skills to develop and improve scientific writing. Unlike essay writing, this has no clear format and is specific and directly answers questions and records data. It has no introduction and conclusion. On simplypsychology.org, they give you four basic steps to mastering research reports in psychology.  Each report should have a structure that allows a “logical sequence of ideas,” it should show a knowledge and understanding of the theoretical perspective, it should should critical evaluation of the information and have a high quality of written communication about the topic. (Simply Psychology 1).

Writing also plays a large role in therapeutic psychology, just in different ways than experimental psychology. During an interview with Ashely Meagher, a therapeutic psychologist and also my cousin, she touched base on some of the big things that need to be written down during interviews with patients. “Mostly I just take notes on the way their voice sounds when they’re talking about a particular behavior, I look for body language to read how they feel about a difficult subject, such as fidgeting and eye movement. Most importantly I listen to what they have to say and especially make sure that if they’re feeling depressed or anxious that they get medication from a psychiatrist or I can alert someone close to them that they probably shouldn’t be left alone for the time being.” Therapeutic psychology and clinical psychology writing mostly takes place during the interview with a patient, and then stored in a file and kept for review when discussing that particular patient. It is also common for therapeutic psychologists to use writing as a way to get their patient to communicate. Psychologytoday.com talks about how “over the past few decades the therapeutic power of writing has been discovered…” (Psychology Today, 1).

            Writing in psychology is also used in classes to help students better understand and grasp material presented to them. Many professors use writing samples as techniques to help their students learn material quicker than if it was just presented to them in class. A study conducted by Jeffrey S. Nevid in 2005 showed that “…students performed significantly better on course examination questions testing knowledge of concepts linked to writing assignments than those measuring knowledge of unrelated content.” (Teaching of Psychology 39(4)). By using psychological writing as a form of teaching and learning in the field, students are able to grasp concepts quicker and fully understand them better than they would have if it was just presented to them in a classroom.
            Psychology values writing throughout the different branches as a means to document and collect information that pertains to that particular branch. Therapeutic psychology values writing for basic documentation and experimental psychology for research reports and experimental studies. Although different, each branch of psychology uses writing and it plays a large role in the field of psychology as a whole.