Guidelines for Brief Projects                                                                          Due Monday, April 30
                                                                                                                      Revisions (optional) due Wednesday, May 16

By April 30 you will need to submit to me three different brief Projects, each of which should be approximately 2 to 3 pages in length (or roughly 500 to 750 words).  I will grade and return your Projects with my comments and suggestions, enabling you to revise and resubmit if you wish by the final deadline of May 16.

Whichever Projects you choose, you should first decide on one specific area of psychopathology that you would like to learn more about, and that should then be your focus for both Projects.  It also makes good sense that you would keep the same focus for your Term Paper.

Choose your three Projects from the following five possibilities:

Case Study

This Project entails your summary of a case study of someone suffering from the particular form of psychopathology you have chosen as your focus.  The case study might be published in a book or article (and it can be either a real person or a fictional character), or it might be someone you know (but if so, please do not reveal the person's true identity).  Your summary and analysis should include:

· A description of the person's symptoms and other characteristics that justify classifying/diagnosing that person with that form of psychopathology
· Discussion of other pertinent information that might shed some light on possible causes of that person's problems
· A brief discussion of how that person's problems were treated by mental health professionals (or, if no treatment information is available to you, how that person's problems could be treated)

This Project entails locating a published research study in one of the scientific journals in Psychology or related fields and then summarizing it.  Be sure that you find an actual research study (which will include a detailed description by the researchers themselves of the research methods they used and the presentation and analysis of the data they obtained) - do not rely simply on someone else's summary of the research.  Your summary and analysis should include:

· A statement of the research question or hypothesis being investigated and where that question or hypothesis came from
· A description of the research methods used in the study (subjects, measures, procedures, etc.)
· A summary of the key results and whether or not they were significant
· A discussion of what conclusion the results support in terms of the original question or hypothesis being investigated
· Identifying any weaknesses or flaws in the study that might cause you to have some doubts about the validity of the results

This Project requires you to locate an Internet site maintained by some group or organization and which provides information about psychopathology.  Since many Internet sites consist of dozens or even hundreds of pages and links, choose only those pages/links which can be easily dealt with in a 2-3 page write-up and which relate to your chosen focus.  Your summary and analysis should include:

· A description of some of the key ideas and information presented
· A discussion of where these ideas and information come from
· An analysis of the ideas and information in terms of their credibility - in other words, why should you believe what you read?  Is there strong scientific support, or are these ideas merely the opinions of certain experts (or so-called "experts")?

For this Project, you will need to locate six different published works (books, chapters in books, articles published in scientific or professional periodicals).  For each work:

· Provide complete bibliographical information (title, author, when and where published and by whom)
· Write a brief (one paragraph or so) summary of the key information contained in each work
· Conclude with a summary that indicates both areas of agreement between the six works as well as any important differences between them

[Note: for this requirement, you must use published sources of a professional or scientific nature; Internet sites are not acceptable - that would be a different Project - and you may not use popular or general audience sources, dictionaries, textbooks or encyclopedias]

This Project requires you to seek out a mental health professional (not necessarily a psychologist) who has extensive experience working with people struggling with problems directly related to the area of psychopathology you have chosen as your focus.  You should prepare a set of interview questions in advance, and then when the interview is completed, your summary and analysis should:

· Summarize your interviewee's answers to your questions
· Describe the reasons given by your interviewee in support of those answers
· Evaluate the credibility of those answers - in other words, why should you believe what this person tells you?  How does he know?

Copyright ©1998 Beverly J. Volicer and Steven F. Tello, UMass Lowell.  You may freely edit these pages for use in a non-profit, educational setting.  Please include this copyright notice on all pages.