THE FORMAT This is a general outline of the structure of a Lab Report.
Please use these headings.ABSTRACT
This section contains a brief summary of the experiment; it should be readable by itself.
INTRODUCTION (no heading)
This section introduces the general topic of the experiment, gives background research, and states what experimental variables will be examined.
METHOD
This section is the 'nuts-and-bolts' of the actual experimental structure
SUBJECTS
Whose behavior was studied.
APPARATUS
What equipment was used to present stimuli and register responses.
PROCEDURE
What happened to the subjects: what stimuli were presented and responses required of each subject in your experiment.RESULTS
This is your record of what your subjects were observed to do.
It contains your graphs and tables, and a brief statement that directs the reader to themDISCUSSION
This is your commentary on your Results.
It should address the Discussion questions in the Lab Manual as well as anything else that you'd like to comment on.REFERENCE(S)
The sources that you refer to in your Introduction (and anyplace else in the paper).
APPENDIX
Any additional material. It should include a photocopy of the first page of your reference; your raw data, and the previous version of your paper.
(The first page of
your report should be formatted like this:)
Paul K. Brandon
Psychology 207, sec 8
Minnesota State University, Mankato
August 26, 2004 (use the date when you submit your report)
ABSTRACT (3 points)
The ABSTRACT is a summary of your
report. It should be readable by itself, and should not
require the reader to look into the main body of the report.
Although it is placed at the beginning of your report, it is the
last part of the report to actually be written!
Abstracts have two main uses. First, they appear at the beginning
of articles in most professional journals, and allow the reader to
decide whether a particular article is of sufficient interest to
be read in full. Second, abstracts are published by themselves,
such as in the journal Psychological Abstracts, an indexed
collection of all of the articles that have been published that
month in the other journals that are of interest to psychologists!
This is a convenient way to get a quick overview of the literature
on a given topic, particularly now that it is computerized! If you
are not familiar with this resource, a library tour is
suggested!! Your ABSTRACT should first tell the reader
what general topic was studied, and describe the
subjects and procedures that were used.
Make sure that your experimental procedures are clearly described,
and technical terms defined.
It should then tell in general terms what your
results were and what
conclusions about
behavior in general (beyond your experimental situation)
can be drawn from those results. A good rule of thumb is to use
one or two sentences each to summarize your INTRODUCTION,
METHOD, RESULTS and DISCUSSION sections.
Try to limit the length of the ABSTRACT to one page!
- Do not repeat information from the title......
- Do use complete sentences........
- Do not pass go........ Since this is the INTRODUCTION section (worth 2 points) it does not have a heading. You can tell that it's the Introduction because it starts on a new page.
I have written this guide for lab
reports in the same format that you are to use for your reports.
While it is based on the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association (1983), it is written
for class use and therefore does differ in some ways from the
requirements of scholarly journals.
It is easy to spot an introduction because it comes at the
beginning of the article or report. It introduces the reader to
the topic. You can find examples by looking in journals in the
library (this is highly recommended!). Some of the more common
journals in the field of experimental psychology are listed in
Appendix B.
I've tried to coordinate these experiments with the text (Chance,
1998). If you have not gotten to the appropriate unit in the text
when writing a report, you might want to skim the material to get
some background, as well as the definitions of technical
terms.
The purpose of the
introduction is to introduce the reader to the topic of the
research covered in the report.
Your introduction should explain to the reader (in this
order) what the general topic of your research is,
and provide background which will explain why the
research was done. You should summarize earlier work done by
yourself or by other researchers which is related to the present
experiment. Your introduction must include at least one article
from a psychology journal that is related to this experiment.
Popular publications such as Psychology Today are
not acceptable. Neither are books written for
nonprofessional readers.
Electronic sources can be tricky. They are acceptable IF
they meet the criteria for a scholarly journal presented in
Appendix D, AND IF the electronic version contains
all of the material (including graphs
and figures) found in the paper version.
Refer to each article by the author's last name and (in
parentheses) the year it was published. For example, you would
refer to this manual as Brandon (2003).
Each individual must provide his or her own
reference. Do not get one from someone else -- the
experience of using the library is valuable! When you find a
reference, make a photocopy of the first page (which should
have the title and Abstract on it), and put it in the Appendix of
your report.
Finally, your Introduction should include a brief statement
describing the experiment to be conducted. My introductions
will often include a description of the procedures to be followed;
yours should not include more than a sentence or two about
procedures. The Introduction must not look like a
summary or an ABSTRACT!!
The METHOD section is the heart
of your report. It should describe your experiment in sufficient
detail so that someone else could duplicate your research
exactly as far as the basic operations of the experiment
are concerned! This means that you must state precisely
everything that happens to your subjects during the
experiment.
The METHOD section will normally contain the following three
subsections:
Subjects (3 pts)
This part of the report should tell whose behavior is being
studied. It should include the age, sex and
relevant experimental history of your subjects.
For nonhuman subjects only, you should also state the
species. Do not specify ethnic groups for human subjects
unless these possible differences are the experimental
variable being studied!!!
You should tell how the subjects were chosen and on what basis
they were assigned to experimental conditions. Information should
be given concerning the subject's reinforcement contingencies
(volunteer, conscript, spouse, etc.) and deprivation state where
appropriate, as in animal experiments using food or water as a
reinforcer. Provide other information where appropriate, such as
the handedness of human subjects, or the weight of rats.
Identify human subjects by their initials
only! While the experimental conditions in this class
will be innocuous and the results not likely to be sensitive
(cause harm or embarrassment), the confidentiality of research
data gotten from human subjects must be respected! This is
one aspect of the ethical requirements for the treatment of human
subjects. This could itself be the subject for a course (I believe
that one is offered by Philosophy). In brief: do not put your
subjects at risk for injury or discomfort in any way.
Apparatus (2 pts)
This section should contain enough information for a reader to
duplicate the experimental operations performed by the
experimenter. This can be accomplished either by giving a
complete description of your apparatus, including dimensions and
materials where appropriate, or by stating the manufacturer
and model number for standard equipment normally used in classroom
laboratories.
Procedure (4 pts)
This section should contain complete information
about what actually happened to each individual
(including yourself) who participated in this experiment as a
subject. State the order in which subjects were run and how the
results were measured and recorded .
As above, you must give enough information so that another
researcher could replicate (repeat in precisely the same manner)
your experiment. A good test is to have someone who is not
familiar with the experiment read your description. If they can't
tell you what you did then you probably have left out some
necessary information. When more than one experiment is being
reported, describe the procedures in the order in which they
happened; report all procedures before going on to your
Results section.
THIS LABORATORY
MANUAL IS A COOKBOOK!
I will often use an outline
format to guide you through the procedures.
When you report what you did, use standard English prose
(complete sentences, paragraphs, proper punctuation, etc.).
If your use of language makes your report difficult or impossible
to understand points will be deducted, or you will be asked to
rewrite it before it is graded.
Report what was done to the subject: what instructions were
given, what stimuli were presented, what responses were required,
and what was scheduled to happen to the subjects as a result of
their responses. Since you are reporting what has happened, use
past tense.
- Do not report what you did to the equipment.
- Other experimenters might use different apparatus to achieve the same results.
- You should not include Results or Discussion of the subjects' behavior in the Procedure section.
If -- for whatever reason
-- your procedure was different from the instructions in the
manual,REPORT
WHAT YOU DID !!
It is a good practice to write out your instructions and
read them to your subjects, and to quote these instructions
in the report.
Use third-person past tense (e.g.; "the stimulus was presented to the subject, who was required to jump up and click her heels three times") rather than first person ("I then presented a stimulus to the subject...").
The emphasis should be on the
experimental operations, not on the
experimenter.
RESULTS (4 pts)
The RESULTS section is the second most important part of a lab
report, and the most important part of a published article. It
contains a summary of the data which comprise the outcome of the
experiment.
This information can be presented in three different forms.
The most important results should be reported in normal prose
form. For example:
"The reaction times to stimuli presented alone were generally shorter
than the reaction times to
stimuli presented in choice situations."
If there are a large number of experimental conditions or
subjects, it may be better to present the data in the form of a
table. For this course, I will let you know where this is
appropriate. If you present your data in the form of a table,
refer to that table in the body of your RESULTS text (e.g.:
"See Table 1 for ...."). The table must either be on the
same page as the text or, if you use a separate sheet of paper for
the table, on the first page after that table is
mentioned in the text.
Finally, data may be presented in graphic form. A graph is the
most efficient way to present a large body of data and should be
used whenever possible. Refer to graphs as Figures, using
the same language as for tables. Figures (graphs) should also be
placed immediately after the first page on which they are
mentioned. Your graphs should be plotted on graph paper using pens
and rulers. While colored lines are not generally accepted by
journals (which are usually printed in black and white only), they
are OK here if they serve to make your graphs easier to
read. Do not use crayons or light-colored pencils.
The axes of the graph should be labeled with both the quantity
measured (e.g.: REACTION TIME) and the unit of measurement (e.g.:
SECONDS). Print your labels parallel to the axes and put the units
of measurement in parentheses. It is conventional to put the
dependent variable (the measure of behavior) on the
vertical axis and either the independent variable (your
experimental manipulation) or time on the horizontal
axis.
Both Tables and Figures should be numbered, and referred to in the
text by that number. They should have descriptive captions which
provide enough information for the reader to be able to understand
the Figure without having to check back into the text of the
report for an explanation. On graphs, each line should be
identified by a descriptive phrase; not by the numbers or
letters used to designate different experimental conditions.
Information
Provided In Tables And Figures Should Not Be Repeated In
The Text.
As a general rule, present your data only once.
Thus, if the reaction times for individual trials can be read
directly from your graph, do not include a table of
individual reaction times!
To repeat, Figures and Tables are part of the RESULTS section. If
you use a separate sheet of paper for them, it must follow
the first page on which that Figure or Table is
mentioned.
DISCUSSION (5 pts)
The DISCUSSION section contains comments concerning the
implications of your RESULTS. It should "point out the limitations
of the conclusion, note correspondences or differences between the
findings and widely accepted points of view, and briefly give the
implications for theory and practice." (APA, 1974).
For this course, the Discussion sections are also a way of
coordinating the textbook and the lab manual.
Your Discussion should demonstrate what you have learned from the
text. I will state some specific questions to be answered in the
Discussion section of each experiment.
Start by discussing your
largest experimental effects first!
A good starting point is to relate your DISCUSSION to the topics
presented in your Introduction to the report. Are your
results consistent with other findings? Did you find what you
expected to find? If not, why?
Do not dwell on negative results; a brief comment is
adequate. Your should comment on any differences between
the procedures that you actually used and those specified
in the lab manual. What effect might these differences have had on
your results?
Remember that science is primarily interested in general effects,
not in individual differences. Therefore, discuss the effects of
your experimental variables first. The last thing to
comment on would be differences between individual subjects.
Finally, what might be some general implications of your results
for our understanding of human behavior, and for our ability to
predict and influence it? You might relate these results to what
you have learned from the text.
REFERENCES (1 pt)
All of the articles that you read
and cited (referred to) cited in your paper must be listed in
alphabetical order by the author's last name. This includes your
own previous lab reports (but generally not this lab
manual). For examples of correct form, see the rest of this manual
or a recent Psychology text or reference book. There's also a good
guide to referencing online at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html.
- As an example of reference
format, the textbook used in this course when this manual was
written was:
- Chance, Paul (1998). FIRST COURSE IN APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Other examples: a journal
article:
Fantino, E. and Case, D.A. (1983). Human observing: maintained by stimuli correlated with reinforcement but not with extinction. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 40, 193-210.
a chapter in a book edited
by a different author:
Mandrell, C. (1983). A psychophysical analysis of time-based schedules of reinforcement. In Commons, M.L. and Nevin, J.A. (Eds.), Quantitative analyses of behavior: Vol. 1. Discriminative properties of reinforcement schedules (pp 31-50). Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
One of your earlier lab
reports would be cited as an "unpublished manuscript"; e.g.:
Sloe, I.M. (1998). Operant Conditioning. (Unpublished Manuscript)
An article found on the
InterNet
Land, T. (1995, November 4). Web Extention to American Psychological Association Style (WEAPAS) (Rev. 1.0.7) [WWW document].URL http://www.nyu.edu/pages/psychology/WEAPAS/
- If the article is also
available in a printed form, give the standard reference (see
above) for the original publication. You may have to do a bit
of digging since articles that you find online may not use the
standard APA reference format .... The information
is there!
Do not imply that you have
actually read an article if, in fact, all that you have seen is a
description of it in some other source (this includes textbooks
and Psychological Abstracts). In that case, you must add to
your reference the statement "...cited in ..." and the place where
you actually read it!
For example:
- Pavlov, I.P., (1927). Conditioned Reflexes (G.V.Anrep, Trans.). London: Oxford University Press.
- Cited in: Kirkpatrick, Kimberly and Church, Russell M (2000). Independent effects of stimulus and cycle duration in conditioning: the role of timing processes. Animal Learning and Behavior, 28(4), 373-388.
Include a photocopy of the first
page of the actual journal article.
A printout of a PsychLit abstract or PALS text is
not acceptable; I want you to have the actual
journal in your hands!
€ If you are printing out a copy of an electronic
journal, also include a copy of a page with a graph or table on
it.
€ You should use a database or search engine that says that its
articles are full image.
APPENDICES (1 pt)
An APPENDIX is not normally a
part of a published paper, but is used in books, dissertations and
laboratory reports to contain material that is not suited to the
regular sections of the report. As with the Reference section,
your reports will not always required an Appendix. The most common
item appended to your reports will be raw data that you directly
recorded during your experiments. Graphs should not
be in the Appendix. While the cumulative records that you get in
the rat experiments would by themselves be raw data, once you have
added the required axes, units, labels, captions, etc. they are
Figures and should be included in your RESULTS section.
Each member of your lab team will be expected to
submit raw data for all subjects (including
themselves) so that I can check out weird results.
Therefore, you will need some method of making two or three copies
of your data that does not introduce any chance of error
(this lets out hand-copying!).
One possibility would be to photocopy your data sheets. A cheaper
method is to use carbon paper to make several copies of your data
during the course of the experiment.
Your APPENDIX will also include a photocopy of the first page of
your reference, as explained earlier.
If you are rewriting a report, the previous version should
go in the Appendix of the revision.
- Note Bene: a rewrite should be a complete revision of the paper. Do not simply make the corrections that you think are necessary to give you the required number of points. I do not always subtract points for each error that I note on your paper. I will usually be stricter on revisions.
APPENDIX A: SOME NOTES ON THE WRITING OF LAB OF LABORATORY REPORTS
This Appendix covers some of the more common errors made in the writing of lab reports, and some guidelines to follow in preparing your reports.
Avoid run-on sentences that are too long for their meaning to be
clear.
Make your referents clear! If you use an indefinite 'it' or 'this'
at the start of the sentence your meaning will not be clear (e.g.,
"This was unexpected." what was unexpected?).
It is conventional in report writing to use the past tense and the
third person. You are describing what has already (I hope!) been
done. The only exceptions to this are the Introduction and the
Discussion. In the words of the American Psychological
Association's Publication Manual (1974):
It is sometimes helpful to write as though someone else performed the experiment, and you are reporting what (s)he did and found. Third-person references to 'the experimenter' or 'the investigator' are usual and acceptable. References to 'the author' or 'this writer' are generally avoided as self-conscious.
As illustrated above, a long
quotation can be indicated by indenting the body of the quote.
When this is done, do NOT use quotation marks. This format will be
handy when reporting the instructions that you have given to your
subjects.
In the introduction, however, it is better to use your own
words than to quote your source directly.
Use double spacing throughout, with at least one inch margins on
all sides. This leaves me plenty of blue-pencil room for grading!
Use heavy paper of standard size; do not use half-sheets or
pieces of paper fastened, pasted or taped together, since this
form of construction tends to self-destruct!!
Follow the pattern of this guide for the organization of your report, including the proper headings for sections and subsections.This point is not an arbitrary exercise of a teacher's power! The use of a standard format makes it much easier to find specific information in a published paper. You'll come to appreciate this fact when you do research papers.
Do not use abbreviations for anything other than
standard units of measurement, such as 'sec' for seconds and 'g'
for grams. When in doubt, do not abbreviate!
Please staple your report in the upper left-hand corner
only!! Do not use pretty plastic covers; they're a
pain in the (expletive deleted) when grading!
Finally... if you're in doubt as to what a report should
look like -- read some of the articles in the current Psychology
journals in the library!
APPENDIX B: LAB REPORT CHECK-LIST
0. Have you provided an appropriate cover page, containing the
date on which you are actually submitting this paper? This page
may either be separate, or it may also contain the Abstract.
1. Does your ABSTRACT tell what you studied, how you
studied it, and what your results and conclusions were?
2. Does your INTRODUCTION define and give background on your
experimental question in twenty-five words or more?
3. Have you included at least one original reference that is
relevant to the topic of this experiment?
4. Have you given all necessary information about your SUBJECTS?
Your APPARATUS?
5. Have you defined all technical terms that are specific to your
experiment?
6. Does your PROCEDURE describe everything relevant to this
experiment that happened
to your subjects -- including yourself when you were
a subject?
Could someone else replicate your experiment on the basis of your
description of it?
7. Have you avoided "writing a cook-book" (a list of directions
detailing what to do with the equipment)?
8. Did you use conventional and grammatical prose?
(Third person? Passive voice? Past tense?)
9. Did you provide units for all of the numbers in your RESULTS
section?
Have you rounded your Results to the limits of accuracy of
your recorded observations?
10. Are both axes of all graphs labeled? With units
(in parentheses)?
Does your caption explain the graph in enough detail so
that a reader can understand it without looking at the body of the
report?
11. Are the RESULTS in both text
and graphs referred to with descriptive phrases
("Reaction time to a visual stimulus alone....) rather than by
numbers and letters
("Experiment IC...")?
12. Have you addressed all of the questions raised
in the Lab Manual's Discussion section?
13. Have you included a REFERENCE section with complete
references for every article
(and only those articles) -- including your own previous reports
-- that you mentioned
in this report? A photocopy of the first page of your
reference?
14. Label your APPENDIX, staple the report in the upper left-hand
corner, and:
hand it in !!! (prayer at this point is optional).
APPENDIX C: JOURNALS IN THE LIBRARY
Journals containing
specific research reports
ANIMAL LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR
BULLETIN OF THE PSYCHONOMIC SOCIETY
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR
JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: GENERAL
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: HUMAN LEARNING AND MEMORY
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: ANIMAL BEHAVIOR PROCESSES
JOURNAL OF MOTOR BEHAVIOR
PERCEPTION AND PSYCHOPHYSICS
PHYSIOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
PSYCHONOMIC SCIENCE
PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORTS
These journals contain
broader review articles
ANNUAL REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN
PSYCHOLOGICAL RECORD
PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING AND
MOTIVATION
All of the above are in the BF
Section in the Periodicals room. For recent additions, check the
computerized catalog under "PSYCHOLOGY" AND "EXPERIMENTAL" OR
"BEHAVIOR".
The "PsycLIT" data base is another powerful tool. This enables you
to do a computerized search of the PSYCHOLOGICAL ABSTRACTS. If you
haven't used it already, get a librarian or friend (or a friendly
librarian!) to show you how. Once you have used it to find an
article you must look up the actual article in the stacks. If we
don't have it in our collection you may have to find another
one.
Electronic literature searches are becoming more common. You must
be careful what you find, however, since not all databases contain
complete articles that meet the requirements stated below.
One resource available through the MSU,M library is the PALS
expanded
academic index. Asterisked*
articles have the full text of an article, but not the
Figures and Tables. This can be useful, but is NOT
acceptable for lab reports.
A better source is the Proquest data base
<http://www.bellhowell.infolearning.com/pqdauto?COPT=U01EPTQmREJTPUcw>
This has a good sampling of Psychology journals, but is not
nearly as complete as PsychLit. Also, not all of its articles are
full text and graphic. Make sure that the article that you select
has full graphics (it will say something like "page image" or
"Full Image")!
This is an example of an item located in the PROQUEST database available through the MSU,M library:
MAGAZINE SCHOLARLY JOURNAL AUTHOR Journalist;
layperson Expert (scholar, professor, etc.) in field covered NOTES Few or no references or
notes Includes notes and/or bibliography STYLE Journalistic, written
for average reader Written for experts, shows research EDITING Reviewed by one or more
persons employed by magazine Editorial board of outside scholars who review article
before publishing AUDIENCE General
public Scholars or researchers in the field ADS Many, often in
color Few or none; if any, usually for books or other
'scholarly' items LOOK Glossy, many pictures,
often in color More sedate look; mostly print FREQUENCY Usually weekly or
monthly Usually quarterly or monthly CONTENTS Current events; general
interest More specialized; research topics INDICES Found in general
periodical indices such as Readers' Guide Found in subject specialized indices A scholarly journal cannot be defined by one or two
features nor do all features have to be present to make a
journal. Look for a majority of the traits listed. When
in doubt, ask your instructor or a librarian.
Sometimes author unknown
May be scholar but not in field covered
Identified author
Patrick Cabe, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
Direct plagiarismÐMaterial of substantive length is
copied verbatim from the source without attribution or the use of
quotation marks.
TruncationÐMaterial is copied verbatim from the source
with the original shortened by the deletion of beginning or ending
words or phrase.
ExcisionÐMaterial is copied verbatim from the source
with one or more words deleted from the middle of sentences.
InsertionsÐMaterial is copied verbatim from the source
with additional words or phrases (often qualifiers such as "very")
inserted into the material from the original source.
ReorderingÐMaterial is copied verbatim from the source
with (a) sentences in a different order, or (b) words or (c)
clauses in a given sentence in a different order
InversionÐMaterial is copied verbatim from the source
with the order of (a) clauses, or (b) words in the original source
inverted.
SubstitutionÐMaterial is copied verbatim from the
source with a synonym or phrase substituted for words or phrases
of the original source.
Change of tense or person or numberÐMaterial is copied
verbatim from the source except that verb tenses have been changed
(e.g., from presesnt to past), or the person of pronouns has been
changed e.g., from first to third person), or the sense of the
sentence has been changed from singular to plural.
Change of voiceÐMaterial is copied (essentially)
verbatim from the source, with sentences in the active voice
changed to passive, or vice versa
GraftingÐ(a) Material is copied verbatim from the
source with two or more simple sentences conjoined into a compound
or complex sentence. (b) Material is copied verbatim from the
source with part of two or more sentences from different sections
of the original source joined to form a new sentence. (c) Words or
phrases putatively original with the author are used to precede or
follow material copied verbatim from the source.
Undocumented factual informationÐFactual material is
copied verbatim from the source without attribution (e.g.,
statistics, survey results).
Inappropriate use of quotation marksÐ
(a) Material is copied verbatim from the source and enclosed in
quotation marks, but with some of the original source words or
phrases altered, and no indication that such has been done.
(b) Indirect quotation is not indicated by the use of single
quotation marks.
Inappropriate paraphrasingÐMaterial is not copied
verbatim from the source, i.e., the wording is original, but the
ideas and their order is the same as that in the original
source.
MIXTURESÐAny number of the above, in virtually any
combination, may occur.
Proverbs, well-known sayings,
common knowledgeÐMaterial that may have appeared elsewhere,
but which is of such common usage that it clearly cannot be
original with the writer.
Standard phrasesÐMaterial that may have occurred in the
original source, but is a standard phrase or cliche (e.g., all
things being equal, on the other hand, in alphabetical order).
Specific names, places, terms that cannot be
paraphrasedÐMaterial that may have occurred in the original
source, but for which there are no paraphrases possible (e.g.,
names of cities and states, standard units of measure, standard
technical terms).
Brief phrases that are intended as names or indicators of some
sortÐMaterial that may have occurred in the original source,
but which is used as a specific referent to an element in the
original source and therefore cannot be reasonably paraphrased
(e.g., the Red Team, the Experimental group, the fifth-grade
class).
Since psychology studies activities, its terms are properly verbs,
and adverbs. It needs one noun, individual, or
organism, or the equivalent, as the subject of all its verbs;
and, to be sure, it needs to name any number of objects that act
upon the individual or are acted on by him. But the student will
soon encounter an assortment of other nouns, names of activities
and names of qualities, such as intelligence, memory, imagination,
sensation, emotion, consciousness, behavior. All such nouns are
properly verbs or adverbs, with individual as their subject. . . .
We forget that our nouns are merely substitutes for verbs, and go
hunting for the things denoted by the nouns; but there are
no such things, there are only the activities that we started
with, seeing, remembering, and so on.
Intelligence, consciousness, the unconscious, are by rights not
nouns, nor even adjectives or verbs; they are adverbs. The real
facts are that the individual acts intelligentlyÐmore or less
soÐacts consciously or unconsciously, as he may also act
skillfully, persistently, excitedly. It is a safe rule, then, on
encountering any menacing psychological noun, to strip off its
linguistic mask, and see what manner of activity lies behind. (pp.
56)
Woodworth, R. S. (1929).
Psychology (rev. ed.). New York: Holt.
You may want to
reread this when writing your Discussions!