News Analysis Guidelines
1. Selection and Content: The target of the analysis should be some recent local, regional, or world news story about an environmental event that either illustrates one or more psychological principles, or that can be better understood by applying one or more psychological principles.
The event should be referred to by a media service on the World Wide Web (including, but not limited to, those listed on our Tools page), so that we can link it to our site, though in your analysis you may refer to other sources as well. The team must provide the exact url(s) of the page(s) where web coverage is located so that I can establish the link(s). "Exact" here means more than just the general web site of the service -- it has to include precise reference to a particular story. For examples, see the web page from another class, "Social Psychology in the News" . Note that you may combine more that one web source -- for example, a picture or graphic from CNN and a news story from MSNBC, but you must provide me with exact and complete information about the source of the elements and their urls. Again, see the Social Psychology web page for examples.
Note: The selection process should be a team effort. It is suggested that team members individually search for events and sources of graphic and written material, then come together to discuss them and to choose the final target event.
The psychological principles that are illustrated by the event, or that are used to analyze and understand the event need not be those that are being studied at the time according to the course schedule, though this might be helpful to your discussion. Use any relevant material from the text as a resource to inform and enrich your analysis, regardless of our current topic. You may also supplement your analysis using other texts or journal articles.
2. Production and Presentation: The assistants for the course (Kim Gill & Christian End) will help you produce any overheads and handouts you want to have for your team's class presentation. They must have the materials 2 days before the presentation in order to do this, however. The assistants will also help you plan your presentation to make it more effective.
The target event and your brief description (1 paragraph) of it, with links to media sources, will be displayed on our class website prior to the meeting in which it is discussed. In order for me to have enough time to post the material, I must have your description, and the urls of media sources or graphics, 3 days in advance. This information must be submitted to me electronically, by email to shermarc@muohio.edu. Also, in your description, indicate the text that serves as the hot link to each news source reference by surrounding it with asterixes(*).
The class presentation of your analysis should have the following qualities:
a. It should involve all members of the team.
b. It should stimulate discussion among members of the class, rather than just being a lecture.c. It should be contained within a 30-45 minute time period.
Due by 5:00 p.m. on the third day following your presentation is a 2-page summary of the team's analysis, written in APA style and with references and hot links when appropriate. The summary should be sent to me in electronic format, which I will then edit for posting to our website so that it will appear with the item.
3. Grading and Evaluation. The project will be evaluated along the following dimensions: (a) clarity and appropriateness of the connection between the target event and psychological principles; (b) clarity, rigor, and informativeness of the analysis; (c) effectiveness of the class presentation.
As with all team projects, each member of the team will receive a separate grade assigned according to our procedures for assessing individual contributions to the team effort.
Psy 412 Miami University. Last revised: Friday, April 19, 2002 at 00:01:22. This document has been accessed 9,162 times since July 15, 1997. Comments & Questions to R. Sherman . Also See: Social Psychology at Miami University