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