Once you’ve completed your lab each week, your goal is to write up a lab report paper. This
paper needs to focus on 3 things:
1. What you did in the lab, and what you found.
2. What the lab relates to in psychology, and in the real world.
3. The real world ethical implications of the lab.
Papers should follow APA Style and be approximately 2 pages in length. They must be organized
– by that I mean they cannot simply be streams of consciousness. I should see a definite
structure to your paper – your introduction should state the points you intend to make, the
body paragraphs should make those points, and the conclusion should wrap them up and
review them. Papers that do not have organization will be returned ungraded and (depending
on the circumstances) may NOT be allowed to be redone. Get the paper done right the first
time by following this advice:
1) Outline your paper ahead of time, thinking about the points you want to make.
2) Write your paper, then read it outloud to look for errors.
3) Verify that your paper’s structure is clear – for example, ask a friend to read it and tell
you what points you were trying to make. If your friend can’t figure out what you
intended to say, neither can I.
Lab reports are graded using the Rubric specified in the syllabus. You’ll notice that simply
meeting expectations will give you a “C”. If you wish to earn an “A” or “B” on these papers,
you must go above and beyond expectations. I need to see that you’ve taken considerable
time and effort in writing your lab reports. I expect that they will take, on average, about 4
hours to complete by the time you run the lab, analyze the data, research the paper, and
write it up. Remember that PSY 402 is a 3 credit hour class, which means that you’re expected
to put in approximately 9 hours of time outside the classroom each week. You are taking a
senior level class. For the first lab, the Ebbinghaus Memory Experiment,