A white paper is an official report about a complicated issue, but presents the

A white paper is an official report about a complicated issue, but presents the issue in a way that the reader will understand. For example, you could write a white paper that is geared towards law enforcement officers on how to properly conduct eyewitness interviews in order to avoid creating false accusations, or a paper helping college students understand the importance of sleep for cognitive performance, or help students with dyslexia learn about solutions based on cognitive interventions. The topics are endless, but the project will include peer-reviewed empirical journal articles as references and the paper must be written for a general audience. In other words, this is not a paper that would be submitted to a journal. This paper will be submitted a week after the oral presentation so you can revise your paper according to the feedback you receive from your peers. I have provided many resources in the “writing toolbox” in Canvas to help you. This is an individual paper. You can use your group as support on finding sources etc., but each student must write their own paper. Papers should be 9-12 pages, including the title page, at least 7 full pages of body, and references (no abstract is needed). Papers that do not reflect general APA format or that demonstrate problematic paraphrasing as reflected by Turnitin will be returned with a 10% penalty and a requirement to revise and resubmit within one week to salvage your score. You will be required to work with the Writing Lab to overcome whatever problems prompted the penalty before a second draft can be submitted. Consider working with the UWF Writing Lab to review your final draft so you can avoid this negative outcome. Your paper must include a minimum of 10 peer-reviewed sources. If you choose to include other references that are not peer-reviewed e.g., interviews), you should count those as extra, but you should minimize your use of anything not peer-reviewed. The heart of the paper needs to be ten scientific, peer-reviewed sources. Psychology Today is not acceptable. I strongly encourage you to work with our super-skilled librarians in helping you track down the most appropriate references. You are likely to read many references that will not end up in your paper. Typically students have to read three times as many references (30) to find the ten that best support the argument they are making. (You’ll find it much harder to write the paper if you merely go after ten sources and try to construct an argument from that minimum number; the more you read, the easier the argument will be to develop). Consider headings that will help you organize your argument properly. In a 7 page paper, probably you would have no more than four headings, but when in doubt, ask. Science writing is a skill that can be mastered. It is characterized by precision, objectivity, and accuracy. Use the fewest words possible to communicate your meaning. Don’t use exclamation marks or emotive words. Be sure your descriptions of psychology concepts are accurate. Use quotes sparingly and reserve them for beautiful writing that would be hard to paraphrase.