Penn Professors on Writing in Psychology

Dr. Joseph Kable

About the Professor

Professor Kable studies behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, decision processes, and individual differences and behavior genetics. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology. One of his favorite professors in the field is Mel Konnor, who wrote The Tangled Wing, a biological basis of human behavior.

Writing Tips

Professor Kable says that at the graduate level, students may have to unlearn some of the strict rules they learned earlier in college. Those rules often obfuscate rather than clarify. Especially in scientific reports, it is necessary to unlearn the standard rules (don't write in first person, use passive voice, etc) in order to communicate effectively. Professor Kable suggests that students often resort to passive voice to not use the first person narrative. However, Kable believes that "passive voice is the greater sin," and that students should prioritize writing in active voice rather than focusing on the particular narrative mode. While Professor Kable doesn't have a writing handbook or style guide he recommends, he does recommend looking at a webpage created by John Baron, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, on how to write a psychology paper.

According to Professor Kable, most scientific reports follow this structure:

Introduction - provides a historical background, statement of research and proposition.
Discussion - explains hwo the work is relevant and important to the field.
Methods - describes the procedures and specific methodology of the research
Results - explains the conclusions and findings. According to Professor Kable, this sectio is mostly explanatory, but there are some aspects of persuasion (for example, justifying to the audience why the results are important).

Important Criteria for Student Writing

Professor Kable typically looks mostly for reasoning and evidence, but stresses the importance of organization because it is often something that students struggle with.

Personal Writing Process

Professor Kable states that "there is often a long lag between the germ of an idea and a final paper." Since researching and conducting experiments often takes so long, there is an emphasis on attempting a rapid report, review, and publication process. Therefore, being able to write quickly and effectively is very important. A psychologist wants to get the paper written as quickly as possible, then try to get the review process done quickly as well, so the publication of the research does not take too long.

Links

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Other professors in psychology: Dr. Ruscio