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Comments made on previous assignments

The following represents an assortment of comments made from previous assignments on the self-monitoring project. A read through may help you avoid some common mistakes.

If you write out the assignment please print it don't use running writing . . . . the references were not in APA format . . . . use double line spacing for all of the text . . . . place the figure in the results section, not at the back of the assignment . . . your writing style is very good . . . . no extra lines between each paragraph . . . . you writing style is good, very concise . . . . watch your use of some terms . . . . don't put each section on a separate page . . . . where was the raw data? . . . . excellent presentation of the assignment . . . . keep working on your writing . . . . all paragraphs should be at least 3 sentences long . . . don't use too many commas . . . . watch the long sentences . . . . vary your sentence length more . . . . you went over the word limit . . . . good organisation . . . . your citations did not follow APA format . . . . good work overall . . .

You did not include enough background information . . . . . the introduction did not have a title at the top, e.g. Self-monitoring and the development of an intervention for nailbiting behaviour . . . . . . advantages and disadvantages of self-monitoring were not discussed in enough detail . . . . your review of the literature was very comprehensive . . . . good title . . . . your intro should be structure more . . . . more background info was needed. . . . what was the aim of the study? Mention it . . . . . more information was needed since 6 marks are allocated for the intro . . . this research is not relevant here . . .

You did not give enough detail on how the monitoring was done . . . . . you did not justify why you chose to use the your monitoring method . . . good justification . . . . your monitoring method was not really suited to your behaviour . . . use a separate section for the operational definition . . . . you did not give examples of the behaviour in the operational definition . . . very good points in the questionable instances. . . . it would be difficult to replicate the study based on your operational definition . . . . details about the subject that is relevant to the behaviour (e.g., how long been smoking) not given . . . . do not begin method section on separate page . . . very comprehensive - good!. . . . you need to justify your monitoring method . . . .

The figure was not in APA format . . . . excellent figure . . . . put the figure caption below the figure . . . . . use a more descriptive title for the figure not just "self-monitoring data" . . . . . you need to discuss the figure in the text . . . . refer to the figure as "figure 1" and not "the graph" . . . . the discussion of the figure could include info such as the overall mean across the 14 days and the standard deviation of the mean . . . . your figure does not stand alone . . . refer to the SORCK table in text . . . . you should not have applied the intervention . . . you needed to monitor your behaviour for 14 days . . . . please use correct labels for each axis on the figure . . .

The SORCK analysis is part of the results section . . . . I don't think you understand the difference between historical stimuli and immediate stimuli . . . . your contingency is wrong, it is negative reinforcement here . . . . your oganismic variables are not relevant for the SORCK here . . . . this is not a contextual stimulus . . . . the contingency was wrong . . . more information was needed . . . . good SORCK . . . . immediate stimulus must occur within 3 mins of the behaviour . . . . you did not give any long-term consequences . . . . is this the only immediate consequence? . . . . this is not negative reinforcement. . . . I would have expected a couple more organismic variables . . . . please give a neater SORCK table . . . very good . . .

You did not include information about the subject - one line is okay . . . . very good formulation . . . . some information in the formulation was not in the SORCK analysis . . . . good work . . . . how can punishment maintain the behaviour? . . .

Try to use catch terms to highlight what you are discussing e.g. "short coming's" "pertinent findings" "in summary" . . . . . . problems that may have arose during the monitoring were not discussed . . . . good coverage of the problem of monitoring your behaviour here . . . . you did not discuss what may have caused your behaviour to stop near the end of the monitoring period ...

The intervention was not based on operant conditioning . . . . you failed to mention how the intervention could generalise to other contexts . . . . what about shaping to develop the target behaviour? . . . . I don't think the intervention would work well . . . . what about fading out? . . . . variable ratio schedule may help to maintain the behaviour in the long-term . . . . using electric shock treatment to treat your behaviour is not practical nor is it the best method to use . . . . very good use of references to support your intervention . . . . incorporate your intervention with the issues raised in the introduction more . . . . this does not follow from the SORCK . . . . what about a possible behavioural "vacuum" here . . . intervention not obvious from SORCK . . . . mention that you need to monitor the behaviour to determine if the intervention would work . . . this is called a contingency contract not a "deal" . . . top class intervention . . .

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February, 1998

e-mail: ottmar@psy.uq.edu.au
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