As I have already indicated in the Course Information, Special Events are one way by which you may "reclaim" points lost due to absence or late arrival to class. They involve some kind of exposure to an atypical, nontraditional opportunity for learning and educational application, after which the student fills out a "reaction paper" of specific form. They are evaluated on a ten (10) point scale.
Special events must be typewritten so I suggest that you take the opportunity this semester to begin learning how to use the word processing facilities in the ROW Library--if you have not done so already.
Normally the Special Event week is considered to begin on Monday and to end the following Sunday. All completed special event forms are due by 11:00 a.m. on the Tuesday that follows the week in which they were done. A Special Event Form is available to you on line for you to download or print as needed.
You must take special pains with the question on the special event form that asks you to relate the event to your study of psychology. It is weak and awkward to begin your answer to this question with a phrase like "This special event related to developmental psychology in that it ...." You will loose points for this kind of construction. In framing your answer you must also include a reference to psychological research. This reference (a) should be to a primary, as opposed to secondary, source, (b) should not be your course text or other course materials , and (c) should be different for each special event.
You will use your chosen reference in two different places on your special event form. First, you must make a "textual reference" in the body of your answer to the question about psychological relevance. A textual reference is the same technique that the author(s) of your course textbook uses to identify the authors and dates of publication of references that are cited on its pages. This method is entirely different from common techniques of footnoting that you may already be familiar with. In addition, you must include enough detailed information about both this reference and the content of the special event to make the relationship between them clear. The reference entry should be in accordance with the style conventions of the American Psychological Association as described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (copies are available in the reference section at the ROW Library. Especially important are the conventions associated with quotations and with references both in the body of the text and in the reference list at the end. Please give special note to the fact that there are a variety of different formats that are to be chosen from when quotations are used. The correct choice depends mainly on the length of the quotation. Alternatively, you may refer to the webpage summaries of style referencing conventions that I have made available for you (my supplement, APA crib sheet). In general, the instructor should be able to find an appropriate reference in the text of your answer for identifying the source of any idea or information that is not the student's own. Failure to meet this criterion constitutes a violation of the standards of academic integrity.
Besides making a textual reference, you must also record your reference in proper bibliographic format in the space that is designated at the end of the special event form. This is the technique that the author(s) of your course text use to provide a full, alphabetical listing at the end of the text of all references that have been cited. Please be alert to the fact that a particular text may not conform to the conventions of APA format. The proper APA format varies according to whether you have cited an authored text, an edited text, a journal, etc. Again, you must consult the publication manual and determine the format that is the correct one and then follow it to the letter. This means things like: no first names spelled out (only initials), parentheses and periods in the correct locations, only the first word of a title capitalized, dates in the correct location and enclosed in parentheses, journal names and volume numbers italicized, etc. I don't much care what format the authors of a reference that you cite may have used -- your task is to use the appropriate APA format correctly. I will make a sincere effort on every special event that you submit to verify that you have used the correct format. However, my failure to catch a particular kind of error on one paper does not mean that you are then entitled to make that error without penalty on subsequent papers. Your job is to meticulously adhere to the appropriate example in the publication manual.
Stephen J. Gould, in his book The Mismeasure of Man, does a good
job of expressing the virtues of the scientific method of referencing.
A note on references: In place of conventional footnotes, I have used the
system of references universally found in scientific literature--name of
author and year of publication, cited in parentheses after the relevant
passage of text. (Items are then listed by author and by year for any one
author in the bibliography.) I know that many readers may be disconcerted
at first; the text will seem cluttered to many. Yet, I am confident that
everyone will begin to "read through" the citations after a few
pages or experience, and will then discover that they do not interrupt
the flow of prose. To me, the advantages of this system far outweigh any
aesthetic deficit--no more flipping back and forth from text to end-notes
(no publisher will set them all at the bottom of the page any more), only
to find that a tantalizing little number yields no juicy tidbit of subsidiary
information, but only a dry bibliographic citation; immediate access to
the two essential bits of information for any historical inquiry--who and
when. I believe that this system of referencing is one of the few potential
contributions that scientists, normally not a very literate lot, might
supply to other fields of written scholarship. (1981, p.15-16)