Social Psychology in the Law & Business.

Unit 7 explores how the various social psychology principles we’ve studied in this course influence 1). the criminal justice system including law enforcement, legal, and court processes and 2). business including personnel selection, performance evaluations, leadership, work motivation, and economic decision making. For previous discussions the focus has been to demonstrate things you know and understand. For this discussion your initial post should identify two things you don\’t understand that you want help to clarify or areas where you want to deepen your understanding.

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It\’s easy to review the PowerPoint slides and read the chapters for general understanding without reflecting very deeply on exactly what you do and do not understand. I want you to not focus so much on knowledge and information this week but more on application. As you read the chapters identify things you don\’t understand very well, or only partially understand, how they apply to everyday life, what things you\’d like to understand better, etc.

For your initial post:

Identify two things covered in the reading that are unclear to you or things which you want to develop a deeper understanding about

Provide sufficient detail to clearly identify your point of confusion or interest

Give enough information to indicate your current understanding and the kind of help you want

Indicate what specific type of help would be helpful (e.g., are you looking for an example, the experience of others as it relates to the issue, additional documentation, interpretations, opinions)

State what you see as the value and benefit of better understanding and exploring this issue, why does it matter, what\’s the practical application in daily life

Your response posts should respond to the specific requests of your classmates and in some way provide what you see as useful clarification, insight, or elaboration of the issues they identified. It would be useful for the person with the questions to give some type of feedback if the response is helpful, raised other questions, left him or her confused, etc. Learning at its best is an interactive, iterative process that builds understanding as we interact with the material. All too often we cut the process short and don\’t learn as much as we could.

Grading

To earn the full 15 points, you must complete three important parts in a timely manner and the high quality work must consist of clear, complete, and insightful responses. Originality and creativity in your responses are encouraged. (See Grading and Rubrics for the Discussion Rubric.)

Be sure to cite and reference at least one empirical source in your main and response posts linking your examples and responses to the social psych principles you\’re highlighting and discussing. Being able to identify practical applications of the principles discussed in this course will allow you to develop a deeper and more practical understanding of the principles.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Social Psychology in the Law & Business.