Psychobiography Term Paper
This page offers advice for writing a psychobiography assigned as a course term paper. The assumption is that students will use published books, either biographies or autobiographies, as their source material. Professional biographers, in contrast, often have access to primary documents, such as letters or diaries, that aren't usually available to the general public. Students might also wish to search for journal articles that relate to their person.
Term Paper Assignment (for Prof. Cloninger's course in Personality Theory at The Sage Colleges)
Tips for Writing the Psychobiography Term Paper
In selecting the specific person you will study, consider these points:
- Is there sufficient information? Often a thick book with many endnotes, though it looks intimidating, is actually easier to analyze than a thin one with sparse information to relate to the various theories.
- Is the information unbiased? Naturally, autobiographies are often written with the understandably human tendency to minimize shortcomings. Some who write biographies, too, are so admiring of the person they are writing about that critical information doesn't get conveyed to the reader.
- Do you have biased ideas about the person? You may well admire the person or, on the other hand, disapprove of her or him. Are you able to set these opinions aside well enough to consider theoretical interpretations that might make you sympathetic to a villain, or find flaw in someone you admire?
- Are you very interested in the person? Psychobiography requires considerable thought. The personality will be, in a sense, present in your life for the several weeks or months that you are working on this assignment. (You may even start dreaming about him or her!) This interest often fosters creative connections that won't be made if you are less interested.
- Can you complete the analysis in time? The paper is an assignment for a course, and even fascinating projects must be brought to an end.
In organizing your paper, consider these points:
- A brief overview of the person's life, and perhaps a statement about the cultural or historical importance of the person, is a sensible way to begin the paper.
- You may organize your paper by theories, starting with psychoanalytic theory (for example), and progressing through the other theories. That approach, though, may be problematic if the same life event or other detail is relevant for many theories. It makes it hard to avoid being repetitious. So consider, instead, organizing your paper by topics that are particular to the individual you are analyzing--particular life events, salient traits, and so on. Within each topic, consider a variety of theories. Just be sure that, over the whole paper, you have included all the theories.
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Questions about Theories to Guide Writing the Psychobiography Term Paper
Review the theoretical concepts in each chapter of the text to decide what biographical details are relevant for each theory. Here are a few ideas:
Part I: The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Part II: The Psychoanalytic-Social Perspective
Part III: The Trait Perspective
Part IV: The Learning Perspective
Part V: The Cognitive Social Learning Perspective
Part VI: The Humanistic Perspective
When your Paper Comes Back... Understanding Instructor Comments
When you receive your paper, or a draft of your paper, back from the instructor, it may contain marks that are difficult to decipher. Check this page for a key to my notations:
Of course, if you simply can't read the handwriting, you'll have to ask!
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