Final Synthesis Paper

3. Final Synthesis Paper (30 points total):

This final reflective assignment highlights the culmination of your learning throughout the quarter. It is meant to replace the traditional “final examination” and provide you with the opportunity to elucidate some of your own learning that has taken place over the quarter.

This assignment will require you to use your critical thinking skills to address a question of primary importance: How will you use psychology in your personal and professional and life? In order to answer this question, you must analyze and synthesize psychological concepts and be able to apply them to your speculations concerning your personal and professional life. You will need to clearly identify your career (or one that you are considering) and why you have chosen it. You will then explain how what you have learned in psychology will enhance your professional and personal life. A successful Synthesis Paper will incorporate sufficient references to, and articulation of content learned in class – through readings, discussions and activities. You are advised to use careful academic judgment when considering the various elements of your life to share.

Your Final Synthesis Paper will make use of two sources:

The first source is your textbook You will select 4 psychology concepts/topics from at least 2 different chapters to focus on.
The second source is an article from a peer-reviewed journal (preferably an America Psychological Association journal) published within the last five years, which addresses one of the psychological concepts or topics relevant to your intended career. You will want to find an article that is research (data-driven) based. The article must have the traditional sections associated with a research study (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (abstract, introduction (literature review), methods, results, discussion, references). That means no reviews of literature or other types of articles.
In discussing information from your text, you must reference the appropriate chapters, identify and define each relevant concept, and explain why the psychological concepts you focus on are or will be relevant to your career and your future life. You will be expected to use specific examples of how the concepts will be relevant to your career and life. Merely saying a concept is important is not sufficient. You must be specific about how it will benefit you in your career and life.

For the journal article, you will be integrating the article and its content into your presentation to highlight its significance to your chosen career/life rather than merely citing it. You will be using the journal article to discuss its relationship to one of the concepts or topics you have selected as important to your career/life. Note that you will be discussing the article and the implication of its findings for your career/life in some detail, not merely mentioning it in passing.

Your final synthesis paper should be approximately 5 MS Word pages in length
Double-spaced, 12pt font, Times New Roman, APA-style formatting
Include a reference page