Sunday 18 January 2015

How to Become a Cognitive Psychologist

The first step to entering a career in cognitive psychology is learning how to become a cognitive psychologist and determining whether this career is right for you. As a cognitive psychologist you will be involved with the study of mental processes such as decision-making, language, learning functions, memory and all the other complex functions of the human computing system known as the brain. The training will be research-intensive, and you will need to spend at least seven years at school full time to earn a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and PhD, if not more. If you are fascinated by how the brain works and want to make a difference in the world, however, it will be worth it.
The courses in a cognitive psychology program include cognitive processes, language development, perception and statistics. Students often get a Bachelor of Science in psychology, and then go on for the more specialized graduate degree in cognitive psychology. During this time you will need to teach undergraduate courses and submit a master’s thesis at the end. Then you will need to move on to a PhD program, where research will play an important role. You will be mentored by faculty members and work towards a dissertation including your own original research.
After the many years of schooling are complete, you will need to become certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology to work as a cognitive psychologist. Your credentials will be reviewed, and you will need to submit paperwork in addition to the passage of a lengthy exam. Experience from internships and laboratory research will pay off when you get to this point, as you will have a much easier time getting a job with some experience to back up your knowledge.
As a cognitive psychologist you can find work in academic settings as a professor or lecturer, and in private sector settings as a researcher. You will also be qualified to work as a counselor or therapist, but your training will really be above this. Your starting salary may be less than $40,000, but after five years you can earn more than $70,000, and after 20 years you may earn more than $90,000 annually. 

7 Tips to Overcome Plagiarism in Your Essays

You are more than likely a little tired of hearing the word plagiarism, but, if you are conscious about doing well at college and university, then you should be clearly aware of what plagiarism is, how easily you can fall into the trap, and how you will be able to identify quickly if you have mistakenly plagiarised someone else’s work and remove it.
Tip 1 - Know what Plagiarism is
You should become accustomed to what plagiarism actually is - essentially it is passing of someone else’s work as your own. Doing so in academic writing means that you are not acknowledging where you have gained the information and understanding of the topic on which you are writing, and after all you are not expected to know everything!
Tip 2 - Don’t copy any work verbatim
Copying work verbatim means copying someone else’s work word for word with no acknowledgment to who or where the work has come from. This is different from a direct citation, as with a citation you are acknowledging where exactly the words have come from as well as evidence of your reading.
Tip 3 - Copying and Pasting is a no, no
You should resist the temptation of copying and pasting any material from someone else’s work and changing a few verbs around, and replacing a few other words just isn’t right. Even if you put a reference to where you got this information in reference list as you are still copying most of the words from the original writing.
Tip 4 - Keep track of your sources
You may do all of your research on a note pad, and at the back write down all of the full references of the sources you are using. I used to do this and found it to be of great help - it is so frustrating when you have a great quotation, but can’t use it as you can not remember where in the hell you actually jotted it down from. Keeping track of and organising your sources is key to keeping on top of preventing plagiarism.
Tip 5 - Practise expressing some else’s ideas
You will be writing about many different author’s notions and ideas throughout your work, so practicing doing so will lead to you increasingly understanding how to do this process. You want to be able to express other people’s opinions and processes fluently and not being able to do so can lead you to copy and plagiarism other individual’s work.
Tip 6 - Believe in your own writing and conclusions
You wouldn’t have be able to get into your current course if people didn’t think you would be able to complete the work set out without committing plagiarism. You want to be able to prove to yourself how much you want your qualification and you should be able to write in your won words an understanding of certain theories and understanding within a chosen topic. You will need to conclude your writing too, so you will need to know in-depth about what you have written in your paper.
Tip 7 - Check your work
Sometimes, and even without noticing, you could be plagiarising someone else’s work in your essay or paper. This isn’t because you have done it knowingly, but it could be that the 2am mad writing session was pretty tiring and you actually added a part of a paragraph that now doesn’t look like your actual writing. Checking through your own work will mean that you should spot some areas that you may have approached the plagiarism boundary and need to steer yourself away from it.
You could also additionally have a professional proofreader look over your document for you and bring a different view to your writing, this increases your chances of making sure your work doesn’t contain any plagiarism.

Essay Assistance - Do You Find It Difficult To Write Clearly And Succinctly?



Do you find it difficult to write clearly and succinctly? Do you feel that your vocabulary is limited, and that you never do yourself justice in your academic writing?
You may have worried about this and looked for help with essay writing, or even investigated professional writing services. Did you know that coursework help is available online in the form of essay assistance, which is designed to help overcome your writing issues? Confusion of ideas is commonplace, and online help with essay writing can, for example, show you how to structure an essay correctly.
To take advantage of essay assistance is to ensure good English. The reader - your examiner - may find their attention diverted by complex and inaccurate language. There is no need for over-elaborate sentence structure or unnecessary padding. Your academic writing should be simple in form within an organised and coherent argument.
Another key element that essay assistance will help the writer overcome is with formatting issues. You may find that you can simplify complex information by presenting salient points in a bullet or list format. This is the type of essay assistance which is available to make your academic writing stand out, for example by managing heading and text formatting, inserting headers and footers, perhaps relevant page breaks, and creating pre-linked contents pages.
Your own research and considered argument builds your essay from skeletal form, gradually fleshing it out to make a piece of academic writing which essay assistance will help to make fully formed. There is more to essay assistance than language and formatting help, however.
A significant quantity of marks is given for presentation and punctuation. The former can be very difficult to maintain consistently throughout a lengthy essay, especially a dissertation. A styling code should be adhered to, avoiding a disjointed essay which can distract the reader. Your words are the important part of your academic writing, yet they can lose impact if not presented within a seamless style. The benefits of essay assistance are invaluable in this often overlooked aspect of academic writing.
Similarly, the importance of correct punctuation cannot be overemphasised. You can assemble your thoughts into a coherent and well-structured essay, yet allow for ambiguity through the incorrect use of punctuation.
The best academic writing tip is to seek out third party help before you submit your work for final assessment. It is difficult to analyse your own work with complete detachment, and although independent advice is merely a series of suggestions, it is reassuring to know that you have not missed any errors, obvious or otherwise.

5 Tips to Effectively Signposting Your Essays

When you are a student in academia chances are you have to write lots of different essays and papers for submission that are persuasive, show evidence of gathering data and have some analytical thinking behind your writing. However, you will also want to link your writing for your readers so that they can follow your cohesive argument throughout your essay or paper, not doing so can cause confusion to the reader and influence them to become uninterested in your work and your arguments.
Tip 1 - Keep it Simple
There is no point confusing your reader in your introduction with what you will be talking about in your conclusion and listing nearly every point that you want to discuss in your paper. This will just cause more confusion. You will want to direct your reader through the essay allowing them to become aware of your train of thought and direction.
Tip 2 - Introduce each area
Introducing what you are going to be talking about in each key area of your work is crucial, as you will need to acknowledge to the reader that it is something that they will want to read in that particular section. It also ‘sets the scene’ for what the reader is about to learn and read during the next section of your work.
Tip 3 - Evaluate sections
Reviewing what you have just written about allows your reader to understand the information you have just put before them. It also allows you to get the reader ready for the next step of your argument in the paper which is vital - linking your paper together is what makes a great and well structured argumentative essay.
Tip 4 - Piece together theories you have previously mentioned
Referring to a previously mentioned theory in your paper is a clear sign to the reader that you have concentrated heavily on the research and writing of your paper. It shows that you understand not only the research topic, but your paper as a whole and bring cohesion and understanding.
Tip 5 - Always remind and guide your reader
Readers forget things as quickly as they have read them, unless you actually point something of importance out to them. You will need to remind a reader throughout your paper about a certain theory or train of though by referring back to instances, or examples that extrapolate your meaning and aids reader understanding.
The main things to remember when making sure your work is leading from one area/section to the next is that your reader is prepare for what they are about to read. Of course, you should always get an experienced person or peer to check over your work too.

Online Education - Advantages and Disadvantages

Online education is the method of getting education without any teacher via the internet. It is being delivered with the help of electronic media and Information & Communication Technologies (ICT). You can get education in the form of text, images, audio, video etc. in e-learning. You are free to study at any time in your home or workplace. It is the new technique of learning. Most of the schools, colleges and universities in India are offering online learning to their students. Online education is good to save paper. It includes multimedia learning, Computer Based Instruction (CBI) and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). It is best suited for flexible learning and distance education. Instead of traditional education like classroom, it includes new technologies like getting educational information via the internet. Online learning is also called computer based learning. Different types of educational technology tools & media are used for it. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is going to deliver e-learning classroom in each affiliated school for online education.
Advantages of Online Education
Online Education has many pros. It is helpful to get a better education than traditional learning methods. It is considered as the most convenient way to pursue primary and higher education. There is no need to travel to the college. Students can access their courses 24 hours in a day. It develops internet skills to the students. Students can get up-to-date content that is always available at the time of requirement. It supports faculty-to-students and student-to-student communication for better learning. Students have continual access to study materials. E-learning programs charge less than traditional schools. It offers comfortable learning environment.
Disadvantages of Online Education
Although, online education has many benefits and best fit for the 21st century, but there are some disadvantages that should be considered. One-on-one interaction is found in traditional classrooms, but in online learning, it is missing. Although, students can interact with teachers through email and any other electronic media, but actually talking is not present. For those students who can’t manage their time, online study could be disadvantages for them. Most of the students prefer to listen to the lecture of teachers instead of reading from text formats and it is also a big problem in it.

Sample SAT Essay Questions

As if the multiple choice questions weren’t enough, the new reading section of the SAT requires test takers to workout a sample of their writing in the form of an essay. You might think to yourself: “I’m a horrible writer. How the heck will I be able to get through this portion of the test?”
Don’t worry. Even if you consider yourself to be a “horrible writer,” the SAT writing topic is the easiest portion of the test that a test taker can “train” for. With a little bit of SAT Writing Practice, you should be able to do this with your eyes closed. The SAT essay counts for one third of your Writing section score and it should be the easiest section to do well on. I will use sample Sat essay questions as examples.
Format:
You have twenty five minutes. Therefore you should aim to write a 5 paragraph essay with an introduction, 3 body paragraphs and a conclusion. Five minutes a paragraph? Think that’s impossible? Read on to find out.
Introduction:
The sat prompt will usually have a question with two sides to it. Your job is to pick a side and explain why you chose it. The sample sat writing prompts are usually general questions. Don’t worry whether you really agree with the side you have chosen for the sat writing prompt. Your job is to make the grader seem like you agree.
Here is one of many sample Sat Essay Questions:
Do you think the government has too much power or do you think the government has to little power?
So now its up to you to pick which side you want to support. It doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with the side you decide to write about. You should pick the side that you know about the most. If you can think of many examples on why the government has too much power, then go ahead and write about that.
After deciding what side to support you will then have to pick examples to support your side of the SAT writing prompt. Three good examples or two great ones is usually the right amount. Avoid just doing one. Most importantly avoid hypothetical examples. Make sure your example are from movies, books, or recent events.
Make sure you have at least one or two examples from books, movies, and recent events. That way you have space for the easiest example: the personal example. The personal example allows you to use events from your life to support the side you picked. Maybe your dad is a teacher and he feels the government has too much power in determining how science should be taught in schools. Write about that. Your dad not a scientist? Hmm, but how would the college board know if you said he was? This is the beauty of the personal experience example. You can make up something and use it as a personal experience. Just try to not make it obvious that you’re smudging the truth. For example, don’t say your dad is a top level professor at Harvard. Just keep it simple and say he’s a high school teacher.
So in your introduction you should say: what side of the SAT prompts you picked and examples you will use to support your side. If you can think of some clever first line (maybe relating to the example you are going to use) to draw the reader in, put it in. If not, don’t waste time on thinking up one. Just go ahead and declare what you view is in the first line of the essay.

Short Essays on Rural Mezcal Production - Part II - Recicado From the Mixteca Alta

It won’t win any contests for being a quality spirit. And in fact residents of the region don’t even call it mezcal, but rather “recicado,” a Mixteco name, they say. But after a five hour drive from the city of Oaxaca, deep in the Mixteca Alta one encounters agave distillation which does take the prize for giving the true aficionado as genuine a glimpse as possible, into the means and materials of production likely encountered by the Spanish at the beginning of the Conquest: clay pots; carriso (river reed) tubing; mud and stone still; pulverizing using a tree burl and wooden trough; fermenting in an animal skin; and of course traditional baking in an in-ground oven.
Pueblo Viejo is a tiny hamlet an hour’s drive from San Juan Mixtepec, along a badly potholed dirt road. The tranquil valley leading to the settlement is known as Rio Azucena, and for good reason … the Sánchez Cisneros family lives alongside a river, a pre-requisite for producing recicado in this part of the state.
Nineteen year old Hilda Sánchez Cisneros lives with her sister, Natividad Sánchez, 47, and four of Natividad’s six children. The other two live and work in the countryside in North Carolina. Fernando, Natividad’s husband, is away this day, doing tequio (community service). Their 10 old son Esteban, and daughter Dália, 16, are fully trilingual, because they and their mother spent several years living in the US, and accordingly they had an opportunity to attend American public school. But here they are, eking out the most modest of existences, producing recicado for Friday sale in the San Juan Mixtepec weekly marketplace.
The family also subsists by growing squash, corn and beans. It’s clear that meat and fowl are not staples in their diet, not unusual for families in the most rural communities in the state.
The stream is an occasional provider, supplying the family with small fish at certain times of the year. And then there is rabbit, squirrel, possum, and fox. “I know that city folk won’t eat small animals like squirrel and possum,” Natividad explains, “but we do up here, when we can get it, and it’s actually quite good.” Esteban proudly adds that occasionally you can also come across coyote and wolf, but more often than not it’s higher up in the mountains.
Hilda and Natividad learned to distill from their parents and grandparents. However during the early years, the plants used in production were wild varieties of agave that had to be collected by climbing the hillsides. Then a couple of years ago Fernando went to Matatlán, the acknowledged world capital of mezcal, and brought back a number of baby agave espadín plants. Espadín continues to be the only type of maguey that is successfully cultivated throughout the state. So now the family is able to grow its own agave in this fertile yet sparsely populated valley, part of which forms the homestead. But the degree of knowledge of family members concerning scientific process and function, seems to be lacking, or rather basic.
The appearance of the chiote (stalk) is the first sign that the maguey has fully matured. Allowing the stalk to shoot up and produce baby plants should be the primary means of reproducing agave espadín. But Fernando and family harvest before the chiote ascends from the heart of the plant. This inhibits their ability to increase the number of fields under cultivation (the plant does produce “hijos” or children through the root system, but this is a secondary means of reproducing and is not relied upon in commercial enterprises). Equally important is that harvesting the plant prematurely, by not awaiting the chiote, cutting it, and then allowing the natural sugars an opportunity to gather in the base or “piña” of the plant, adversely impacts the quality of the finished product.
But just as traditional mezcal production dictates, the piñas are baked in a pit perhaps eight feet deep and six feet across, atop firewood and river rock. Rather than use synthetic material to cover the “oven,” a layer of palm leaf topped with earth is utilized. However the similarity between customary mezcal production, and recicado, stops here.
Instead of crushing the baked agave using a mule or pony pulling a limestone wheel over it, around a circular enclosure, the cooked plant is pulverized by human power, using a tree burl or hand hewn long wooden mallet to pound the baked agave into a pulp in a five foot long canoe-shaped wooden receptacle. Four posts —- thick, straight tree branches —- support a large “bag” made out of bull hide, at about four feet off the ground. Covered with plastic, the mash is left out in the sun to ferment, for four to five days.
Distillation takes place in an area sheltered by laminated metal roofing, located 20 yards from the home. The family employs four igloo shaped stills, aligned in a straight row. Fashioned from stone and mud, each is virtually identical to the next. Beginning from the bottom, the opening where firewood is placed contains a tubular stone which supports a clay cylinder into which the fermented juices and fiber are placed. Vapor rises from it into a bottomless clay pot. The pot is covered with a bowl, or whatever else is available for use.
Water from a halved and hollowed out tree trunk runs above the stills, and fills each of the four bowls through concave pieces of agave leaf leading from four exit holes in the canal above. As the vapor rises and reaches the bowl, by now cooled by the water, condensation takes place. Liquid drips onto another piece of agave leaf, this one affixed to the inside middle of the clay pot, and angled down to a small hole in the side of the container. The liquid exits the vessel through the hole. A hollowed length of river reed, tightly inserted into the hole and pointing downward ensures that the recicado flows slowly out of the pot and into an urn.
The primitive process does mirror many of the steps and adheres to some of the principles required to produce mezcal in the more artisanal technique. But key elements are lacking, no doubt reflected in the quality of the spirit:
1) as noted, the piña is not harvested at the optimum time;
2) fermentation is complete after only a third of the time usually required to adequately ferment espadín for mezcal production in Oaxaca’s central valleys, although exposure to the sun on a continual basis assists, as does the sheltered lowland semi-tropical environment;
3) recicado is distilled only once.
The result is a relatively low alcohol content watery beverage, almost sour to the taste. Yet the local populace buys it and drinks it, and pays about double the price it costs to acquire traditional 40 - 46 percent alcohol by volume mezcal in the towns and villages surrounding the city of Oaxaca. To be sure, I did try the recicado produced by a competitor up the road, and found it to be only marginally less displeasing.
On my return visit to Pueblo Viejo, I intend to bring two or three liters of my favorite village mezcals for the Sánchez Cisneros family to sample. The hope is that Fernando, Natividad and Hilda will embrace the opportunity to experiment with production, and conceivably begin to distill a spirit more acceptable to the palate … and with at least a bit of a kick. Then who knows, the family may even begin to market it as mezcal, leaving recicado to die a slow, and perhaps even welcomed death.
However care should be taken to not disrupt the basic means and materials currently used in production. They hold a strong attraction for the enthusiast willing to make the trek to Pueblo Viejo. But more importantly, the principles of distillation adhered to must remain for time immemorial, to bear witness to the proposition that the manufacture of spirits, beyond the mere fermentation of the juices of the agave, developed in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca prior to the Conquest, and independent of the science and technology of the Western World.