What is acceptable for Psychology essays?

karaokeman

I am a first year student in NUI Maynooth writing my first Psychology essay, which is due for thursday this week.

My tutor has told us about scientific writing and all that so I'm starting this thread to make sure I'm writing it properly.

At every point in the essay where I talk about different theorists I mention them, their background (Eg Mussen was a lecturer for 30 years at the University of California, Berkeley) and what they proposed.

I know I have to write along the lines of "the researchers have found" but is it ok to use "he/she" in the same sentence, which started with the theorists names or is usage of those terms banned altogether?

JuliusCaesar

Haven't you got something like this from the university?

Studies have found that proper writing style influences the lecturer's marks (Allbright & Huppart, 1995; Bennon et al, 1998; Cosy, Sofa, and Chair, 2002) but others found that there was an inverse correlation (Table et al, 2005). However, Random and Control, 2008, stated "if this is the case I'm a right fool".

etc etc.

It really depends what you're writing about.

Killer-Song, who made most of his most important discoveries early in his career, held rather unpopular opinions about parapsychology in his later years.

The Black Oil

'They' is what we tended to go with for our assignments rather than 'he/she'. I wouldn't be inclined to include biographical info about particular theorists, unless that's required as background for how they influenced their field, etc. If in doubt, check with your tutor.