Unless otherwise announced, there will be an open-book examination each Friday. The questions will most often be conceptual and assume that you understand the basic terms and principles introduced in the week's readings or discussions. Each manuscript will describe how the procedures in the readings can eliminate a behavioral problem. Students can earn special credit by using experimental designs that permit inferring treatment effectiveness at the level of the individual subject. I look forward to receiving concisely written manuscripts.
Wordiness is a major stylistic problem in undergraduate manuscripts.
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word should tell. E.B. The Elements of Style . The people wore a device around their necks. When they slouched, the device would sound a loud 500 hertz tone until they assumed an upright posture.