Description of MAP The MAP or Major Area Paper is the centerpiece of our program's preliminary examination. Customarily the MAP represents a thorough review of some area of study that the student has chosen to pursue in their research. The standard for form and depth is represented by articles published in Psychological Bulletin. The MAP asks the student to showcase their critical skills and ability to synthesize the literature in new ways. Students typically examine the strengths and weaknesses of studies in the literature and attempt to resolve the contradictions. Students also find connections across different areas or approaches where connections had not been previously found. The goal is for the student to thoroughly examine the literature and develop their ideas in anticipation of planning their dissertation research.

Details of the MAP Timing: Students must submit their MAP to their committee by preregistration in their 5th semester of study. Normally, students complete their MAP during their 4th semester of study. Students who fail to meet the submission deadline are considered no longer in good standing. Process: Students are expected to consult their committee as they develop their ideas for the MAP topic and to utilize the expertise of their committee to aid in their literature search and their overall direction and plan for the paper. Regular meetings between students and individual committee members are encouraged. The final MAP should be the result of an iterative process whereby the advisor and/or the committee see and comment on several drafts. Again, the idea is to end up with a meaningful product that stands on its own merits and anticipates the dissertation work. The committee members comments challenge the student to critically think about their goals and the gaps in the field. Students submit a final version of their paper to their committee at least 2 weeks prior to the preliminary examination. The examination is oral and customarily continues for at least two hours but not more than three. As the exam begins, the student may be asked to provide a brief summary (usually about five minutes) of the MAP. The purpose of this is mainly to provide some time to relax and to avoid beginning the exam with the student in a defensive position. By custom, procedures are informal, and even though the committee chair may attempt to have each committee member ask questions in turn, others usually jump in with a question when it seems appropriate to do so. After the first round of questions each member is asked individually for any final questions. Although the Preliminary Examination usually focuses heavily on the MAP material itself, exam question can also explore the student's general knowledge about their area of expertise. When questioning has been completed, the student is asked to leave the room while the committee discusses the performance and votes by written ballot on the outcome. Students either pass or fail the examination; no grade is awarded. Example of a published MAP This is a link to the published form of Daniel Greenberg's MAP. He has since graduated from PBS and is a postdoc at UCLA. Example of a MAP about to be published. This is a copy of Chris MacDonald's MAP, which is currently in press. He is a 4th year graduate student in PBS. Example of published MAP This is a copy of the published verion of Matt Mattell's MAP. Matt is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Villanova University.

What educational purpose does the MAP serve? The MAP has several educational goals: Strengthen critical thinking skills Provide an opportunity for reviewing and examining the literature with the aim of identifying problem areas, formulating questions/hypotheses relevant to these problem areas, and suggesting an experimental framework that could evaluate these hypotheses via strong inference. Serves as a transitional element to move the student from research assistant to more independent scientist.

How can we improve the MAP? Most graduate programs use a written exam as a qualifying exam. This exercise encourages rote knowledge and generally retests students on material already covered and tested in coursewrok. The MAP is a novel element of our program and we believe that students benefit greatly from this exercise. Although there is strong support from our faculty and students for the MAP as an essential element of the Preliminary examination, several problems have been identified: 1. Students often have difficulty getting started because they do not feel they have detailed guidelines for writing the paper. 2. The paper has become too long, less focused, and as a consequence is completed at or near the deadline. 3. The MAP is not written for publication, and therefore, only a few students and mentors work with the material subsequent to the Preliminary Examination to get it published.

New elements added to the MAP: 1. Post MAPs on departmental website (password protected) along with published versions when available. They will serve as models for students as they plan their MAPs. 2. The MAP should be published. This would help enforce a page limit and demonstrate that the MAP is not merely a hurdle, but an important contribution. We recommend that after students write and defend their MAPs that they engage in a process of revising the paper with whichever committee members are interested in helping in this process. Through an iterative process and with the input from the committee members, a document could be created that would be publishable and would feature contributing committee members as co-authors.

Reflection from a faculty member The MAP is one of the most important components of our graduate program. It is the exercise that helps to crystallize a student's interests and helps him or her realize what is most intersting about an area from their perspective. Although students are encouraged to talk about their ideas, there is something uniquely enlightening about writing in an analytical and critical and yet open-ended way. It is open ended in the sense that each student defines for him or herself (with advice from their mentor and the members of their committee) what the plan and scope of the paper will be. For my students, it has been a very helpful goal for motivating a narrowing of their interests--what the MAP topic will be ofen helps a student decide what their dissertation area will be (or at the very least, what it will not be). In our CID committee meetings we talked at great length about changing the MAP and even about eliminating it entirely. After a lot of thinking and talking about what serves our students best, we have decided to keep the MAP the same, but to provide students with more support in the form of more interactions with their committee members and more models in the form of completed MAPs available on our department's website. I think these changes will help students write better MAPs and may help them get more out of the experience. .

Reflection from a student My name is Laura Thomas, and I completed and defended my MAP last spring, in the second semester of my second year. I believe that by completing my MAP I have increased my knowledge of my area of study significantly. It proved a very valuable exercise in examining a large body of literature and honing in on what was missing, what gap I was going to fill. I now have a very solid background from which to draw for my future experiments and papers. I have already implemented what I learned from my MAP in to an experiment that I am currently running. While I may not have enjoyed all aspects of the MAP while researching, writing, and defending it, it was definitely a very educational experience for me. I feel that I have grown as a graduate student by completing such a large project. I feel more prepared for my future academic career by having such a solid background in the literature. I also learned many skills and habits of mind needed to succeed in neuroscience, such as critically evaluating others' experiments and ideas, identifying what is lacking in the current literature, and forumlating my thoughts into a coherant document, therefore improving my science writing. It also takes a lot of persistance, planning, and organization to write an MAP, which are skills I think I needed some improvement on! I think that the MAP is a very positive aspect of our doctoral program because as graduate students we grow from this experience, in ways that I have just mentioned. As a first semester third year I am in a very different stage of my research as a result of completing my MAP. I can see more clearly how my research fits in to the larger picture of the field and to neuroscience in general. I have a more fine-tuned plan for my dissertation research as a result of the MAP, and appreciate the skills and resources that the MAP afforded me.