Category Archives: The basics

The Fiction of Ong’s Hat: Too Good to be False

BY JAYADITYA DEEP

In a Tortoiseshell: In his essay, Jayaditya “Jojo” Deep analyzes conflicting research about the psychology of conspiracy theorists. In his introduction, Jojo details a hypothetical scenario that immediately captivates a reader’s attention and creates an understanding of how conspiracy theories propagate. Continuing, Jojo uses this hypothetical scenario to lay the context of his main conspiracy of study—Ong’s Hat—before explaining how this case sheds light on the related psychological literature. Continue reading →

The Basics

BY Isabella Khan

As writers, every one of us has had to learn to mediate between the rules of good writing we learned in high school, and the more sophisticated structures required in college essays. For this year’s issue of Tortoise, we wanted to showcase some of the ways Princeton students have done just that. In Kennedy Casey’s psychology paper, the focus is her conclusion; in her commentary on Casey’s work, editor Annabelle Duval draws our attention to the relationship between evidence and motive in the construction of this concluding section. In Jojo Deep’s Writing Seminar essay on conspiracies, the focus is on his “hook”, and how it works to create an effective introduction; in his commentary on Deep’s essay, editor Alex Charles uses Lexicon terms to explain exactly why Deep’s hook is so effective.

— Isabella Khan, ’21

Spring 2021, The basics

Limits of the “blowfish effect”: Exemplar variability outweighs atypicality to support basic-level generalization during word learning

BY KENNEDY CASEY

In a Tortoiseshell: In the concluding section of her final project for Cognitive Psychology, Kennedy Casey adeptly discusses her research on generalization during word learning. She clearly summarizes her findings and their limitations, while also defining her contribution to the scholarly conversation and calling attention to her global motive. Continue reading →