How to Write a Presentation in Psychology Guide for College Students

How to Write a Presentation in Psychology Guide for College Students Looking for tips on how to create an effective presentation in psychology? Working on this assignment, you will be able to gain an insight into a field of psychology and human interaction. But this task is rather challenging because you need to choose an interesting topic, research it and present your findings in front of the audience. To help you cope with this assignment, we have prepared this quick guide where you will find all the necessary information for writing and delivering an awesome psychology presentation. And if you need advice on completing other type of project, on our website you can find plenty of full guides to all writing assignments our there. In this article, we will discuss specifics of presentations in psychology, give advice to how to choose a good topic, provide you with step-by-step writing guide, and give you some tips on creating visual aids for your presentation. What Is a Presentation in Psychology? Psychology studies the human brain and people’s behavior, interactions, and thoughts. This interesting field of study has a broad scope and is relevant to a wide range of sectors, including social services, health, advertising, and education. Psychology writing has a goal to inform the audience about new ideas, theories or experiments. Students who study psychology have to write different types of assignment, including essays where they need to develop a coherent argument, research reports where they present results of their research in the format of a journal article, and methodology recounts describing methods they used for conducting experiments and recording their findings. Besides, you may be assigned to prepare a paper presentation and deliver a talk presenting results of your research in front of the audience. When you write a presentation in psychology, you need to convey factual knowledge which is supported by research and be as precise as possible. Making a presentation has some specifics because you need to consider the fact that your audience will not be able to read your paper. Your task is to communicate complex ideas clearly and concisely, minimizing the use of descriptive language and complex sentences and make them understandable to a wide audience. That’s why your presentation should be written in a simple language and you should try to explain complex concepts with a minimum of specific terms. Besides, you may need to prepare visual aids (slides, handouts, posters) to help your listeners follow your argument and emphasize the most important points. Presenting results of the research can be stressful even for experienced psychology scientists because oral presentations take only 10-15 minutes and you need to decide what information to include and how to organize it so that your audience won’t be bored. Choosing an interesting topic and detailed planning are the keys to success. How to Choose a Good Topic for a Psychology Presentation It goes without saying that you should choose a topic you are passionate about. You will be more motivated to overcome possible challenges connected with doing research, organizing material, structuring your presentation, and building slides. But you should also consider your audience – whether they will be members of the faculty who are familiar with psychology concepts or whether they will be people who may never had a class in psychology. Knowing your audience will help you choose the scope of the topic appropriate to their level of knowledge and structure your presentation in psychology with appropriate depth. When you choose a topic, make sure is it is narrow enough so you will be able to cover it in a limited period of time and start researching it – read good primary and secondary sources and take notes of the key ideas that you may want to include in your presentation. Looking for an engaging topic for research? Feel free to choose the one you like from our list: Maslow’s Theory of Motivation; Gender Roles in Relationships; Social Psychological Aspects of Cults; Key Theories of Albert Bandura; Causes of Personality Disorders; The Value of Self-Affirmations; Intelligence and Achievement Testing; Psychology and the Global Climate Change; NLP Communication Model; Anxiety in Children; Psychology of Dreams; Causes of Eating Disorders; Child Abuse and Mental Health Issues; Impact of Exercise on Mental Health; Physical Effects of Stress and Anxiety. Plan Your Presentation Planning stage is very important. Now you have to decide what main messages you want to communicate to your audience – your presentation may be informative or persuasive. Create a strong highly specific thesis statement for your presentation and organize the information you have gathered during your research. A thesis statement presents your main idea in 1 or 2 sentences and lets your audience know what they should expect. A strong thesis statement is clear, concise, specific, and original. It shouldn’t just announce your topic but also reflect your specific angle on the topic. For example, if you are going to make a presentation on the psychology of childhood and fairy tales, your thesis statement may look like this one: ‘Fairy tales reveal a number of specific relationships between young children and their mothers and help explain some important aspects of the psychology of young children like high competition for mother’s attention between siblings and fear of abandonment.’ Use brainstorming techniques and mind mapping and decide what key points you can include in your presentation to effectively support your thesis. When determining how important each piece of content is and whether you should include it or not, you should consider its added value. Your task is to provide a logical argument. Remember: no matter how good an idea is if it doesn’t contribute to supporting your thesis, you should exclude it. Besides, you should remember that you have limited time for your oral presentation so you should be concise when presenting the background and the theory for your research in order to have more time for presenting your study and findings. Share only the necessary information and emphasize your key points to convey a clear message to your audience. It’s important to create a working outline that will help you stay on the track as you write your presentation. Creating an outline in the form of a mind map, a summary table or using another method will make the writing process easier and quicker. There is no set formula for the structure of your presentation but you may follow a basic structure that includes an introduction, main body, and conclusion. Write a Draft for Your Psychology Presentation When you start writing your draft, you should remember that your task is to present a logical sequence of ideas. Don’t just write all the information that you know but articulate your argument and discuss it. Your presentation should â€Å"flow† and each paragraph should be linked to the previous one. Besides, every paragraph needs to represent one main theme which is explained, developed, and illustrated by evidence and examples. Now let’s discuss how to write each part of a psychology presentation in detail. Introductions typically take about 10% of the full word count. A good introduction: begins with a general statement that introduces a topic; provides background information and defines the key terms; sum-ups in 1 or 2 sentences the overall goal of your presentation or reveals your position concerning the issue; identifies the main themes that will be discussed; outlines the presentation’s key argument. For example, you may start your introduction with a general statement that introduces a broad topic like this one: ‘Recent studies on personality development have revealed insight in specific areas which were earlier considered inexplicable such as early interpersonal environment but there are some inconsistencies that require additional examination.’ Sometimes, it is better to write your introduction after you have finished the main body. This approach is preferable when the topic area is not familiar to you. Writing your introduction last will allow you to show a better understanding of the topic and make the beginning of your psychology presentation more powerful. If you write your introduction first, you should check it after you finish the body to ensure that it introduces all your arguments. Body paragraphs typically take about 80% of the total word count. Every body paragraph should convey one main theme and present a number of points relevant to your overall argument. All points should be explained, evaluated, and supported by high-quality evidence and examples. You may also include relevant quotations that support your point of view but you should use them sparingly. You should take into consideration that in psychology, all evidence should rely on data and not on someone’s opinion. For example, if you want to state that attitudes towards gay rights have more liberal in the US, you may convey this idea like this: ‘Recent research has shown that people’s attitudes towards gay rights have typically become more liberal over the last 10 years (Brown, 2015).’ Begin each body paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea. Include supporting sentences to develop this idea and examples, facts or expert ideas that prove the key point. Provide an evaluation of the evidence and explain why you think it is relevant to your topic. Sum up the ideas of each paragraph with a concluding sentence. Use specific phrases and sentences to show transitions between the paragraphs, for example, in addition, consequently, however, therefore, nevertheless, obviously, on the contrary, in the same way, etc. Ideally, a conclusion summarizes and ties together all the key themes and arguments of your psychology presentation. You shouldn’t include any new information here – only the information and arguments you have already discussed. You may restate your position, briefly sum up and evaluate the key points, and suggest some ideas for further research in the concluding sentence. Revise and Edit Your Draft When you finish the first draft of your presentation, you must revise it and check if it â€Å"flows†. A logical flow is an essential feature of an effective communication as well as correct grammar and spelling. Reread your presentation to take a second look at your ideas and make changes to ensure that all paragraphs follow a logical order. You may change or add information to make your ideas more accurate or more convincing. You may need to rearrange your paragraphs to different positions so that their themes were arranged in a logical sequence. The next stage is editing when you need to improve the writing style. You should check how you expressed your interesting ideas. You can change or add words to improve word choice. You need to fix sentence structure and eliminate spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. Do your best to make your presentation in psychology a polished piece of writing. Finally, format your psychology presentation using the APA style. Tips on Making Visuals for a Presentation in Psychology Visual aids (slides, handouts, graphs, charts, posters) help you guide your audience through your talk and communicate the essential information more clearly. For example, if you are talking about a specific part of the human brain, it would be better if your audience could see a picture of the human brain where this specific part is highlighted. But if you use something like humorous animation or clipart, your visual aid will not be helpful in enhancing the audience’s understanding. Here are some tips on how to create effective slides: Make your slides simple and only add elements, for example, colors that can add some value to your presentation in psychology; Use large fonts – 32pt for your main points and 44pt for titles; Don’t write complete sentences. Instead, use bullet points to give your audience a structure they could follow; If you use graphs and charts, keep them simple and don’t clutter them with additional numbers; Make your visuals professionally attractive. Use the same fonts and backgrounds for all slides and be very careful with images that are not relevant to your topic. Creating presentations doesn’t need to be a challenge. We hope that our easy writing guide will help you create a powerful presentation in psychology and make a great impression on your audience.

Archetypes in the Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo Mysterious, morose, cunning, rebellious, and even ingenious are only a few words used to describe Edmond Dantes as a Byronic Hero. A Byronic Hero is defined as a glorified but flawed character with immense superiority in his passions and powers. These heroes can be depicted in a variety of ways and contexts. Similar to a Byronic Hero, Edmond Dantes has suffered great wrongs and was betrayals. However, he emerges as a cruel and powerful man who believes he is taking the place of fate by having revenge on the men responsible for his suffering. In The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas skillfully uses symbolism to craft and portray Edmond Dantes as the ideal Byronic Hero. First used by Monsieur Morrel in his attempt to save the life of Dantes’s father, Dantes later uses the red silk purse when he is saving Morrel’s life and family’s honor. Right as Monsieur Morrel puts the gun to his head, Valentine runs through the door and calls out â€Å"’Father! Father! You’re saved! ’ She held up a red silk purse. ‘Look! Look! ’† (Dumas 129. ) The red purse becomes the physical symbol of the connection between good deed and reward. Morrel recognizes the purse and works out the connection between the good deed performed on his behalf and the good deed he once performed himself. Morrel concludes that Dantes must be his savior, suspecting that he is working from beyond the grave. This purse represents Dantes as a Byronic Hero because it symbolizes his own titanic passion to reward those that have done him fair and kindness. His intense drive and determination to live out his philosophy without regard to others beliefs only intensifies this immense fervor. When Dantes escapes from prison, he plunges into the ocean, experiencing a second baptism and a renewed dedication of his soul to God. Just after diving into the ocean, Dumas depicts Dantes as â€Å"†¦the best swimmer in Marseilles, and he was now anxious to rise to the surface to try his strength against the waves. To his joy he found that he had enforced inaction had not in any way impaired his strength and agility, and he felt that he could still master the element in which he had so often sported when a bay† (Dumas 80. ). Edmond Dantes can be seen as a Byronic Hero in view of the fact that the Byronic Hero does not possess heroic virtue in the usual sense; instead, he has many dark qualities. He emerges from the waters as a bitter and hateful man, bent on carrying out revenge on his enemies. He is washed in the waters that lead him to freedom and his rebirth as a transformed man is complete. The sea continues to appear in the novel even after this symbolic baptism. Byronic Heroes are often depicted as isolated from society as a wanderer or in exile of some kind. Considering himself a citizen of no land, Dantes spends much of his time on the ocean, traveling the world in his yacht. The sea seems to beckon constantly to Dantes, a skilled sailor, offering him escape and solitude. Dantes’s potion seems to have the power to both kill and to bring to life, a power that Dantes comes to rely on too strongly. The strength of the elixir is conveyed perfectly when the count states, â€Å"Only remember one thing. In small doeses it is a remedy, in large doses it is a poison! One drop will restore life as you have witnessed, five or six will inevitably kill† (Dumas 249). His overestimation of the elixir’s power results in the overestimation of his own power, his delusion that he is almost godlike. It is this misconception that ties the count to the prideful thinking and â€Å"larger than life† conduct of a Byronic Hero. The elixir is not powerful enough to bring the dead to life, just like Dantes himself is not capable of accomplishing anything of the nature. It is when Dantes realizes the limits of his potion that he realizes his own limitations as a human being. Edmond Dantes is viewed as the ideal Byronic Hero by means of Alexandre Dumas’s expertly used symbolism in The Count of Monte Cristo. The passion delivered by the red purse, the transformation caused by the baptismal waters of the ocean, and the pride and power brought by the elixir are all symbols that contribute to him being the perfect exemplar of a Byronic Hero. Because of these symbols, Edmond Dantes can be viewed and compared similarly or even superiorly to any of the Byronic Heroes if the 1800s.

Countrywide Financial Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Countrywide Financial - Assignment Example Role in the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown Countrywide’s original creation of the practice of service oriented architecture (SOA) was heralded as revolutionary and became an industry standard (Gruman, 2005). The company was the leader in loan origination with others in the industry following suit, however what is unclear and unknown is when the company’s internal operations began to deviate from sound business practices (Jacobs, 2009; Mokhiber & Weissman, 2007). Gearino (2011) uses the example of the chaos theory to describe the affect and the influence Countrywide had on the subsequent mortgage meltdown (p. 40). He summarizes the chaos theory as â€Å"small deviations from the original intent or purpose of something causing varying results† (2011, p. 40). Subsequently, Countrywide’s business practices were small deviations from the standard ways in which mortgages were created and sold as mortgage backed securities (Jacob, 2009, pp. 17-25). What began as a re volutionary way of originating, underwriting, funding, and packaging mortgage loans for sale became the uncertainty of the deviations as hypotheized by Gearino (2011, p. 40).

Week 4 team paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Week 4 team paper - Essay Example The first control mechanism is the cash register. The cash register keeps track of all the transactions and stores the money temporarily. Keeping too much cash in a cash register is a dangerous proposition because if the stored is robbed the thief will walk away with a lot of money. A control mechanism to prevent this occurrence is to cash out the register periodically. The cash out of cash register should be taken out every four hours. The person that is responsible for the money in this transaction is the manager. The manager must take out the cash and verify that the money taken out is the same amount of money that the register logged. Both the cashier and the manager must sign a paper that specifies the time and amount of money that was taken out of the cash register. Once the money is out of the cash register the manager must put the money in an envelope and store in a safe inside the office of the manager. During the transfer of money the security guard of the store must walk a nd be near the manager until the money is placed in the safe. A second procedure that must occur is for the money in the safe to be deposited in the bank. Every morning the manager must go physically to the bank and deposit the cash the store generated the past day. The security guard of the store should walk with the manager from the store to his car to provide added security. A third control mechanism to verify that no money is missing or stolen internally is performed by the accounting staff. At the end of each month bank reconciliation is perform by the accounting staff to ensure that the paper trail is accurate. The accountants must verify that the bank deposits made by the manager are aligned with the daily cash sales of the company. A second type of asset that is very valuable which is often targeted by thieves is the inventory of the company. In a retail store inventory represents the items that are available

Home Education: Legal and Beneficial Essay -- essays research papers

ARGUMENT PAPER Home Education: Legal and Beneficial Formal Outline Thesis: As parents, we not only have the right to educate our own children, but it is also our responsibility. I. Introduction II. Legality of homeschooling 1. Amendments a. 1st b. 14th c. 9th 2. Cases heard in court 3. State regulations a. teacher certification b. public school equivalency c. compelling state interest d. least restrictive means III. Benefits 1. Emotional 2. Spiritual 3. Educational IV. SOCIALIZATION – the main opposing argument 1. Opportunities for in homeschooling 2. Negative in public (or private) schools 3. Results of testing conducted V. Not a new fad, back to the way we were 1. Notables who were homeschooled 2. History of current homeschool movement VI. Conclusion Home Education: Legal and Beneficial While the idea of schooling children at home is not new to our country, it is new to our generation. Most parents today, including myself, are a product of the school system and rarely explore all of the options for schooling our children. Due to a lack of knowledge, we place our children in a preschool, then a kindergarten, eight years of elementary, and four years of secondary school. Fourteen or fifteen years (preschool is now beginning at age three) of our children’s lives are being spent away from us, and we’re wondering why we’ve lost touch with them. Psychologists now say that it’s not just quality time that we need with our kids, but quality and quantity time. How are we to give them a large amount of our time when they are away from us the majority of their waking hours? Homeschooling is the solution to this dilemma. Because of the lack of knowledge about schooling options, parents have many questions about homeschooling. Some of the major questions include the following: Is it legal?; Can it provide the same breadth of education?; and, most frequently, What about socialization? The responses to these questions make it clear that we have not only the right, but also the responsibility to school our children at home. Forty years ago, homeschooling was illegal in some places, so it is reasonable to question the legality of the homeschool. â€Å"Early homeschooling parents were legally threatened, arrested, and often brought to trial as abettors of truancy, sometimes even as child abusers†(Koetzsch 134).... ...nments were formed, and therefore families are quite capable of managing their affairs, including education, without the help of the government† (Blumenfeld 9).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Recently, an overwhelming lack of trust in public schools has arisen. Not only is the educational rigor disappearing, but there is now also a concern for the safety of our children. Studies have even shown that many high school graduates are not prepared for life after school. Some graduates have found a way to escape notice that they cannot even read, write adequately, or perform simple mathematical functions. A study by John Goodlad â€Å"sent note takers into a thousand classrooms, and they found that less than two percent of instructional time was spent on discussions requiring students to offer an opinion about something† (Guterson 42). A child whose intellect is not developed to the point of creating opinions and discussing them cannot fully participate in the adult world. The only way to make sure that our children do not fall through the cracks is to take them by hand and lead them one by one down the path of knowledge. School your children at home; it’s your right and responsibility.

Aims of the abstract sculpture,painting or architecture

Abstract art is an artistic style that utilizes both color and form to create a piece that is non-representational.   Its general purpose is to capture the intrinsic qualities of the object that it is depicting. Abstraction is a new way of representing the surrounding world that departs from the utilization of traditional methods.There were several movements throughout art history that helped shape modern abstraction and develop a clearer purpose of these works.   The four chief movements in abstract painting included: Cubism, Futurism, Abstract Expressionism and Post-Painterly Abstraction.Abstract paintings are meant to be thoughtful contemplations in their own right, the meaning interpreted by the spectator.Cubism is a radical movement that was a turning point in the world of Western art during the early twentieth century.   The Cubists, as they were referred, did not depict naturalistic representations, but preferred compositions of shapes and forms that â€Å"abstractedâ⠂¬  from the conventionally perceived world.â€Å"They dissected life’s continuous optical spread into its many constituent features, which they then recomposed, by a new logic of design, into a coherent aesthetic object† (Kleiner, 2003, p. 795).   The Cubists’ rejection of traditional forms is an illustration of the early twentieth century’s new avant-garde attitude.These abstract works were born out of the public’s idea that the world was not necessarily a concrete Newtonian world, these notions brought out by the modern physicists of the time including Einstein.   â€Å"One of the basic meanings of Cubism is that a work of art depends upon both the external reality of nature and the internal reality of art† (Rosenblum, 1966, p. 58).The artistic revolutionaries, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, are often credited for starting the Cubism movement.   The aim of these artists was to dissect the forms of their subjects.   This dissec tion was then put onto their respected canvasses for the viewer to witness.â€Å"Their type of Cubism involved analyzing the form and investigating the pictorial elements in order to convey meaning† (Kleiner, 2003, p. 795).   A prime example of this type of abstract painting is the work â€Å"The Portuguese† by Georges Braque.   In this piece, he dissects the form in the work and uses muted browns as his color palette.   This subtle use of color was meant to draw the viewer’s eye to the form of the piece and to not be distracted by the color of the work.   The complexity of the work is apparent by the large intersecting planes that make it a guess at what the subject could possibly be.That was one of the aims of Cubism, to make it a mere impossibility to arrive at a finite meaning of a piece.   The constantly shifting imagery makes it hopeless to arrive at a final reading of the image.The movement of Futurism was a mere extension of the aims that the C ubists were trying to achieve with their work.   The main difference between the Cubists and the Futurists were that the Futurists had a sociopolitical purpose.   These artists were angry over the political and cultural decline of Italy; therefore, they decided to propose revolution through both the literature and art of the time.   â€Å"When the Futurist manifesto was first launched in 1910 by the painters Boccioni, Carrà   and Russolo, its primary aim was to bring Italian painting on to the European scene and oppose all forms of provincialism† (Ballo, 1958, p. 14).   The aim of these compositions was to launch Italy towards a glorious future.   They felt the need for war in order to erase the country’s past.   The Futurists had extremely radical ideas; they called for the destruction of libraries and museums, in order to start anew.   The art of the Futurists focused on motion, in both time and space.   The forms within their paintings were not pure ly abstract.   â€Å"Futurism encouraged a new boldness of execution and a more adventuresome exploration of effect† (Taylor, 1961, p. 22).   The blending of Futurism and the ideas of Cubism is evident in the composition by Gino Severini entitled â€Å"Armored Train.†This work encompasses the act of motion as well as the idea of revolution.   The painting features group of soldiers upon a train shooting at an unknown target.   In abstract fashion, the artist depicts all of the objects into planes.The purpose of these types of pieces was to promote war and to inspire revolution.   Therefore, the ideas behind this artistic and political movement led to the fascist regime that would emerge in Italy during World War II.A departure from abstraction would rule the art world following the Futurist movement.   It was not until the 1940s, that works of abstraction would gain popularity again.   â€Å"Abstract Expressionism, the first avant-garde American movement , would emerge in New York during the 1940s† (Kleiner, 2003, p. 859).This movement would produce paintings that were abstract in form, but would also express the state of the artist’s mind.   The aim of these artists was to reach out emotionally to the viewers of their works.   This movement was inspired by the popular psychiatric theories of the time.These artists attempted to broaden their artistic processes by expressing what Carl Jung referred to as the â€Å"collective unconscious.†Ã‚   These artists were able to achieve this by turning inward in order to create their work.   The compositions typical of this movement were wild and full of energy.The artists of this movement intended to have the viewers of their work understand the content through their own intuition.   These painting were meant to be felt and to express a person’s absolute emotions.The Abstract Expressionists felt strongly about the importance of freedom.   They aimed for pe ople to see their pieces without memory or association.   As artist Mark Rothko explained, â€Å"Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man or life, we make it out of ourselves, out of our own feelings.   The image we produce is understood by anyone who looks at it without nostalgic glasses of history† (Kleiner, 2003, p. 860).   This movement had two central groups: the gestural abstractionists and the chromatic abstractionists.In gestural abstraction pieces, the composition relied on the expressiveness of energetically applied color.   Meanwhile, the chromatic abstraction works used color’s emotional resonance as their central focus.The most famous gestural abstractionist artist would likely be Jackson Pollock.   By the 1950s, he was comfortable with the abstract style and was creating his own unique paintings.   Pollock was best known for using mural size canvasses and composing his paintings out of drips and splatters of paint.These compositions wer e reminiscent of spider webs and were full of energy.   His methods of composing his pieces (using sticks and brushes, he flung and dripped paint) emphasized the method of creation.   Pollock wished to create art that was equally spontaneous and choreographed.   His technique was to immerse himself into his work as he created.His painting rejected the traditional aspects of painting and became abstraction in its truest form.   The paintings contained no central focus and were representative of internalized feelings.The downside of this type of this was the more Pollock â€Å"pushed his imagery toward abstraction, the wider became the range of possible interpretations and the greater the risk of misinterpretation† (Cernuschi, 1992, p. 132).The energy behind the compositions in the method of chromatic abstraction was muted in comparison.   â€Å"Chromatic abstraction did not pretend to have any philosophical or moral claims at all.   The works in this genre meant t o specify sensations and appearances in the immediate environment† (Frascina, 1985, p. 116).   The emotions that they wish to convey in their works were displayed by their use of color.   These works were simplified observations of objects.   Their main feature was â€Å"zips,† which were lines that ran from one side to the painting to the other.These zips were not meant to be seen as specific entities, but rather as accents that give energy to the paintings.   This method of simplification used in chromatic abstraction enabled the artist to express his feelings by the mere use of color.

Profile of the National Organization for Women (NOW)

During a June 1966 meeting of state commissions on the status of women in Washington, D.C., Betty Friedan and other attendees felt dissatisfied with the lack of concrete forward motion. Seeing the need for a civil rights organization specifically focused on womens rights, 28 of them met in Friedans hotel room and created the National Organization for Women (NOW) to take action to achieve the equality of women. The time was ripe for such a move. In 1961, President Kennedy had established the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) to study and resolve problems experienced by women in areas like work, education, and tax laws. In 1963, Friedan had published her groundbreaking feminist classic The Feminine Mystique, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had technically outlawed sex discrimination (though many women still felt there was little or no enforcement.) Did You Know? Betty Friedan was elected the first president of NOW and served in that office for three years. NOW Statement of Purpose 1966: Key Points womens rights as truly equal partnership with men, fully equal partnership of the sexesfocused on activism: confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent women from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of choice which is their right as individual Americans, as human beingswomens rights seen in the context of the world-wide revolution of human rights; equality of women as an opportunity to develop their fullest human potentialspurpose to put women in the mainstream of American political, economic and social lifeNOWs commitment equality, freedom, and dignity for women specifically defined as not being about special privilege for women or enmity towards men Key Feminist Issues in Statement of Purpose employment -- the most attention in the document is to issues around employment and economicseducationfamily including marriage and divorce laws, home responsibilities by gender rolepolitical participation: in parties, decision-making, candidates (NOW was to be independent of any particular political party)images of women in the media, in culture, in laws, in social practicesbriefly addressed issue of double discrimination of African American women, linked womens rights to broader issues of social justice including racial justiceopposition to protectiveness in work, school, church, etc. NOW instituted seven task forces to work on these issues: The Seven Original NOW Task Forces. NOW Founders Included: Gene Boyer, 1925-2003Kathryn Clarenbach,1920-1994Inez Casiano, 1926-Mary Eastwood, 1930-Caroline Davis, 1911-Catherine East, 1916-1996Elizabeth Farians, 1923-Muriel Fox, 1928-Betty Friedan, 1921-2006Sonia Pressman Fuentes, 1928-Richard Graham, 1920-2007Anna Arnold Hedgeman, 1899-1990Aileen Hernandez, 1926-Phineas Indritz, 1916-1997Pauli Murray, 1910-1985Marguerite Rawalt, 1895-1989Sister Mary Joel ReadAlice Rossi, 1922-More about some of these women and men: The First NOW Officers Key NOW Activism Some key issues in which NOW has been active: 1967 Into the 1970s At the first NOW convention after the founding conference, 1967, members chose to focus on the Equal Rights Amendment, repeal of abortion laws, and public funding of child care. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) remained a major focus until the final deadline for ratification passed in 1982. Marches, beginning in 1977, tried to mobilize support; NOW also organized boycotts by organizations and individuals of events in states which had not ratified the ERA; NOW lobbied for a 7-year extension in 1979 but the House and Senate only approved half of that time. NOW also focused on legal enforcement of provisions of the Civil Rights Act that applied to women, helped conceive and pass legislation inluding the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), worked for repeal of abortion laws and, after Roe v. Wade, against laws that would restrict abortions availability or a pregnant womans role in choosing abortion. In the 1980s In the 1980s, NOW endorsed presidential candidate Walter Mondale who nominated the first woman candidate for VP of a major party, Geraldine Ferraro. NOW added activism against policies of President Ronald Reagan, and began to be more active on issues of lesbian rights. NOW also filed a federal civil suit against groups attacking abortion clinics and their leaders, resulting in a 1994 Supreme Court decision in NOW v. Scheidler. In the  1990s In the 1990s, NOW remained active on issues including economic and reproductive rights, and also became more visibly active on issues of domestic violence. NOW also created a Women of Color and Allies Summit, and took aim at the fathers rights movement as part of NOWs activism on issues of family law. In the  2000s+ After 2000, NOW worked to oppose the Bush administrations strategies on issues of womens economic rights, reproductive rights, and marriage equality. In 2006, the Supreme Court removed the NOW v. Scheidler protections that kept abortion clinic protesters from interfering with patients access to the clinics. NOW also took on issues of Mothers and Caregivers Economic Rights and the interface between disability issues and womens rights, and between immigration and womens rights. In 2008, NOWs Political Action Committee (PAC) endorsed Barack Obama for president. The PAC had endorsed Hillary Clinton in March, 2007,  during the primary.  The organization had not endorsed a candidate in the general election since the 1984 nomination of Walter Mondale for President and Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President. NOW also endorsed President Obama for a second term in 2012.  NOW continued to put pressure on President Obama on womens issues, including for more appointments of women and especially women of color.   In 2009, NOW was a key supporter of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed by President Obama as his first official act. NOW was also active in the struggle to keep contraception coverage in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Issues of economic security, right to marry for same-sex couples, immigrant rights, violence against women, and laws limiting abortions and requiring ultrasounds or extraordinary health clinic regulations continued to be on NOWs agenda.  NOW also became active on new activity to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).