This assignment is designed to help students develop the following skills and competencies:

• The ability to read and understand material, organize it logically, compare and contrast facts and ideas, and draw conclusions.
• The ability to write with clarity, conciseness, and coherence, including correct grammar, syntax and spelling.
• The ability to access appropriate research materials, read and understand professional literature, integrate and synthesize material from multiple sources, and appropriately cite these sources.

Students will investigate any topic related to stress or stress management. Topics will be pre-approved by instructor (using an extra credit discussion forum). Students will provide a summary of the topic by integrating multiple peer reviewed articles, and the summary will not only discuss the current research but also relate it to stress or stress management.

References

• Cite a minimum of 2 professional journal articles that relate to the topic. Information from these sources should be integrated and synthesized in the paper, with appropriate reference citations in the text, and a reference list.
• Professional journal articles, or scholarly articles, have undergone a review process before publication. This means that the article has been reviewed by experts and typically revised prior to publication. The peer-review process helps to ensure that high quality articles are published. Limit your search to peer-reviewed articles. Students are expected to read the entire article; reading and citing information from the abstract only is NOT acceptable.
• Web sites typically do not include peer-reviewed, scholarly articles. The ability to locate appropriate articles and critically evaluate them is an important component of information literacy.

Citing References

• Any information that is obtained from other sources (e.g., journal articles or interview) and is not common knowledge must be cited in the text. Information obtained from your sources must be paraphrased and expressed in your own words. However, paraphrasing the information still requires a reference citation because you need to provide credit to the source of the information. Examples of how to use the author, year method of citing references are shown in the attachment on plagiarism. Other ways of citing references in the text may be used (e.g., footnotes), but use one method throughout your paper.

• For this assignment, a maximum of two sentences may be direct quotations. Direct quotations MUST be indicated with quotation marks.

Reference List

• All references should be listed in a reference list (separate page at the end of your paper). See examples of how to write reference list citations in the plagiarism attachment.

Organization

• Papers will be 2-3 pages (not including reference list), typed, double-spaced, with an easily readable font (e.g., 12 point). Margins should be approximately 1″ on all sides of the page.

Evaluation – Papers will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Content (50 points) – includes appropriate title; paraphrasing, integrating and synthesizing reference material; and using no more than 2 sentences that are direct quotations.
• References (25 points) – includes selecting appropriate references, citing references in the body of the paper (minimum of 2 professional journal articles for the occupational stress paper + interview information OR minimum of 4 professional journal articles for the mini-review paper), and including a reference list with complete reference information.
• Organization (5 points) – includes introducing the topic of the paper in the first paragraph, summarizing paper in the final paragraph, and using appropriate transitions between paragraphs and sub-topics.
• Writing Skills (20 points) – includes clarity, conciseness, correctness (grammar and spelling), syntax (sentence structure) and paragraph structure.

PLAGIARISM

“Plagiarism in student writing is often unintentional, as when an elementary school pupil, assigned to do a report on a certain topic, goes home and copies down, word for word, everything on the subject in an encyclopedia. Unfortunately, some students continue to use such ‘research methods’ in high school and even in college without realizing that these practices constitute plagiarism. You may certainly use other persons’ words and thoughts in your research paper, but you must acknowledge the authors” (Gibaldi & Achtert, 1988, p. 22).

Example:

In general, physical activity is associated with positive psychological well-being in older adults (McAuley & Rudolph, 1995). However, training programs designed to improve physical fitness are not always associated with enhanced psychological well-being. Nieman, Warren, Dotson, Butterworth, and Henson (1993) found that women aged 67-85 years who participated in a 12 week walking program improved aerobic capacity 12.6%, but did not significantly improve psychological well-being or mood state compared to a control group that participated in mild stretching exercises.

Direct quotations should be avoided whenever possible. It is appropriate to use direct quotations in the following circumstances: (a) when giving the wordings of laws and official rulings (b) when exact wording is crucial (c) when the original is worded so well that you cannot improve upon it (Campbell & Ballou, 1978). Direct quotations must be indicated by quotation marks (longer passages may require block quotations, depending on the style manual used). When citing direct quotations, include the page number in the reference citation.

Note: For professional journal articles, cite the following information:

Author(s), (Year of publication), Article title, Journal title, Volume number of journal, Inclusive page numbers.

For on-line professional journal articles, cite the above information, if available, AND include the date the document was retrieved and the URL. Example:

Fredrickson, B. L. (2000). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being.

Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030…