Assignment: Applying Research Skills Paper

Assignment: Applying Research Skills Paper

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Create a 2-4 page annotated bibliography and summary based on your research related to best practices addressing one of the health care problems or issues in the Assessment Topic Areas media piece faced by a health care organization that is of interest to you.

Introduction

In your professional life, you will need to find credible evidence to support your decisions and your plans of action. You will want to keep abreast of best practices to help your organization adapt to the ever-changing health care environment. Being adept at research will help you find the information you need. For this assessment, you will review the Assessment Topic Areas media piece and select one of the health care problems or issues to research, which will be a current health care problem or issue faced by a health care organization that is of interest to you.

Instructions

Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum, be sure to address each point. In addition, you are encouraged to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

For this assessment, research best practices related to a current health care problem. Your selected problem or issue will be utilized again in Assessment 4. To explore your chosen topic, you should use the first two steps of the Socratic Problem-Solving Approach to aid your critical thinking.

1. View the Assessment Topic Areas media piece and select one of the health care problems or issues in the media piece to research. Write a brief overview of the selected topic. In your overview:
   • Summarize the health care problem or issue.
   • Describe your interest in the topic.
   • Describe any professional experience you have with this topic.
2. Identify peer-reviewed articles relevant to health care issue or problem.
   • Conduct a search for scholarly or academic peer-reviewed literature related to the topic and describe the criteria you used to search for articles, including the names of the databases you used. You will select four current scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles published during the past 3–5 years that relate to your topic.
     • Refer to the NHS-FPX4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective Library Guide to help you locate appropriate references.
   • Use keywords related to the health care problem or issue you are researching to select relevant articles.
3. Assess the credibility and explain relevance of the information sources you find.
   • Determine if the source is from an academic peer-reviewed journal.
   • Determine if the publication is current.
   • Determine if information in the academic peer-reviewed journal article is still relevant.
4. Analyze academic peer-reviewed journal articles using the annotated bibliography organizational format. Provide rationale for inclusion of each selected article. The purpose of an annotated bibliography is to document a list of references along with key information about each one. The detail about the reference is the annotation. Developing this annotated bibliography will create a foundation of knowledge about the selected topic. In your annotated bibliography:
   • Identify the purpose of the article.
   • Summarize the information.
   • Provide rationale for inclusion of each article.
   • Include the conclusions and findings of the article.
   • Write your annotated bibliography in a paragraph form. The annotated bibliography should be approximately 150 words (1–3 paragraphs) in length.
   • List the full reference for the source in APA format (author, date, title, publisher, et cetera) and use APA format for the annotated bibliography.
   • Make sure the references are listed in alphabetical order, are double-spaced, and use hanging indents.
5. Summarize what you have learned from developing an annotated bibliography.
   • Summarize what you learned from your research in a separate paragraph or two at the end of the paper.
   • List the main points you learned from your research.
   • Summarize the main contributions of the sources you chose and how they enhanced your knowledge about the topic.

Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like:

• Assessment 2 Example [PDF].

Additional Requirements

Your assessment should also meet the following requirements:

• Length: 2–4 typed, double-spaced pages, not including the title page and reference page.
• Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
• APA tutorial: Use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] for guidance.
• Written communication: Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
• Content: Provide a title page and reference page following APA style.
• References: Use at least four scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles.
• APA format: Follow current APA guidelines for in-text citation of outside sources in the body of your paper and also on the reference page.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 2: Apply scholarly information through critical thinking to solve problems in the field of health care.
  • Assess the credibility and relevance of information sources.
  • Analyze academic peer-reviewed journal articles using the annotated bibliography organizational format.
  • Summarize what was learned from developing an annotated bibliography.
• Competency 4: Write for a specific audience, in appropriate tone and style, in accordance with Capella’s writing standards.
  • Apply academic peer reviewed journal articles relevant to the health care problem or issue being researched.
  • Produce text with minimal grammatical, usage, spelling, and mechanical errors.
  • Integrate into text appropriate use of scholarly sources, evidence, and citation style.

Question Description
Create a 3-5-page annotated bibliography and summary based on your research related to best practices addressing one of the health care problems or issues in the Assessment Topic Areas media piece faced by a health care organization that is of interest to you.

INTRODUCTION
In your professional life, you will need to find credible evidence to support your decisions and your plans of action. You will want to keep abreast of best practices to help your organization adapt to the ever-changing health care environment. Being adept at research will help you find the information you need. For this assessment, you will review the Assessment Topic Areas media piece and select one of the health care problems or issues to research a current health care problem or issue faced by a health care organization that is of interest to you.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.