An In-class and Out of Class Assignment
Content of the Narrative Essay, Sources for the Content, and Paraphrasing an Author with a Citation
| Description of Exercise: | The content requirements of the Narrative Essay, sources for the content, and how to cite the sources in-text |
| Objective: | To identify the types of content required in the Narrative Essay To identify your specific career interests To explain the relevance of your academic training To find two articles from the EBSCO databases on some of your workplace competencies To identify the data about a source, which is needed in an APA reference to the source To paraphrase an author's idea about a competency To cite in-text the source of an idea about a competency |
| Outcomes: | Outcomes 7 & 9 |
| Reading: | Pages 152 - 161 about in-text citations & References, & pages 101 - 106 about quotations & paraphrasing in Research Strategies; pages 1-9, 17, 33, 35 - 38 in Bryant & Stratton APA Style Guide; bring textbook, Internet Research, to class as an aide for a quiz question |
| Assignment name: |
Due Dates in Class for the Narrative Essay TBA
Background for the Content of the Narrative Essay
See the handout, "wk5_narrative_essay_format," for a reminder about the brief late period.
During next week's Lab time participate in the instructor's consultations with each student about finalizing the rough draft into a final draft. You receive credit for participation in the lab, when you accept the instructor's offer for assistance.
This is your homework --
Complete a rough draft of your Narrative Essay before the next class with the lab. Next week's lab is used to make last-minute changes with the instructor's help. You will be revising the rough draft into a final draft for submission during the lab. If you are absent in the class meeting in which students received instructions and organize their essays, you should secure your handouts with instructions from the campus network or the course Web page, and prepare the rough draft before coming to next week's lab in which the essay is to be submitted in final draft.
The Narrative Essay's content should fall under two main sections. In order to communicate more clearly create a short Introduction before you start the body of your essay, and create a short Conclusion at the end of your essay. They can improve your performance by organizing your thoughts and communicating them clearly to the reader. An Introduction is a brief paragraph that announces your purpose in writing the essay. A Conclusion is a brief paragraph that summarizes your essay for the reader. An Introduction and a Conclusion are optional.
Here is an example of a primary section heading for the first section of the Narrative Essay by a student majoring in Human Resources: Two Specializations in Human Resources.
You will do the following in the 1st section in 1 to 1&1/2 pages --
· Identify two possible jobs or specializations within the general area of your degree program in which you have an interest. Do not provide in this essay the details about skills, training, conditions, wages, etc.
· Explain why the two specialties interest you more than other jobs. Answer questions like these in the first section of the Narrative Essay –
o How did I become interested in the two jobs?
o Why should anyone care about my chosen career?
o What do professionals in my career contribute to society?
Here is an example of a primary section heading for the second section of the Narrative Essay by a student majoring in Human Resources: Two Workplace Competencies in Human Resources.
You will do the following in the 2nd section in 1&1/2 to 2 pages --
· Explain why you think that two of the nine workplace competencies (themes) are relevant to the jobs in which you are interested.
· Describe how the authors of two articles from trade magazines or scholarly journals discuss your chosen competencies.
· Explain how some of the discussion by the authors can be applied to the jobs in which you have an interest. Remember that the best articles about the workplace competencies usually are not written exactly for your preferred workplace. The college encourages you to work on the higher cognitive levels through "Application," "Analysis," and "Evaluation" of your sources.
Length and grammar of the Narrative Essay:
The content of the Narrative Essay should cover altogether 5 - 6 pages. Your title page is on the first page, and your list of References is on the last page. So the body of the essay occupies 3 to 4 pages. A paragraph should consist of three to six sentences. Use complete, relatively short sentences, which contain a subject and matching verb. Do not use long lists. Ask someone to proof-read your paper before submitting the final draft, and use a spell-checker.
How to avoid plagiarism! --
The college and your LIBS instructor emphasize intellectual honesty. You can expect increasingly large deductions for plagiarism. Here are two quick tips for avoiding plagiarism --
û Quote every phrase or sentence taken exactly from a source; and
û Credit (by citing) every fact, idea, phrase, or sentence taken from a source.
The COMM150-instructor stipulates the following maximum for the amount to quote -- Do not quote more than one sentence or phrase from each article. Copyright Law and the Fair Use guidelines do not specify a specific maximum for how much we can take literally from a source. However one sentence is a safe limit in order to avoid facing a challenge. An essay will receive a lower score if the essay copies more than one sentence from an author.
We need to practice a great skill – paraphrasing. When you use an idea from an article, put the author's statements in your own words. Cite the author when you quote the author, and cite the author when you paraphrase her/him.
Activity 1: Identify Two Career Specializations, Two Workplace Competencies,
& Explain Why the Competencies are Important to the Jobs
Acquire the content for the first section about two career specialties --
You will recognize some of these career-oriented sources. You visited them for earlier activities. Browse these sites to determine two specializations that interest you the most –
Virginia Career View: Career Search at http://www.vaview.vt.edu/pro/know-about-careers/career-search
Students in Human Resources are encouraged to use additional sources, such as --
The sources, listed above, will help you identify particular jobs (specializations) in which you are most interested, and help you distinguish them from alternative work in your general career area.
What are two specializations in which you might describe your interests in the first section of the essay?
First specialization: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Second specialization: ..………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Acquire the content for the second section in your essay about two workplace competencies --
The instructor recommends that you look for articles about the following workplace competencies. Do not use the themes from the StrengthsQuest assessment. This valuable assessment is taken in some classes in order to identify five of your personality themes, such as "Connectedness," "Woo," or "Ideation." A search for articles about these personality themes is likely to be more difficult and longer than a search for articles about the workplace competencies.
Reflect on two competencies, which you think are most important for the two jobs in which you have special interest. Find a synonym or related word for your selected competencies. Some Web sites, which can suggest related words, are "Thesaurus.com," and "Merriam-Webster Online." The related words are useful in performing your database-searches. Write the synonyms into the table below this list of the nine workplace competencies --
The Workplace Competencies
| 1 | Taking Responsibility i.e. how you live up to commitments |
| 2 | Working in Teams i.e. your skills in working on problems with others |
| 3 | Persisting i.e. your ability to stick with a task until it is completed |
| 4 | A Sense of Quality i.e. your attention to details and degree of dissatisfaction with simply doing the minimum |
| 5 | Life-long Learning i.e. your interest in learning and exploring new ideas |
| 6 | Adapting to Change i.e. your willingness to adjust to different academic tasks, people, and methods |
| 7 | Problem Solving i.e. your habits in tackling problems in an active and systematic manner |
| 8 | Information Processing i.e. your competence in having and using multiple strategies when learning |
| 9 | Systems Thinking i.e. your competence in seeing the big picture and in seeking improvements to situations |
| Competency keyword or key-phrase: | Synonyms or related words: |
| Example: Persisting | Examples: persistence, commitment, perseverance, determination |
| | |
| | |
Activity 2: Find Two Database Articles
The focus of Information Literacy is on research. So we must go outside ourselves to find and utilize what professionals have said about our competencies, or about our personality themes.
Go to the EBSCOhost collection of databases on the Bryant & Stratton College Web site, as you did in the assignments of last week. Use a keyword or key-phrase representing each of your two competencies). Print both the EBSCO record for a relevant article and the full text. Do not select an article that is simply a book review.
The best databases in which to do your research --
These are the main databases in which you should search for articles about two competencies (or two themes). I recommend that everyone start with this database –
"Vocational and Career Collection."
You can find the minimum two articles about your competencies from Vocational and Career Collection. Check that your preferred articles are from trade publications or academic journals by clicking on the name of the periodical in the source-field of the EBSCO record. You will see a description of the source or periodical.
After finding an article or two in "Vocational and Career Collection," look for articles about a workplace competency in databases, which are more related to your general career area. Try the following databases –
For majors in Administrative Assistance, BBA program in Business, Human Resources, and Accounting:
Use "Business Source Complete." A good trial database available in 2009 is "Research Starters – Business."
For majors in Medical Assistance:
Use "Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition." Also search in the database for nursing, "CINAHL." Be prepared for
specialized topics and difficult jargon in the articles – medical research is not for the timid!
For majors in Information Technology:
Use "Computer & Applied Technology Complete." Also search in "Academic Search Complete."
For majors in Criminal Justice:
Select "InfoTrac Criminal Justice Collection." This database is listed outside the EBSCOhost collection under the tab for
Research Databases. Remember that the multi-disciplinary database, "Academic Search Premier" in the EBSCO collection,
includes Criminal Justice.
For all majors:
Use "Academic Search Complete."
Serious research involves determined searching in the manner of a detective.
How to Succeed in Finding Articles about Your Competencies:
· Most important tip:
Find articles that discuss the workplace competency regardless of the career and context in which the ability is exercised.
The best articles, which describe the exercise of a competency, are usually those that discuss the competency in a context other
than your specific career interest.
· Place quotes around a competency key-phrase, which uses two or more words. The quotes require that the search engine keep the words together in a phrase.
· Use synonyms and word variations or endings. For example you can truncate a root word like "team*," in order to retrieve "teams" and "teamwork."
· Look for relevant subjects in the Left side of your screen under "Subject: Thesaurus Term," when EBSCO retrieves a list of articles.
o Example:
The database, Vocational and Career Collection, displays "teams in the workplace," when as a "Subject: Thesaurus
Term," when you start a search for the competency, Working in Teams.
o Click on the recommended Subject, "teams in the workplace."
Your search string is reformulated in the green bar at the top of your result-list as --
o Now, click inside this search string on the underlined preferred Subject, "TEAMS in the workplace."
o You will retrieve over a thousand articles about the idea of 'TEAMS in the workplace' instead of a dozen or so
articles in response to the exact words with which you started your search. You are witnessing the power of Subject Headings for acquiring relevant results!
· In order to retrieve entire articles, check the box for "full text" before hitting the Search-button. You may need to click the option, "Search modes" below the search box in order to see the checkbox for full text.
· Print the EBSCO record in addition to the full text.
o The record contains information that goes into your citation of the corresponding article.
· To print documents with the file format of pdf --
Click the small icon for a printer in the menu bar of Acrobat Reader.
If the printer does not respond to your print command for a pdf-document, save the document and its EBSCO record to a floppy or
thumb drive. Then print from your storage device.
· Search at the same time for articles in both trade magazines and in scholarly journals by leaving un-checked the boxes for "peer-reviewed" and for "references."
o If you want to find only articles from peer reviewed periodicals, then check the boxes for Peer reviewed and for References.
o Extra credit is offered for the use of peer reviewed articles. Your comprehension of the jargon in peer-reviewed articles requires basic familiarity with the subject matter of the article.
· Click on the title of the source periodical in order to get information about the periodical and to ascertain if it is a trade magazine or a peer-reviewed journal.
o Do not use popular (general interest) magazines.
· Search with a keyword (or string), which identifies only a competency and synonyms. Do not combine the competency-word with career-related words, when you start searching for articles about a competency.
o Sample of a productive search for an article about a competency: persistence OR commitment
o Sample of a search for which the outcome can be disappointing: persistence AND human resources.
Click on the title of a periodical in the EBSCO record. It is listed after the word, "source." A window will pop up with a description of the source (periodical). The window about the periodical will inform you if the periodical is a popular, trade, or academic type of periodical. Do not use an article, which simply reviews a book. You want original research.
Critical information about an article and its periodical:
The information, below, is provided in your EBSCO record for an article. For each article see if you can locate the following data in the EBSCO record --
| Authors: | Article title: | Source name (periodical): | Month & Year of publication: | Volume and issue #: | Start and end page # | Database name: |
Activity 3: Paraphrase an Author, and Cite the Author's Idea with an In-text Citation
Read what the author(s) say about a workplace competency in one of your articles. If the article is long, read only the paragraphs in which the competency-words appear. Describe in your own words what an author says about a competency in one of her/his sentences.
Your paraphrase of an author is better than your quote of an author. Paraphrasing, along with the crediting of a source, is a fine way to comply with the Fair Use Guidelines of U.S. Copyright Law. If you cannot put the author's idea in your own words, then you are allowed in the course to quote a maximum of one sentence from each source. You must cite the source for a quote. Also you have to cite the source, if you paraphrase an author by using your own words.
Practice paraphrasing a source --
Use an in-text citation to identify the author and the year of the article's publication. You can use the examples of in-text citations in your first handout, "wk7_narrative_essay_format," or you can use the little college handbook, which you purchased in the bundle for LIBS, APA Style Guide.
Here is an example of an original statement by two authors, followed by a paraphrase in which the source is cited in-text –
| Authors, date, and page # of a sample source: | Tache and Gibson; 2005; p. 31 |
| Original statement by author(s): | "Working in teams is the most important competency, which we observed in making critical life-saving decisions in the VA hospitals of the Baltimore area. These teams must consist of at least three different specialists in order to be effective multi-disciplinary units." |
| Alternative paraphrases with in-text citations: | The authors of a study on staffing in intensive care wards found that the best multi-disciplinary teams involved three or more staff with different expertise (Tache & Gibson, 2005, p. 31). Or use a "signal phrase" such as: Tache and Gibson (2005) found that the best multi-disciplinary teams in hospitals involved three or more staff with different expertise (p. 31). |
It's your turn –
Paraphrase a statement about a competency in an article, which you have found. Provide an in-text citation to the source in your paraphrase.
| Author(s), date, & page # of a source: | |
| Original statement by author(s): | |
| Paraphrase with an in-text citation: | |
