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Level 5

Interrogating an Article

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Purpose:

• To extract APA structure and style from a peer-reviewed journal article
• To understand how a course, a college, or a journal publication can alter APA as they wish.
• To examine the intricacies of writing in APA above and beyond citations.

Why do this

• When you write your capstone (and if you attend Graduate school) you will need to format your Thesis paper to perfection.
  • It took me a month (at an hour or so a day) to simply format my PhD dissertation to perfection--and there are STILL errors in it!
• You may become part of an authorial team, and then you'll HAVE to know how to interrogate a journal's article as your team writes your research.
• This is a horrible assignment
• The minutiae will drive you mad
• But it's essential to capstone or Grad school success

Caveats:

• Most journals do not use a strict APA, or MLA, or Chicago style.
• Everyone uses a variation of one of those styles.
• Journals and Colleges (each course in a college)can implement any variation of an official style that that wish.
• Thus, you will always have to rigorously focus on the directions given by a journal or a college or a course as to the proper formatting of papers, or of articles, or a BA Capstone Thesis, or a Grad Thesis, or a PhD Dissertation.

The Process

• Originally, I had planned that this two-part exercise (Levels 5 and 6) would be separate, with one week per each.
• Pre-covid, in-class, this assignment was ONE week long with a second week to iron out problems/concerns/questions.
• The last three levels all go together: Levels 5 and 6 (Interrogating a Journal Article) go with Level 7 (APA term paper)

1. Level 5: Find a peer-reviewed journal article.
2. Level 5: Interrogate the article according to the Style documents.
3. Level 6: Re-write your Level 3 APA paper by applying the exact style of your peer-reviewed article follows.

1. Find a peer-reviewed article

• Thinking about your career path, determine the exact name of the science you will pursue: nursing, oncology, neuroscience, etc.
  • A. Go to this page to learn how to use the search engine in the EFSC databases

2. Interrogate the Article

1. Download the document
   • Questions 1-40
2. Answer each question by using your chosen peer-reviewed article selected from the EFSC databases.

• You'll need to use these resources to answer some of those questions
  • Types of Literature Review
  • Applied vs. Theoretical

• These answers will shape how you will format your Level 3 APA paper into the Level 6 APA Term Paper.
• Grading of the Level 6 APA Term Paper is based on your ability to comply with the answers about your peer-reviewed journal article.