General Guidelines
Be a 3–5-page paper (double-spaced, Times New Roman, font size 12, following APA 7th edition paper guidelines) not including title and references
Provide a summary of the peer review artical “Recognizing Depression from the Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis”
Provide a summary of the popular media article “What to Know About Ketamine Therapy for Depression”
Describe how the author of the popular media article interpreted the scientific article (and if they got it right/mostly right OR wrong/mostly wrong).
Include APA citations for both the original research article and the popular media article, in addition to any other outside sources you utilize.
What does APA style mean?
You’re not writing a research article, so you don’t need an abstract, a running head, or research paper headings like “introduction” or “methods”.
You do need to include a title page (your title can be “Critical Thinking Project”) and a references page.
You do need to make sure your pages have the correct margins, font style, and font size.
You do need to write in paragraphs, with full sentences (NO BULLET POINTS).
How do I organize my paper?
Introduction paragraph:
Keep it simple. For your introduction paragraph, give me about 3 sentences on why you chose your topic. Don’t worry about making it profound or waxing poetic about critical thinking skills. If you picked the topic because it came up on your social media feed and you were curious, that’s perfectly valid! This is to get me introduced to the topic I’m about to read.
Body paragraphs – research article:
Set this up with an APA style heading that reads “Research Article”. You can then walk me through your research article. For instance, your first paragraph here can start with something like: “A study by (Author(s), date), examined (summarize your answer about the big question).” Then build the paragraph by summarizing the background context. You can then follow with a few paragraphs summarizing the methods and results sections, and then summarize the conclusion/discussion/interpretation section.
Body paragraphs – popular media:
Set this up with an APA style heading that reads “Popular Media Article”. You can then walk me through your interpretation of the popular media article. For instance, your first paragraph should introduce the author of the article, the source its from, and the background (political leaning and reliability) of the source. Then you can spend a paragraph or two talking about what the popular media article included (and its accuracy), and then talk about what it left out and why. Finally, talk about the conclusions that the popular media article’s author(s) drew from the research, and how accurate those conclusions are.
Conclusion paragraph:
Set this up with an APA style heading that reads “Conclusions”. This is where you bring it all together. Overall, what do you think?
What do you think of the credibility of the research article and their conclusions?
What do you think of the credibility of the popular media article and their summary of the research?
What is at least one other possible explanation of the research’s results that wasn’t covered by either source? This may be tricky if you’ve got some reliable sources, but think up some confounding factors that aren’t being controlled for.
What biases do you think the popular media article has? Have they been addressed in the article?
Overall, why should or should we not trust the popular media article?General Guidelines
Remember that these are your general guidelines – your final submission will:
Be a 3–5-page paper (double-spaced, Times New Roman, font size 12, following APA 7th edition paper guidelines) not including title and references
Provide a summary of the original research article
Provide a summary of the popular media article
Describe how the author of the popular media article interpreted the scientific article (and if they got it right/mostly right OR wrong/mostly wrong).
Include APA citations for both the original research article and the popular media article, in addition to any other outside sources you utilize.
What does APA style mean?
You’re not writing a research article, so you don’t need an abstract, a running head, or research paper headings like “introduction” or “methods”.
You do need to include a title page (your title can be “Critical Thinking Project”) and a references page.
You do need to make sure your pages have the correct margins, font style, and font size.
You do need to write in paragraphs, with full sentences (NO BULLET POINTS).
How do I organize my paper?
Introduction paragraph:
Keep it simple. For your introduction paragraph, give me about 3 sentences on why you chose your topic. Don’t worry about making it profound or waxing poetic about critical thinking skills. If you picked the topic because it came up on your social media feed and you were curious, that’s perfectly valid! This is to get me introduced to the topic I’m about to read.
Body paragraphs – research article:
Set this up with an APA style heading that reads “Research Article”. You can then walk me through your research article. For instance, your first paragraph here can start with something like: “A study by (Author(s), date), examined (summarize your answer about the big question).” Then build the paragraph by summarizing the background context. You can then follow with a few paragraphs summarizing the methods and results sections, and then summarize the conclusion/discussion/interpretation section.
Body paragraphs – popular media:
Set this up with an APA style heading that reads “Popular Media Article”. You can then walk me through your interpretation of the popular media article. For instance, your first paragraph should introduce the author of the article, the source its from, and the background (political leaning and reliability) of the source. Then you can spend a paragraph or two talking about what the popular media article included (and its accuracy), and then talk about what it left out and why. Finally, talk about the conclusions that the popular media article’s author(s) drew from the research, and how accurate those conclusions are.
Conclusion paragraph:
Set this up with an APA style heading that reads “Conclusions”. This is where you bring it all together. Overall, what do you think?
What do you think of the credibility of the research article and their conclusions?
What do you think of the credibility of the popular media article and their summary of the research?
What is at least one other possible explanation of the research’s results that wasn’t covered by either source? This may be tricky if you’ve got some reliable sources, but think up some confounding factors that aren’t being controlled for.
What biases do you think the popular media article has? Have they been addressed in the article?
Overall, why should or should we not trust the popular media article?