Objective:

· Become familiar with elements of a professional journal.

· Understand the meaning of a refereed journal.

· Perfect skills in finding relevant literature using library/scholarly databases.

· Perfect skills in citing sources and formatting references in APA 7th edition format.

· Analyze an article for clarity.

· Analyze an article for use of standard scientific methods.

Format:

Times New Roman, 12pt. font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, approximately 750 words (3 pages). Use headings and subheadings to make your essay more readable.

Assignment:

1. Find two articles from a professional technical journal written in English from a key professional organization in your major.

2. Articles cannot be more than five years old.

3. Try to find “bite size” articles that are not too long (4-8 pages is appropriate).

4. Write an objective essay answering the following questions:

· Who is/are the author/authors?

· What is their background and what makes them experts (ethos)?

· Whom or what organization funded the research behind the article?

· What is the purpose of the article?

· What rhetorical strategies are used and why do you think the author(s) chose these particular strategies?

· Who is the intended discourse community (audience)?

· What are strengths within the article’s arguments/presentation of facts? Weaknesses?

· Are there tables? Charts? Graphs? Are they helpful or not?

· Does the article project pseudoscience or real science? How do you know?

· Do you think that the articles achieve their objectives? Is it done ethically?

· What is similar between both articles? What is different?

Outline:

Start by breaking the questions above into categories that can be logically distributed between the introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph.

APA Format:

Both articles need to appear in the separate References page at the end. Citations from each article should be used in the body of the paper to backup any claims that you make.