Unit 4:  Putting It All Together

Please write a 1,500 word essay on an aspect of this course which you find important and/or provocative.  Ideally, this essay will give you an opportunity to express your views, and describe how your perspectives and views have been expanded.  It should tie together the things you have learned in the various units.

Please feel free to return to the units and to address the guiding questions or learning objectives that you not have had the opportunity to write about in a previous journal.

Your essay can take many forms -- your professor will provide examples.  You may be informal, or formal.  Use at least two outside sources please cite them using APA style (example below).

Please consider integrating all the concepts you have studied in this course and relating them to your personal experiences and challenges.  These may take the form of stories, that refer back to the concepts you have encountered. 

Be sure to make your writing as concrete, tangible, and meaningful as possible in order to derive maximum benefit to you now, and in the future as you reflect upon the situations and the theories.

Inspired by Chris Argyris:  Creating "reflectionable knowledge" A key goal of learning history work is to create the type of knowledge which inspires reflection, and which leads to meaningful and significant reflection.

"Reflectionable knowledge" often exists in the form of stories. It provides a context which makes it easy to assimilate and think about new information. It makes explicit the multiple mental models which operate in a given social setting.

The knowledge is expressed at different levels of abstraction - from observable data to interpretations, attributions, and generalizations in such a way that the communicator's thought processes are articulated.

QUESTION:  Where can I find good journal articles? 
Try the OU online library.  You can enter through OU's home page, the click "OU Libraries."  Having trouble deciding where to look?  Please check out this article:  Weaning Oneself from Google:  Academic Library Databases

Avoid citing wikipedia.  (here is a link to a podcast / mp3 file on why one should not cite wikipedia in academic papers.

http://www.zenzebra.net/e-learners/podcasts/wikipedia-nash.mp3

QUESTION:  What does APA style look like? 

Sample Paper:  http://valencia.cc.fl.us/lrcwest/apapaper.html

REFERENCES FROM THE SAMPLE PAPER

Adams, J.A. & Zukofsky, S.P. (1999). I saved my patient with the APA.
     American Journal of Public Health,72, 801-843. Retrieved August 13, 2001,
     from Health and Wellness Resource Center database.
Burgess, Q. (1998). Mastering the APA in 600 easy lessons (Rev. ed.).
     Orlando: Harcourt.
Byrd, P. (1999, July/August). Bed-side manner with the APA. Hospital
     Etiquette, 53. Retrieved August 19, 2001, from Academic Search Premier
     database.
Kinko, P., McConnell, C., Stone, S., Forehand, S., Blondeau, K., Leybold, J.
     (2001). We fought the APA and the APA won. The Journal of the American
     Medical Association, 276, 1279-1285.
Lesson plans on intravenous injections with the APA. (1997, January 27).
     The New York Times, p. C47.
Miller, Q.P. (1998, October 28). How to reference a bed pan according
     to the APA. Newsweek, 12.  Retrieved August 13, 2001, from Health and
     Wellness Resource Center database.
Newby, S., Proctor, P., Stone, S., Jones, B., & McConnell, C. (1999).
     The APA vs. the MLA: May the best style manual win. Consulting Psychology
     Journal: Practice and Research, 45 (2), 10-36.

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association
     (5th ed.). (2001). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Salton, D.C. (1998, March). Sex, lies and the APA. Psycoloquy.
     Retrieved August 13, 1999, from http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/
     stakcs/psycoloquy-index.html