Vocabulary List

(Merriam-Webster, 2023)

• Abbreviation: a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole word or phrase.

• Align: to bring into line or alignment

• Annotate: to make or furnish annotations for (something, such as a literary work or subject).

• Boolean: of, relating to, or being a logical combinatorial system (such as Boolean algebra) that represents symbolically relationships (such as those implied by the logical operators AND, OR, and NOT) between entities (such as sets, propositions, or on-off computer circuit elements).

• Capitalize: to write or print with an initial capital or in capitals.

• Contractions:  a shortening of a word, syllable, or word group by omission of a sound or letter.

• Credible: offering reasonable grounds for being believed or trusted.

• Font: an assortment or set of type or characters all of one style and sometimes one size.

• Indent: to set (something, such as a line of a paragraph) in from the margin.

• Italics: of or relating to a type style with characters that slant upward to the right (as in "these words are italic").

• Margins: the part of a page or sheet outside the main body of printed or written matter.

• Narrative: something that is narrated : STORY, ACCOUNT.

• Preliminary: coming before something else.

• Proofread: to read and mark corrections in.

• Substitute: to put or use in the place of another.

• Template: something that establishes or serves as a pattern.

Introduction

This week, you will be introduced to professional scientific research and learn how to present your findings using scientific writing.

Conducting Research

Purpose: Prepare to write scientific research papers.

This section will help you learn how to conduct research effectively by using online resources to find scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed articles are reviewed by other experts in the field prior to being published to ensure that their information is accurate. 

Understanding and Finding Quality Resources

Before beginning research, it is important to understand what makes a high-quality research resource. 

In academic and public health settings, resources need to be credible and reliable. Research resources need to be based on something more than an opinion. 

Credibility means you can believe what is being presented. Credible resources backup their information with data that is reliable. 

Helpful credible sources:

• World Health Organization

• United Nations: Health

• Our World in Data

Peer-reviewed research sites:

• PubMed

• JSTOR

• BYU-Idaho Library

• GoogleScholar
  

What is the Writing Process?

Successful researchers use organized steps to accomplish their work. 

STEPS IN THE WRITING PROCESS 

(North Hennepin Community College, n.d.-a)

Step 1: Identify and develop your topic

• Select a topic within the parameters set by the assignment. 

• Select a topic of personal interest to you and learn more about it. 

• Be original. Select an interesting and unconventionaltopic.

• If you can't think of a topic to write about, see your instructor for advice.

• State your topic as a question that your research will help answer.

Step 2 : Do a preliminary search for information

Look up your keywords. If you find too much information, you may need to narrow your topic; if you find too little, you may need to broaden your topic.

Step 3: Locate materials

Begin locating material on your topic. See sources listed above for places you can look for information.

Step 4: Evaluate your sources

Make sure your sources are credible, accurate, reasonable, and supported.

(North Hennepin Community College, n.d.-b)

• Credibility: Check author’s credentials and whether the paper has been peer reviewed.

• Accuracy: Check if the source is up-to-date, comprehensive, and unbiased.

• Reasonableness: The source should be fair, objective, moderate, and consistent.

• Support: Check if other sources agree and if the claims made are supported by facts and figures with their sources noted.

Step 5: Make notes

Note the information that will be useful in your paper. Be sure to document all the sources you consult. The author, date, title, publisher, and URL will all be needed later when creating a reference list.

Step 6: Draft your paper

Organize your information and make a rough draft. You can revise the draft as many times as needed to create a final product to turn in to your instructor.

Step 7: Cite your sources properly

Give credit where credit is due; cite your sources. This will also allow those who are reading your work to find where you got the information. Use the APA Style for citations.

Step 8: Proofread

Read through the text aloud and check for any errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Make sure the message that you want to convey is clear.

Online Research Tips

When searching through databases in your online research, you can use boolean operators (the words AND, OR, & NOT), quotation marks(“”), and asterisks (*) to find the specific information you need.

• Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT (always capitalize)

• AND for two topics together.
  For example, use childhood AND obesity to narrow your focus to articles that include both topics in the same article.

• OR for either one topic or another.
  For example, use overweight OR obesity to broaden your focus to all related topics.   

• NOT to remove topics you don’t need, that will be filtered out.
  For example, Diabetes NOT type 1 will narrow the focus to other types of Diabetes and will not include type 1.
  

• Asterisk (*) for Truncation, to find different forms of the same word.
  For example Canad* will give results for Canada OR Canadian OR Canadians
  

• Quotation Marks to group words together in the search.
  For example, using quotes for “heart rate” will filter out other topics about just heart or just rate. 

Scientific Writing Styles

Academic Style

Tips to Improve your Writing

(5 Tips to Improve Your Writing, n.d.)

1. Do not use contractions.
   Example: Don’t, can’t, hasn’t = Do not, cannot, has not.

2. Avoid there is and there are to make sentences clearer.
   Example: There are many projects that the UN supports. The UN supports many projects.

3. Avoid really, very, a lot, and so.
   Example: The work was really hard. The work was difficult.

4. Active voice.
   Example: The war was won by France. France won the war.

5. Use strong verbs.
   Example: He made an objection. He objected.

Citation managers are programs that organize citations and references. While not required in scientific writing, they become a very valuable tool once you start using them. The above video shows how citation managers work. You are not required to use citation managers for this course; however, knowing how to use citation managers may be an effective tool in your future classes.

APA Format

In-Text Citations and References

Rules of In-Text Citations

What is an in-text citation?

When writing research papers, it is important to find credible references and cite those references both in your paper (in-text) and on the reference page. The way we show this information is called a publication convention, and it is used to help readers know where to find someone else's resources. The important information is always in the same place, so everyone knows where to find it. 

How to use in-text citations

Paraphrasing and using proper citations are skills that take practice. Following the six steps below will help you improve these skills rapidly. 

Six Steps to Proper Citations:

1. Read the work you want to cite. 

2. Identify an idea you want to put in your paper. 

3. Write a sentence about that idea. Quotes should be used sparingly or not at all. 

4. Write a reference list entry for the work. 

5. Add the corresponding in-text citation to the sentence. 

6. Repeat as needed for more works and ideas.

CHECKLIST 

(American Psychological Association, 2020)

Complete the following checklist for each sentence in your paper that relies on another 

source. Remember to cite all ideas, findings, results, or other information that is not your 

own and is not common knowledge. It may be helpful to highlight or annotate your paper 

to remind yourself of what information comes from another source and what is your 

contribution. 

• For each sentence that relies on another source:

• Have you paraphrased as much as possible rather than quoted?

• If you directly quoted, is the quotation necessary? Could you paraphrase instead?

• For each sentence that you paraphrased:

• Did you avoid patchwriting? Have you done more than omit a few words and substitute synonyms? To make a better paraphrase, reframe ideas and make them specific to your topic and argument.

• Did you avoid overcitation? For long paraphrases, have you used one citation when introducing the idea and not repeated the citation unless there is a change of topic, source, or paragraph?

• For each citation of a paraphrase:

• Does your citation include the author and year?

• For parenthetical citations, is there a comma between the author and year? (Author, year)

• For narrative citations, is the date in parentheses after the author? Author (year)

• For each sentence that contains a quotation (use sparingly or not at all):

• Is the quotation incorporated into a sentence you wrote? Did you use appropriate punctuation (comma, colon, no punctuation) to introduce the quotation?

• Do short quotations (less than 40 words) appear in double quotation marks?

• Do long quotations (40 or more words) appear in the block quotation format?

• Is the block double-spaced?

• Is the block indented 0.5 inches from the left margin?

• Have you removed any quotation marks from around the block?

• For each citation of a direct quotation:

• Does your citation include the author, year, and page number (or alternative)?

• For parenthetical citations, are there commas between the author and year and between the year and page number? Sentence "quotation" (Author, year, p. 20).

• For narrative citations, does the page number appear in parentheses after the quotation? Author (year) "quotation" (p. 20).

• For all in-text citations in relation to the reference list: 

• Do spellings of author names in the text match spellings in the reference list?

• Are author names abbreviated correctly from reference list entries (e.g., first author plus “et al.” for three or more authors, abbreviations for group authors as appropriate)? 

• Do publication years in the text match the years in the reference list?

• Does each in-text citation match only one reference list entry?

• For all reference list entries:

• Are all works in the reference list cited in the text? For any uncited works, either cite them in the text or remove the entries from the reference list.
  

Why use in-text citations? 

An in-text citation points the reader to your reference list, often called a reference citation. 

Rules of the Reference Page

A reference page lists all of the citations you used in your paper. These references contain more detailed information about the sources you cited, such as the title and publisher. This information is necessary so a reader can find or retrieve the complete article, book, or document from which the citations are found.

The following resources and the sample show how to create a reference page in an APA document.

Basic Principles of Reference List Entries 

(American Psychological Association, 2019b, 2019a)

A reference list entry generally has four elements: the author, date, title, and source. Each element answers a question:

• Author: Who is responsible for this work? May be an individual, group, or organization.
  Example: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C.

• Date: When was this work published?
  Examples: (2020). (2020, August 26). (2022, July).

• Title: What is this work called? Use the title of the article or chapter, using sentence case without capitalizing each word.
  Example: Parks build healthy communities: Success stories.

• Source: Where can I retrieve this work? Use italics for a journal or book title, and include DOI. For a website, give the title and URL.
  Example: National Recreation and Park Association. https://www.nrpa.org

Remember to use both in-text citations and a reference page at the end of your paper. Follow the sources above to cite your sources correctly in this week's application and Term Paper assignments.

W04 Job Skills: APA Formatting

Overview

Purpose: APA formatting is the writing style used in Public Health communications. You will need to use APA formatting for your work in this course and for future work, as well as in other college courses. We have been discussing this in earlier weeks, but the information below is a great review! 

Step 1: Understanding APA Style

APA Style

In BYU-Idaho’s public health program, you will be expected to write your papers using the American Psychology Association (APA) formatting style. 

APA Style is a set of guidelines used in academic writing in public health. These guidelines are called publication conventions. This style is required for your papers in this course and throughout your academic work in public health. 

Step 2: APA Formatting Rules for Public Health Classes

Use the APA format in your application assignments. 

Your papers in this course should include the following:

• Title page should include the title, author name, university, course, instructor, and due date. Each is on separate lines and each line is centered.

• Page headers have only the page number is required for student papers.

• 12pt Times New Roman font.

• Double-spaced pages in the paper.

• 1-inch margins used

• Level 1 and level 2 main headings are centered and bolded. Subheadings are in bold but flush left. Both are in title case with most words capitalized.

Download and save the Basic APA Template. 05_document_APA_Basic_Template.docx (live.com)

You will find it helpful to use this as you write your papers throughout this course. 

In-Text Citations Example 

IN-TEXT CITATIONS (ONE OR TWO AUTHORS): In-text citations should include the author's last name and the year of publication in parentheses. Notice that the period for the previous sentence goes AFTER the citation. There is no period before the in-text citation. 

• One Author (Last name, Year) or in the narrative format, Last name (Year)
• Two Authors (Last name & Last name, Year) or in the narrative format, Last name and Last name (Year)

IN-TEXT CITATIONS (THREE OR MORE AUTHORS): If the citation has three or more authors, you use the first author's last name, et al., and then the year of publication. et al. means "and others."

• Three or More Authors (Last name et al., Year) or in the narrative format Last name et al. (Year)

References

5 tips to improve your writing. (n.d.). https://www.engvid.com/5-tips-to-improve-your-writing/https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/cars-checklist

American Psychological Association. (2020). In-Text Citation Checklist, APA Style 7th Edition. https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/in-text-citation-checklist.pdf

American Psychological Association. (2019a, September). Basic Principles of Reference List Entries. American Psychological Association. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/basic-principles

American Psychological Association. (2019b, September). Elements of Reference List Entries. American Psychological Association. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/elements-list-entry

Merriam-Webster. (2023). Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/

North Hennepin Community College. (n.d.-a). Basic Steps in the Research Process. North Hennepin Community College. https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/basic-steps-research-process

North Hennepin Community College. (n.d.-b). CARS Checklist. North Hennepin Community College. https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/cars-checklist