Productive Use of Writing Assistance

Writing is one of the foundational skills of almost any graduate program. If you have trouble translating your ideas onto paper, others will not be able to evaluate your analysis or your ideas. It may take two or three drafts to produce the kind of clear, well-organized, concise writing that enables you to communicate your ideas successfully as a professional psychologist.
There are two purposes for this discussion. First, it will give you practice in the process of scholarly writing—drafting, getting feedback, and revising. Each cycle like this has the potential to refine your ideas and to improve the clarity of the writing. Second, it will allow you to practice these concepts with your own assignment before submitting it for a grade.
Begin by reviewing your Unit 4 assignment. The topic you investigated is the basis of this problem statement. Use the description of this unit’s assignment, Problem Statement, to create the first draft of your assignment. Complete that draft as early in the week as possible.
As soon as you have what you consider to be a good draft of your assignment (but not later than Thursday), post it as your initial post to this discussion.
DISCUSSION 2
 

Library Search

Complete the following:

• Search the Capella library for an article that investigates an important topic in your area of psychology. You will analyze this article in the first discussion in this unit.
• Search the Capella library for an article on what it means to be a reflective practitioner. There are many reflective practitioner models, and you should find one that fits your needs and values.

Critical Thinking in Practice

Once you have determined that an article is from a scholarly journal, you must still examine the article with a critical eye. Does the author have an obvious bias? Are there flaws in the methodology that make you question its validity? Even if the research appears sound, the findings might not apply to the topic you are studying. There should be no literature review articles or conceptual articles.
For this discussion, use what you learned in the readings from your Critical Thinking in Psychology text, particularly about the critical evaluation of flaws in thinking, to analyze the article you found in your library search. Answer the following questions in your initial post, and include an APA-formatted reference to the article at the end of your post:

• Do you think the author made his or her point in a compelling way?
• Did you identify any problems with the methodology for any research described?
• Can the findings be generalized to the general population?
• Are the conclusions drawn in the discussion section based on the findings reported in the results section, or are they based on something else?
• Do you see any errors in the article, or anything with which you disagree?
• Does the article leave you with any unanswered questions?