The importance of self-care part 2

· The paper or project each student prepares is expected to be a work of quality. The paper is to be article-length (14-20 pages) and include six sections: (1) Identification of the issue to be examined; (2) Review of relevant literature (theoretical and empirical);(3) Discussion of the recommended intervention, policy or action step(s); (4) Future Plans – how the planned intervention, once evaluated as a success, will be expanded and shared; (5) Conclusions/implications for the field; (6) relevant references/bibliography. It is expected that the paper will include a minimum of five references from five different sources, with more anticipated. The expectation is that students will not merely sum-marize what others have said about the issues under examination. Rather, students are asked to look at an issue thoughtfully, creatively, and originally, so that their work makes a professional contribution.

· Students may choose to develop a project in response to their identified issue, such as a training curriculum, a training manual, a children’s book, a play, a fact sheet, a short video, or a website. Students selecting the project option must provide a theoretical justification for the content that they select in a formal paper that is 8-10 pages in length and meets criteria related to integration of relevant information. This paper must contex-tualize the project and include five sections: (1) Introduction/Problem Statement (identification of the issue to be examined), (2) Literature Review (brief), (3) Explanation of the project and case for its importance, (4) Conclusion, and (5) References.

WRITING GUIDE FOR THE FINAL PAPER

• GIVE YOURSELF A GOOD WORKING TITLE – ALTHOUGH YOU MAY CHANGE IT!

• THE INTRODUCTION: States the purpose of the article, short and sweet, captivating and engaging; represents the goal of the article, not the content. Why are you writing it? That’s the purpose. Speak directly to how reading this article will help the targeted audience; this is about how you want the work to concretely contribute to the profession. Include broad statements, facts, and statistics to impress and express the current state of affairs, and that set the stage/backdrop for the subject as you want to discuss/present it. End with a wrap up and tran-sition to the next section, including how the rest of the article is organized, a “road map.”

• THE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE: Explores and discusses the work and writings of others and what you think of it. See separate discussion at the end of this section, with many suggestions about how to approach this part.

• DISCUSSION: Make your points. It is the heart of your article, where you integrate theory and real-world implications, and through that process express your particular voice. This is where you reach out to the reader to give a meaning to the topic at hand. Here you identify implications for practice. To organize this section, it is sometimes helpful to think in terns of numbers, e.g., “There are four major implications for social work practice (or policy or education or research) to be considered. They are ………” Each point (implication) then becomes the sub-head under which you carry out your discussion, tying it both to the literature and to recommendations. Your action plan will be small – so that it can be evaluated – and then you need to think big for the future.

• FUTURE PLANNING: An idea that is good in the Bronx should be good in Milwau-kee and Los Angeles – and maybe even Canada. How are you going to “spread the word” so that your plan can be replicated? Think big!

• CONCLUSION: Recaps highlights and makes a transition to the future, either by identifying further research/thinking to be considered or food for further profes-sional thought/action. Because you restate major content/points, you may feel as if you are simply repeating what has already been said. In fact, to some extent you are doing just that, so try to do so with different words and in broad terms. There is, however, a qualitative difference in mind-set. In other sections your mind-set was one of introducing – presenting - pointing out, and offering examples. Here your mind-set is one of taking from all earlier content those ideas and words which provide the big picture, to help the reader get a broad view as the paper is finishing. The last sentence needs to be broad and positive, maybe even philo-sophical or provocative food for thought. It is also the primary conclusion that you reach and hope others will reach also, at the end of your total exploration into the topic.

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ABOUT THE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Purpose: Exploring and discussing the work and writing of others generally occupies the section of a paper known as “Review of the Literature.” It looks again at what others have said and done in the specific area of interest OR in a similar or related area, i.e., an area not identical with but collateral to the primary area of interest. An example of that is the review of Holocaust literature on survival guilt in search of a better understanding of the impact of those who survived the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Related literature may come from a variety of fields, such as psychology, education, religion, medicine, etc. You may also find agency-based literature (such as mission statements, policies, or descriptive/outreach brochures) or media-based literature (such as newspapers, magazines, or web materials) relevant and useful.

Writing This Section:

Mindset – Think of this section as discussing with a friend your thoughts (critiques) about what is being said and done in your area of interest. This will help assure that your own vision comes through rather than just a report of what others have said. The Literature Review sets the stage for the points that you want to make in your paper. It provides a context for your ideas, attitudes, and opinions so that they are not offered to the profession without rationale. It describes the current state of affairs with regard to your topic, and what you think of that state of affairs. Plus it creates an anchor for the conclusions that you offer – both for each issue as you see it, and the solutions and implications for the field.

Have A Plan – Begin to organize your Literature Review by developing a tentative outline of major interest areas/issues/points to be made. Review your outline often to see if it continually makes sense to include all of the topics as you have identified them to date, and to see how to best organize their presentation, i.e., which sub-topic/theme logically comes to mind before which.

Think through which areas need more/less elaboration – or even if two sub-topics might be combined. Keeping in mind your paper’s purpose and audience should help to give you direction in this process.

Use Headings and Subheadings - to organize the discussion, and to help readers follow your thoughts.

Begin each section/subsection with a comprehensive perspective, i.e., and introductory statement about what the section is about. Then get more specific (elaboration, specific points, details, examples, etc.) Provide each section/ subsection with a broad summary statement, and end each one with a transition to the very next subsection. Summaries and transitions can range from one sentence to a full paragraph.

Emphasize relatedness - Keep your reader constantly aware of how the literature you are discussing relates to the purpose of your paper. Too many discussions are nothing but a chain of isolated summaries. Just saying “Jones says….” And then “Smith says……” is not a literature review. Your job is to offer a critique/analysis of the literature, and demonstrate its relatedness to your own thinking/paper.

It has been suggested that you use index cards or bibliographic software such as Endnote, to keep track of your entries. Every time you encounter a piece of literature, make a bibliographic entry for it and write down a couple of sentences about it. Don’t just say what the article is about. Say how it helps your own thinking, how it contributes to your own paper. Perhaps it offers broad statistical information that would be useful in an introductory section. Perhaps it discusses gaps in service that you are trying to highlight in your own paper or describes services that exist to a particular population that you think should be offered to another population that is now being neglected. Perhaps it even identifies important historical or contemporary figures in the area. Once you have all the entries on cards or in a database you can actually shuffle them around as you work to develop an outline and to organize your writing.