MICROBIOLOGY Writing Assignment (800-1000 words). Serious Inquiries Only!!

· The paper must conform to American Psychological Association (APA) Sixth Edition guidelines.

· Students must gather information from experts (scholarly resources; the student is not an expert) on the approved disease and region.

· Students should paraphrase all information and demonstrate appropriate use of microbiology terminology to promote critical evaluation of scientific sources. In other words, the paper must not contain any quoted materials (phrases, passages, sentences, etc.) within the paper.

· Disease and region selection and approval are required before paper submission. Failure to get approval results in up to 20 points being deducted from the grade, if, upon paper submission, the instructor finds the selection acceptable (after the fact). If the disease is unacceptable or assigned to another classmate, is not infectious, or is for an unapproved region, the student will receive a grade of zero for the assignment.

What to Know for this Paper on Plagiarism (Very Important- Read This!!!)

The term plagiarism covers a number of unacceptable practices for written work including:

· failure to paraphrase the written work of others or the author’s own work (must use own style and wording)

· failure to include a source in the reference list

· failure to provide adequate retrieval information for a source

· failure to include a citation or make a clear indication the source for a passage in the body of the paper

Paraphrasing requires critical thinking in that the student must both develop an understanding of the material and think critically about how to restate an idea or fact accurately in the student’s own words and style. To both avoid plagiarism and to meet the critical thinking objective for the assignment, the requirements for this paper include:

· The paper must not contain any QUOTED INFORMATION. The student will receive a deduction of up to 30 points from the grade for each instance.

· The student should provide the reader with a citation of the expert source for each piece of information (a single sentence or group of two or three related sentences). This should include almost all sentences for this type of paper. An exception occurs when the student makes a personal judgment in the concluding statements.

· The student should write in a way that makes it crystal clear what information came from a particular source. Simply citing a source at the end of each paragraph is not acceptable. The reader should not have doubts about the source for any sentence or the extent a source contributes.

· Cite sources early in a paragraph (one should be in a paragraph’s first or second sentence) as opposed to simply citing sources at the end of a paragraph. In a similar way, continue to cite that source or other sources AS OFTEN AS NEEDED TO BE CLEAR. You may cite each sentence or have as few as three citations in a paragraph of 3-7 sentences (unless you are good at scholarly, academic writing and clearly understand how to attribute credit appropriately). It is better for this paper to have too many citations than not enough.

· Upload the "final" draft version of the paper to the SafeAssign "practice" submission link (in assignments folder in Blackboard).

· Students have one chance to submit a practice sample to this link. (You must contact the instructor if you need an additional “practice” submission, several business days before the paper due date.)

· To view the plagiarism report after submission, leave the Safe Assign page for at least 15 minutes then return to the link to check the report.

· Check the SafeAssign report for overall percentage matching score as well as individual sentence/phrase matches shown in highlighted areas of the paper’s body. Students should strive for a SafeAssign overall “match score” of approximately 15% or below. 

· Highlighted matches to citations, references, headings, or titles are acceptable and do not need editing. These are the only acceptable high % matches.

· Highlighted matches that will need revising are actual sentences or phrases in the body of the paper. Examine each individual highlighted area indicating a potentially plagiarized passage. Eliminate all wording that is similar to another source (esp. 80-100% matches), even if you did not use the reference SafeAssign includes as a match. 

· One strategy is to try to reduce the individual passage percentage to something under 65%-70% (phrases still need to be original). If all highlighted passages undergo revision, the effort may reduce the overall score to an acceptable level.

· Be sure to make all edits to the saved Word document file. Do not forget to save all changes, before submitting the paper. 

Introduction (6%)

_____Does not contain the words “introduction” as a section heading

_____Introductory paragraph contains 3-7 relatively short concise sentences

_____Introductory paragraph defines the scope and focus of the paper and situates the disease topic in relation to the specified region/country

_____Introductory paragraph previews topics covered in each section (headings) to help the reader navigate the paper and decide if the topic is of interest

_____Introductory paragraph does not contain the paper’s only discussion of required content

_____Introductory paragraph catches the reader’s attention and sets the tone for what follows

Disease Overview (10%)

_____Is a one to two paragraph section with 3-7 relatively short concise sentences per paragraph that occurs as a separate section that is not part of the introductory paragraph

_____Provides the disease’s clinical and common name (may include any former names; this does not refer to the organism’s scientific name)

_____Provides a definition and brief description or overview of the disease (this part should focus on the disease, not the organism)

_____Includes a brief snapshot of the assigned country/region and its socioeconomics

_____Includes a snapshot of the disease importance in this geographic region and the relationship of social factors and the disease in the affected population; social factors might include socioeconomic status, sanitation, health care availability, lack of education, etc.

Epidemiology and Contributing Social Factors (10%)

_____Is a one to two paragraph section with 3-7 relatively short concise sentences per paragraph

_____Provides disease prevalence (total number with the disease- old and new cases)

_____Describes who is at risk in this region

_____Provides disease morbidity (incidence or number of new cases during a specific period) in this geographic region

_____Provides disease mortality (number of deaths during a specific period) in this geographic region

Add social factors

Etiology, Virulence, and Transmission (12%)

_____Is a one to two paragraph section with 3-7 relatively short concise sentences per paragraph

_____Identifies the specific “type” of microorganism (bacterium, fungus, virus, etc.) causing the disease

_____Includes a complete and properly formatted scientific name (this part about the organism, not the disease name); may include other classification details if relevant

_____Describes the microorganism's virulence factors (properties of the organism enabling it to cause the disease. This part should focus on the weapons of the organism, not on the disease symptoms)

_____Identifies the disease reservoir and the disease vector (common name and scientific name; if a vector is important in transmission)

_____Identifies how the disease is transmitted to humans

Pathogenesis, Clinical Manifestations, and Diagnosis (12%)

_____Is a one to two paragraph section with 3-7 relatively short concise sentences per paragraph

_____ Pathogenesis: Describes how the disease develops within the human body (this is about development of the disease, a process, and its effect on tissues- this should not be a list of symptoms)

_____ Clinical Manifestations: Describes the disease symptoms, signs, and complications (where applicable)

_____Diagnosis: Explains how the disease diagnosis occurs in this specific geographic region (may include diagnostic methods for other populations, if relevant for contrast with primitive methods or to illustrate regional differences)

Prevention and Treatment (10%)

_____Is a one to two paragraph section with 3-7 relatively short concise sentences per paragraph

_____Provides the most common treatment(s) and prognosis for this disease, in this region (includes problems with drug resistance, if relevant; and may include treatments used by other populations, if relevant for contrast with primitive methods or illustration of regional differences)

_____Provides most common prevention(s) (including vaccination, if available) for this disease in this region (may include preventions used by other populations, if relevant for contrast with primitive methods or illustration of regional differences)

Conclusion (5%)

_____Is a one to two paragraph section with 3-7 relatively short concise sentences per paragraph

_____Paragraph wraps up the paper in a clear and interesting way

_____Refers back to the author’s central purpose and provides a brief summary of major points

_____Offers a solution to a problem or issue uncovered in the paper or recommends a future course of action

What Else to Include and How Much it Counts; Grading of References & More (35%): Clinician Paper

· Paper is written as a formal, scholarly, academic paper, not as a “conversational” piece; contains appropriate microbiology (and medical) terminology

· Paper does not contain comments referencing the author or include pronouns (you, they, it, their, us, we, I, me, etc. except in the rarest of circumstances and when the meaning is precisely clear)

Word Count (5%)

· Body of the paper contains 800 to 1000 words (excluding the title and reference list)

Target Audience (2%)

· Writing is consistent with the reading level of the target audience (college level with training in general biological and medical principles)

Standard American English (5%)

· Paper complies with rules of standard American English (grammar, spelling, punctuation, composition, and style)

· Paper presents information in a clear, logical, and organized manner. Paper contains the following required sections and content is appropriate to each section (the paper includes an introductory paragraph, but should not include a heading for the introduction) :

· Disease Overview

· Etiology, Virulence, and Transmission

· Epidemiology and Contributing Social Factors

· Pathogenesis, Clinical Manifestations, and Diagnosis

· Prevention and Treatment

· Conclusion

· Center all section headings and use bold type, and upper and lower case letters

Quality of References (6%)

_____The paper contains at least three quality references (to gain the maximum available points) (6%)

· At least 3 references are primary references from peer-reviewed journals or other "scholarly" publications; scholarly e-journals are acceptable

· Scholarly references do not include Wikipedia or similar sites, encyclopedias, textbooks, news articles, or other informal publications

____The paper contains three acceptable references to gain a portion of grading points (4.5%)

· Acceptable references are reliable sources like CDC.GOV or WHO.ORG that interpret primary works for general public use; one of the three may be a science/medical eBook/textbook (but not an encyclopedia, Wikipedia, or similar sites like medipedia, etc.)

· Newspaper or magazine articles may serve as references but will not be counted as one of the three “acceptable” sources

· File Format is Microsoft Word document (.docx or .doc)

· Paper formatted for 8.5" x 11 standard-sized paper with 1-inch margins on all sides

· Font is black 12 pt. Times New Roman or Arial in all sections of the paper including headers, title page, body, and reference list

· All lines of all parts of the paper use double-spacing and contain no “extra” spacing (check title page, before or after section titles or paragraphs, and between reference entries)

· Two spaces separate sentence punctuation from the beginning of the next sentence.

Paper Sections (2%)

· Title page is double-spaced, with all lines centered horizontally and vertically

· The first line on this page includes the full title

· The second line contains the author’s name

· Third line contains the name of school

· Reference page title is formatted with specified type and font (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper and lower case letters; do not use bold print)

Running Head (2%)

_____Each page contains a header formatted as indicated in the following:

Title Page Running Head

· Document header formatted flush with the left margin

· Font changed from any default to 12 pt. Times New Roman or Arial

· Use the words “Running head:” flush left with upper and lower case letters (the ‘h’ is lower case) followed by a colon (don’t include quotes)

· An abbreviated version of the paper’s title follows the colon using all upper case letters; header’s title may be no more than 50 characters

· Header’s page number is flush right on a single line with the header title (this is page 1)

Running Head for All Other Pages

· Document header formatted flush with the left margin

· Font changed from any default to 12 pt. Times New Roman or Arial

· Do not include the words “Running head:” on second and subsequent pages

· Add the abbreviated title flush left in upper case letters (no more than 50 characters)

· Page numbers are continuous and flush right on the same line as the header title

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