Week 6: Pop Press Analysis

Discussion Question:  One of the goals of this course is to have you be critical consumers of research and have the ability to integrate research into pop press articles.

Therefore, this discussion requires you to pick a pop press article that discusses some aspect of the topic you chose for your Applied Final Project. When I refer to pop press, I mean articles that are not empirical and peer reviewed.  Any article that you find on a news station (www.cnn.com, www.foxnews.com, www.time.com, www.bbc.com etc, www.washingtonpost.com) would qualify. For example, if you choose to write on breastfeeding mothers, then you could discuss this article that talks about public breastfeeding rights and a sit in some moms did at Target (http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/27/the-nurse-in-why-breast-feeding-moms-are-mad-at-target/)

• Part I: Summarize the article and provide a link to it so your classmates can read it for their response posts. 
• Part II: Discuss the article in light of your research on your particular population of interest. You need to evaluate the value of the pop press article in light of what we know in the Social Sciences.  Does the research you have read for Part III of your Applied Final Project jive with the pop press article? If so, in what ways?  Alternatively, where does the article you read diverge from your research?  Your ability to critically think about the issues present in your population must be evident in your post. APA citations to your research articles from Part II of your AFP are a MUST in this section of your post.
• Part III: Explain the different types of information you learned from your empirical/scholarly research and from this pop-press/non empirical news story. Do both types of articles have utility? Why or why not?

When writing your posts, it is very important that you focus not just on summary but also on analysis. These posts are how I determine your mastery of the material and your critical thinking. Remember:

• Make sure you start your initial post as a New Thread in the LEO Discussion board, or I might not find it when I grade.
• Your first paragraph needs to be an introduction to your post.
• Your final paragraph should be a conclusion which pulls your ideas together.  
• Your middle paragraphs should discuss your arguments.  
• All posts need to be written in APA style and cite resources. You are encouraged to draw on resources from your courses across your entire major. There is not a lot of new information learned in this course, as I want to see you bringing together all of what you have learned at UMUC.
• Please check your post against the Guide for Good Writing before you submit it, as points will be deducted if you make those common writing errors. (This document is located in the Writing Resources module.)

Please respond to at least 2 of your classmates’ answers by providing them with comments, feedback and asking them compelling questions about their postings.  (You are in no way limited to two response posts. The more engaged you can be on the discussion boards, the better.) To receive credit for your response posts, they should be at least one paragraph in length. Referencing empirical sources is strongly encouraged in your response posts as well as your initial post.