Discussion Question Guidelines

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For this discussion, you will need to address all of the questions below and be sure to participate fully by responding to your classmates as well. Citations should be used to support your analysis and references should be included in APA format. Be sure to review the Discussion Question Guidelines before you begin!

This week, you will be creating a small research paper based upon a career that you wish to pursue. This assignment will help you do research on this topic and to paraphrase your information which means to put it in your own words. This also builds upon research you did in UVC1000 in Weeks 4 and 5. Use the skills you have and try new research techniques. Document (write down and share) what you tried and how successful you were.

Part I

  1. Using a search engine like http://google.com and the SUO Online Library, conduct a basic Internet search to find résumés and articles from your degree field and information about the field. If you cannot find an article about your degree field, perhaps you could find an article by someone in the field.
  2. Post a discussion below that includes the following components:
    1. Identifies the career you chose and explains why you chose it.
    2. Shares two references from the Internet and two references from the SUO Online library that you looked at. Include the URL and the publication, title, author, and date published if available. In the library, you can use the Cite or Citation buttons to give you APA formatted references, just do not include the last line: “Retrieved from: http://wherever.com” information because resource URLs do not work to link back to the library. If you need help with locating material, please contact the Online Librarian (Ask a Librarian) or your instructor.
    3. Explain what search terms you used and the criteria you used to determine if the information was credible.
    4. Compare your experience searching on the Internet and searching in the Online Library. Please try advanced search options and report on them. This can be very eye opening.

Note that from this week on throughout your college career, the grading criteria that mentions information literacy includes the requirement of providing references in APA format to support your ideas.

Part II

Using one of the articles you identified in your Internet or library search, do the following:

  1. Copy and paste an example of a paragraph from one of your resources. Any directly copied information needs to be in quotation marks. Include an in-text citation for this paragraph—see the example below. (n.d. stands for no date)

    One recruiter’s advice is simple: Don’t obsess over the skills section to the point of embellishment. “In adding a skills section to their résumé, a lot of people have a tendency to exaggerate their level of expertise in various technologies,” says Scott Hajer, senior corporate recruiter for Software Architects. Hajer continues, “They figure the more keywords, the more exposure” (Hoffman, n.d., para. 3).

    “Although many people think that the more keywords in their résumé, the better, it isn’t good to exaggerate your technology skills so only include keywords for skills that you already have” (Hoffman, n.d.).
  2. Include the full reference at the bottom of your posting. In reality, you would only have either a quotation or paraphrased information, not both. Paraphrasing is what you strive for in college with an in-text citation which will lead you to the full reference on the References page. You might have several of the same in-text citations for an article in your paper but only one full reference for that article on the References page. See the example below for the full reference for the quote above.

    Hoffman, A. (n.d.). Tips to show your IT skills on your technology resume. Retrieved from http://career-advice.monster.com/resumes-cover-letters/Resume-Writing-Tips/Show-Your-Skills-on-Your-IT-Resume/article.aspx.
  3. Describe any challenges you had paraphrasing and citing the information.

***Note: Your final project (Week 5 Project) is a personal résumé based on specific Word formatting skills. The résumés you researched this week will help you create a résumé suitable for your field of study. Save them in your folder so you can find them later. If you choose to work ahead on your résumé, please see Week 5 Project for the requirements for it.

In your discussions with your classmates you could:

  • Share tips on doing research on the Internet and in the Library. Check out others’ Web sites and let them know your opinion on their credibility and why you feel that way. You can also share good resources on this topic with others.
  • Remember to respond substantively to a minimum of two other students and to your instructor.
  • Work on different ways to paraphrase and try to practice citing sources by helping others when you see potential errors.

Remember to respond substantively to a minimum of two other students and to your instructor and to include references of URLs to Internet resources you found helpful (tell us how they were helpful), page names for the online lectures, page numbers for the textbook, and/or specific examples in Microsoft Word, sharing the steps and tools you used.