PB2A

The scholastic article that I have chosen to analyze is titled “Psychological Effects of Dog Ownership: Role Strain, Role Enhancement, and Depression,” and is conducted by Krista Marie Clark Cline. The paper consists of an idea, in this case how ownership of a dog can benefit or hinder a person’s depression, a set of hypotheses to be tested, an explanation of how these hypotheses are to be tested, the results of these tests, and finally a discussion of the results. Each of these sections are quite typical of a standard research paper, and thus can be considered conventions of the genre. Overall, the paper has a formal and informative tone and style respectively, as its purpose is to add research to a previously established intellectual field.

One of the most distinct conventions, however, is an abstract which is included at the beginning of the paper. This short paragraph quickly delves into what research the author has done and acts as somewhat of a preview to the content that follows. The abstract is a crucial piece of a research paper as it can help readers, who are perhaps conducting their own research and looking to build on previous studies, distinguish between whether or not they wish to read it, or even more so if the study is useful and relevant to their own studies. The method section must be written in a way where if another researcher wanted to test the claims that this study found, he could copy the procedure from the initial study and obtain the same results. This is, as far as the genre of research papers go, another very important convention. Other typical conventions include raw data, charts, and graphs in the results section, as well as strictly objective conclusions. For example, the author states, “Again, seeing that there is no decrease in the effects of dog ownership… we can assume that physical activity does not mediate the relationship between dog ownership and depression. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was not supported” (Marie Clark Cline). This differs from the style of writing that is used in the discussion section of the paper, where the author has room to analyze his or her results.

The study looked at the overarching question: how does dog ownership, positively or negatively, affect depression? Within this larger question the author looked at two theories, role strain (feeling discomfort by having too many conflicting obligations) and role enhancement (multiple roles contribute to well-being). Along with these theories, Marie Clark Cline considers two potentially reasons why dog ownership contributes to well-being—social support and physical activity, as well as three specific categories of people to consider—single versus married, older versus younger, and female versus male. Once it was determined that the participants were diagnosed with depression, these hypotheses were tested through the questions: how satisfied are you with the level of emotional support that they get from their friends and family and how often do you exercise.

As previously mentioned, how these results are obtained (the method) is extremely important in the reliability of findings. Thus, this section includes information about the selection of participants, as well as control variables that were in place, including race and education level. Thorough explanation is necessary throughout the entire paper, but particularly in this section. Additionally, while being thorough is a necessity, the author must be both clear and concise in order to emphasize his or her findings. The reasoning for these conventions is clear when the author of a research paper considers the purpose and target audience of his work. In order to publicize useful information, the content must be structured in way that allows fellow intellects to absorb, and perhaps expand on, the initial research’s findings.

Psychological Effects of Dog Ownership: Role Strain, Role Enhancement, and Depression: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=1f1a964b-96bf-4ec3-84cf-e4a69b398a07%40sessionmgr112&vid=0&hid=116

Thlog #4

Wooooohooooo week 4!! Wednesday’s class was by far my favorite that we have had so far. I found the activity of demonstrating different genres through Mark Smith’s murder both helpful and fun. My group and I specifically got really into the making of our genre and its conventions, and based on the success of the activity it seems that the other groups did too. It’s interesting how, now knowing what to look for as conventions of a genre, we were able to identify the “author” of each piece of writing because of these conventions. For example, my “person” was a coroner, and those who correctly determined the writer of our document were able to because of the formal style of writing, and informative content. This was drastically different than the eulogy written by a college friend which greatly reminisced on the past and had a light-hearted tone. I guess what I’m learning is the thought process my brain takes when it identifies what something, and figuring that out is pretty cool.

I’m also pretty excited to be done with WP1 since I feel like I’ve been working on it for quite some time now—so on to bigger and better things (like WP2). This one concerns me a bit just because I feel like it’s quite similar to WP1, but now with scholarly articles. Then again, maybe I’ll discover the differences while working on this writing project, and that is the whole point of establishing the uniqueness of the conventions of scholastic articles. I guess I’ll find out with time.

Thlog #3

This week we only met once, and with the due date of WP #1 quickly approaching, it has gained extreme prevalence both in class and out of class as homework. I thought that the activity we did prior to full peer edits where each of us posted our introduction paragraphs into a google doc and they were somewhat “dissected” was largely helpful. While it is helpful to the person who’s paper you are editing to hear feedback, it can also be useful as a reader to extract the “best parts” of that person’s paper, figure out what makes them the best parts, and perhaps utilize some of these techniques within your own writing. I realized while peer editing a paper on Wednesday, that the way the writer’s paper was set up was much more clear than my own. It was a matter of placement of ideas that added a particular “flow” to the paper as a whole. Also in the midst of peer editing I learned about a pretty nifty tool that Microsoft word has that I had no idea existed before. It came up while my peer editing group was discussing citations, particularly in text citations, and the correct way to format them. A member of my group was kind enough to share the built-in citations took that word comes with which allows you to simply click a button and it will pop the citation, properly formatted (in the style of your choice) right in. Not that everything else I learned through class isn’t cool and important—but that was sort of life changing.