Contemporary relevance to the US HEALTHCARE system
Contemporary relevance to the US HEALTHCARE system
The focus of your term paper will be an issue of contemporary relevance to the US healthcare system. You are free to select any topic – except the subject of your group presentation. This paper cannot be more than 5 pages of text (excluding references, figures, graphs, etc.). All papers must include at least four different peer-reviewed articles, referenced and acceptable sources other than assigned readings for this class. Internet sources that include information other than web-available journals, are NOT acceptable for this assignment as part of the four sources. Textbooks, brochures, or interviews also are not acceptable as part of the minimum number of sources required. Such sources may be used – but only as supplements to the four ‘acceptable’ sources required for this assignment. Ten points will be deducted from your earned grade for failure to provide sufficient and appropriate sources. Your paper must also follow the guidelines of professional writing and be typed (double-spaced); use a font size that is no smaller than 10 nor larger than 12; and have 1.5” margins. Papers that do not adhere to these type/font/margin stipulations will receive a 25 point deduction from their earned grade. Papers that include more than 4 lines of direct question (of ANY length) will earn a 50 point deduction. The paper is to be your writing, not that of someone else.
Late penalties will be deducted until such time as an appropriately presented paper is submitted. Twenty points will be subtracted from your earned (Term Paper) grade for each day (24hours) — including weekends — that you are late in submitting a Term Paper. No request for extensions on the paper’s due date will be considered. Late penalties stop when the assignment is submitted to the instructor. All assignments will be submitted on Blackboard by the date/time listed in the syllabus. The instructor reserves the right to require students to supply copies of any sources used for purposes of the term paper before a final grade is assigned.
Papers will be graded on the basis of their organization, paragraph structure, accuracy in capturing relevant literature/statistics, writing style, writing mechanics.
In completing the term paper, students must use the following manual of style:
APA. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association [ISBN9781433805615].
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
