Introduction:
Students will find an article from any popular news outlet concerning a recent event in the field of Physical Geography. Topics might include hurricanes/typhoons, tornados, blizzards, or other severe weather; earthquake or volcanic eruption; newly discovered species; climate change; social issues like deforestation, soil degradation, or monoculture; or another topic of the student’s choice. The student will link this article to a peer-reviewed scientific article published about the same topic.
Paper description:
Start by finding an article from the news media about a recently important Physical Geography topic that interests you. Read the article and identify something that you are interested in learning more about. Find a scholarly article from a peer-reviewed journal that expands on the subject. The scholarly article does not have to be recently published.
Write a report of no more than 1000 words which should include the following:
Title
Introduction
Brief summary of news article (and I mean brief!)
What you learned from the scholarly article and how it relates to the news article
After reading the scholarly article, did the news article journalist fully understand the phenomenon they were writing about? If not, how could they have improved?
Conclusion
Bibliography
See Scoring Guide below for formatting requirements
Scoring guide:
Report (50 points)
1) Title: Eye-catching and informative titles are specific and should characterize the main theme of your report. (4 pts)
2) Introduction: Set the stage for the report and give an overview of how your chosen topic is relevant to physical geography /
current times. Why are you interested in this particular topic? Do not bring up the articles just yet. (10 pts)
3) News Summary: Provide a brief summary of the news article you chose and how it relates to your chosen topic. Keep it brief!
Make sure you summarize using your own words, DO NOT PLAGIARIZE! (10 pts)
4) Scholarly Interpretation: Introduce your article and succinctly explain how your scholarly article relates to your news article, as well as how it furthered your understanding of the topic. Did you learn anything surprising? (10 pts)
5) Critique: Politely critique or praise the journalist responsible for your news article, backing up your arguments with quotations or facts from the scholarly article. (10 pts)
6) Conclusion: Wrap up your report, reiterating the main points and discussing anything else you feel is pertinent. (6 pts)
News Article (20 points)
_____ Report: Within the report, is the article cited properly? (5 pts)
_____ Bibliography: Within the bibliography, is the article cited properly? (5 pts)
_____ Article: Is the article relevant, about physical geography, and long enough to be worthy of a full college-level report? (10 pts)
Scholarly Article (20 points)
_____ Report: Within the report, is the article cited properly? (5 pts)
_____ Bibliography: Within the bibliography, is the article cited properly? (5 pts)
_____ Article: Is the article from a peer-reviewed scholarly journal? (10 pts)
Formatting (10 points)
_____ Report: Is the report typed, 12 pt Times New Roman font, double spaced, less than 1000 words? (5 pts)
______Grammar and Spelling: Is the report free of spelling and grammatical errors? (5 pts)
Bibliography:
All references should be cited following the Association of American Geographer’s citation style. Here are some general rules, with examples following. If you have any questions about how you should cite your sources, talk to me.
Within the text, never list more than one or two authors. If more than two people wrote the article, use “et al.” after the first name to signify this.
For example, if the author is Jane Smith, write “Smith (2015) says…”
If the authors are Jane Smith and John Doe, write “Smith and Doe (2015) say….”
If the authors are Jane Smith, John Doe, and Diana Bishop, write “Smith et al. (2015) says…”
If there are more than 3 authors, continue to use et al.
Unlike in the text, ALL author names should be listed in the Bibliography. The first author should be listed, [Last Name, First Initial], while all others should be listed as [First Initial, Last Name].
For example, authors Jamie McTavish, Frank Randall, and Ferris Bueller would be written as “McTavish, J., F. Randall, and F. Bueller” in the bibliography.
For online news articles, be sure to include a link to the article after the citation in the bibliography if you found it online. Also be sure to include a “last accessed” date (see example). If you are basing your report off of a physical newspaper and cannot find a digital version, scan a copy of the physical article into your report.
Basically, there has to be one news article that has to be linked with one peer-reviewed scientific article in the report.
Citation Example #1
Example Sources
News Article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/05/20/tornadoes-severe-weather-plains-midwest/2325875/
Scholarly Article: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WAF-D-14-00039.1
In-Text Citations
News Article
• According to the article “Monster Oklahoma tornado kills 51” this happened.
• Journalists Rice et al. (2013) state that this happened in Oklahoma.
• 51 people were killed when the tornado hit (Rice et al., 2013).
Scholarly Article
• Burgess et al. (2014) found that this happens during tornadoes.
• The damage path of the tornado spanned many miles (Burgess et al., 2014).
Bibliography Citations
News Article
Rice, D., W. M. Welch, D. Leinwand Leger, and M. Winter. 2013. Monster Oklahoma tornado kills 51. USA Today 23 May.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/05/20/tornadoes-severe-weather-plains-midwest/2325875/ (last accessed 23 March 2015)
Scholarly Article
Burgess, D., K. Ortega, G. Stumpf, G. Garfield, C. Karstens, T. Meyer, B. Smith, D. Speheger, J. Ladue, R. Smith, and T. Marshall. 2014. 20 May 2013 Moore, Oklahoma, Tornado: Damage Survey and Analysis. American Meteorological Society 29: 1229 – 1237.
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