Critical Review of Future Job

This research paper is more than just an overview, history, or information regarding your present or future job, career field, or tasks and duties. You will be researching and critically reviewing a specific aspect, challenge, current event, prevailing trends or issues, or broad future concerns regarding the field. As a professional in your field or career it is important that you remain abreast of trends, current issues, research, outlook, and best practices. This research paper is more analytical in nature. You will focus on analyzing different scholarly material from a factual or researched perspective, regarding the aspect or challenge of interest to you. I want you to focus on the research, findings, and conclusions of the researchers to assist you in determining the implications and impact on you! How does this information affect you, the organization, society, and the field overall? This is what I want to read!

Choose one area or topic of interest to you pertaining to your place of employment, professional experience, career field, or career aspiration. You will locate at least four (4) peer-reviewed articles from peer-refereed journals of your profession or career interest; or, scholarly reviewed publications pertaining to research in the field. Only related articles relevant to your topic and/or specific interest area should be considered. Articles should be timely-published within the last 10 years. One exception would be a dated article used to set historical tone and perspective. These articles should be related, relevant, and focused on your research topic. You should have already located two of these peer-reviewed articles during your previous article review assignment for the course.

The first part of your paper you will synthesize and summarize findings of articles. This is the factual and researched information, not your opinion, attitude, or personal experiences. How is the literature reviewing or approaching your topic? Are the authors reporting similar information? Where is their agreement and disagreement? Are they balancing their information or does information appear biased or slanted? What are the current trends and challenges? Are there positive or negative aspects to the articles? What are the criticisms or support of the issues? What are they reporting about the outlook for the profession or the field? This area is not a narrative report-it should be a summary of the articles, so your opinions, experiences, and input are not appropriate in this half of the paper. This is researched information by scholars, experts, scientists, and thinkers in your field. This first portion of your paper should be approximately half of the. Focus on the important information which impacts the field in a broad sense.

The second part of your paper should take a critical look at how the information in the existing research (the articles you reviewed) affects you in your current or future career, or within the field over all. This is the personal aspect of your
paper. It is ok to submit your opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences. How are you supporting this with the research you have just collected? What implications are there for you, others, regarding the literature you researched? The literature that you find may lead you to take certain actions or to change certain behaviors. It may convince you that you need to conduct additional research in that area. What did you find in the literature that you were not previously aware? How do you need to prepare and preserve yourself for this field? How do your personal or past experiences align with what you have researched, reviewed, and read? Review the extensive directions for this assignment in D2L. This is not a “traditional” research paper. I do not want a chronological report of the history of your field or an extensive report on your job description or tasks. Please read my instructions and provide what I am asking, not what you think I want, or what you may be used to providing as a “paper in your field”.

Paper Format:
DO NOT SUBMIT your paper in a PDF! The paper must be in a .doc, .docx., Microsoft word document file and submitted through D2L in order to be viewed, marked-up, graded, and returned to you. I will “0” your paper and return it to you. I might not note it is in the improper format until I grade your paper.
This paper must be in the APA (American Psychological Association) format. You will need to work with your APA resources (read and review information so that you are working correctly). Your paper will have a title page, abstract, in-text citations in the body of the paper, running head, pages numbered, and a separate reference page at the end of your paper. The Purdue Online Writing Lab is an excellent resource for those not familiar with this style.

The paper will be at least 8-10 pages
Title page
Abstract (page 1)
Introduction, body, conclusion (pages 2-7 or more)
Separate Reference Page (last page)

Pages are double-spaced using 12 point font (Times New Roman or Calibri), 1” margins on all sides, and indented paragraphs. Make sure that you understand how to use tools such as the header/footer, new page insert, so that the formatting of your document remains intact. No graphics, colored, or oversized font are used (to include the title page).

There should be in-text citations throughout your paper. All references should be in APA guidelines, and come from academic, professional, or scholarly sources. Sources such as .gov, .edu, .net, or other academic sources may be used but should not be the main source of the 4-5 peer-reviewed articles used in your research. Your goal is to find, read, and review scholarly material relative to your field, not grab the first articles which suffice. Keep in mind that many trade journals, online news sites, or other internet/online domains may not be appropriate for research purposes. Due to possible bias, slanted views, or sponsorship these areas are often not considered scholarly or adequately researched sources. If in doubt, contact me.
Make sure that you have a clear and succinct introduction so that your reader knows what you will be discussing, and there is a coherent and focused introduction and a conclusion which strongly highlights the key points discussed, and logically concludes your paper.

A Research Writing Rubric and other helpful material is provided in the “Resources for Assignment” Module under the Course Content area in this course to help guide you in your writing and help you remain focused on your topic. Do not write this paper without adequately reading instructions in D2L!