You need to submit a Field of Practice paper that references at least two peer reviewed professional social work journal articles.
Articles are short pieces of writing that describe results of original research, or review existing research.
Social Work Journals are publications that cover topics related to social work and appear on a monthly or quarterly basis, and contain articles. They are often published by professional associations or academic publishers.
Peer Review is a process used by most journals (but not all!) to ensure high quality. Authors submit their work for publication, and, before the journal accepts the article, the editors of the journal send the article out to other experts in the same field (peers) to have it critiqued (reviewed).
One way to find scholarly articles is to browse the journals themselves. Here are a few that Fogler Library has access to:
When you click on a Journal link, you will open the LibrarySearch database record.
Scroll down and you will see two options: Search Inside and View Online.
Search Inside allows you to search for a concept within the articles in the journal. View Online allows you to browse all the journals, by year(volume) and issue.
For the example below, we are accessing the journal Research on Social Work Practice.
Instead of browsing the journals themselves, or searching for just one topic or keyword, you may want to search across journals for articles on a specific topic, combining multiple concepts. For this class, try using the database Social Services Abstracts.
You need to use the American Psychological Association Style Manual (APA), 7th edition, to cite the articles you find.
You need to include:
For your Reference List -
Author last name, First initial. Middle initial. (Year). Article title: Article subtitle. Journal Title, volume number(issue number), pages. https:// doi.org/10-101010101
For within your text -
(Author last name, year)
Example:
Ahn, H., Hartzel, S., & Shaw, T. (2018). Participants satisfaction with family involvement meetings. Research on Social Work Practice, 28(8), 952- 963. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731516666328
(Ahn et.al., 2018)
For more examples, please see the APA's Reference Examples page.
NOTE: Most databases allow you to copy and paste citations. However, they usually have mistakes in the citation. I initially found the above article in Social Services Abstracts, but had to fix the capitalization in the article title.
Although scholarly journal articles are not all formatted the exact same way, there are similarities that can make it helpful for the reader.
Citation information - There should be citation information, including the article title, journal name, and source information.
Authors - The author(s) will be listed, often with some basic info about them, like the institution where they work.
Abstract - There should be an Abstract which summarizes the author(s)' research, both what it was and what was found.
Introduction - This beginning section explains why the author(s) took up this research, and provides information about prior related research.
Methodology - The author(s) explain how they went about their research
Results - This might be self-explanatory; here the author(s) share the detailed results of their research
Discussion or Conclusion - Here the author(s) talk about the impact of what they found, as well as what further research might be helpful on the topic
Reference List - A list of all cited works in the article.
Plagiarism is the use of someone else's work or ideas and representing them as your own.
Examples:
Plagiarism is ethically wrong, and has repercussions here on campus. It is listed as an Academic Misconduct Violation (Student Conduct Code, 2018, p. 8).
Here's a quick video tutorial that discusses ways to avoid plagiarism.
Once downloaded, let's you access paywalled articles through Fogler Library access.
