Skip to Main Content
Banner Image

SWK 320: Introduction to Social Work

Definitions

You will 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).

Accessing Ejournals at Fogler

When you click on a Journal link, on the next screen click on UM Orono/Machias Access.

This will bring you to a page with a Search Box at the top, and some text in the middle.  Ignore the search box, and look at the text in the middle.  The image below shows you an example.

For this example, we are accessing the journal Research on Social Work Practice. Two links are provided; for each, check the date range, and choose the link that makes sense for what you need.  In this example, to see the most recent issues of the journal, we would click on the bottom link.

Finding Peer Reviewed Articles By Topic

Instead of browsing the journals themselves, you may want to search across journals for articles on a specific topic.  For this class, try using the database Social Services Abstracts.

Citing Articles

You need to use the American Psychological Association Style Manual (APA), 7th edition, to cite the articles you find.

You need to include:

  • Author
  • Date
  • Title
  • Source Information

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.

Parts of a Scholarly Article

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

 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of someone else's work or ideas and representing them as your own.  

Examples:

  • Copying and pasting language from a web page into a paper without proper citation
  • Using quotes from sources, such as journal articles, without proper citation
  • Using an idea from a source, with some (or even all) of the words changed, without proper citation

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.

Tools for Access

Article Linker (also known as 360 Link to Full Text) allows you to check for access to the full text of journal articles. This link brings you to a tutorial on how to use this application.

Once downloaded, let's you access paywalled articles through Fogler Library access.

Chat is offline. Contact the library.