article briefs assingment

Students will select and read over the duration of the course an article (4 articles) published by a mainstream, respected, popular press or selected publications, such as these approved sources: The Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Hindustan Times, Newsweek, Deutsche Welle, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nigeria Health Watch, The Guardian, US News & World Report, The Atlantic, Science, South China Morning Post, IRIN, VOX, Wired, The Daily Grind, or online sources, e.g. Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, BBC, NPR, ABC, CBC Public Radio International.

Students will put together a weekly brief on each of articles (10 points each) in PowerPoint format

Do a thoughtful and thorough search on the internet for these articles. This may take some time. Stay away from blogs, opinion editorials, peer review journals, and organizational newsletters for this assignment.

Articles must be global in intent. That is, if possible, it can’t only be about the United States or high-income countries but must link data and information with what is going on in middle- and lower-income countries.

The following are NOT ACCEPTABLE, without prior approval from the professor:

• Any article published before January 1, 2018
  • Any article or text from Wikipedia, blogs, peer reviewed journals, opinion pieces or opinion editorials (e.g., Op Eds), organization websites or newsletters
  • Any article from a source that is NOT mentioned above. Easy rule of thumb: if it’s not listed in the list above, don’t use it. If you’re not sure if it’s a blog or an opinion piece or a proper source, please seek my review and pre-approval.
  • Any article or text less than 400 words.
  • Any article or text without evidence-based information, e.g., population data (demographic/household and/or health behavior data; health outcomes) and/or baseline-end line program data.

  Submitting the assignment: 1. The complete assignment must be uploaded onto blackboard in two parts: 1) the brief, and 2) a copy of the article you read. 2. When entitling your upload, paraphrase the article’s title in no more than 4 words so readers can tell what the technical topic is, what the geographic focus is, what the issue is. For instance, the article on “Africa Is Suffering A Silent Crisis of Stroke” can be paraphrased, “Stroke.Africa.Crisis”. If you don’t title your upload with a paraphrase, you will lose one point.

The brief:

Use a “PowerPoint” format. The content of brief should be written in the student’s own words. That is, be concise, crisp in your use of statements and data. Use a combination of prose and bullet points. Add charts and pictures from the article or other sources accordingly to emphasize what you want to convey (don’t forget in-text citations). Use no more than 15 PPT slides not including the cover slide and reference slide. Organize them according to the format suggested below. You can pick any design style you like for your PPT. Make sure that the text is legible and readable, no smaller than 28-point font.

The brief should include no more than three short quotes from the article reviewed; the quote should be properly cited in the PPT and on the reference slide. If more than three quotes are included in the brief from the article copied, the student will lose one point per additional quote. This does not include quoting data.

The brief should have a cover slide. Please follow the template at the end of this assignment guide. Feel free to put whatever design you want on the cover, if you have the complete, correct information in the specific layout (centered).

The brief should have a final last slide solely devoted to APA style references of any sources, including the article. Hanging indents must be used; “Retrieved from” must precede URLs. 0.50 points will be deducted if the references are not on a separate reference slide. 0.25 points will be deducted each time you are missing a hanging indent or do not use the “Retrieved from” in front of a URL. Please look at the simple APA guidelines and example for this assignment under the Blackboard’s “Assignments”.