Assignment:
Purpose:
The purpose of this assignment is to gain experience researching a topic, organizing information, and presenting information to an audience. This assignment is designed to help you practice the following skills that are essential to effective communication and continued learning. As a healthcare professional, you will be communicating with patients and colleagues from various educational backgrounds in a variety of ways including written communication. Learning to communicate effectively and clearly too all audiences is critical. Secondly, the field of medicine is constantly changing and you will need to be able to continue the learning process to keep up with current practices, protocols, and procedures. Need Assignment Help?
Skills:
In this assignment you will practice the following skills that are essential to developing effective communication and the process of continued learning:
- Research, locate, and evaluate credible sources on a topic
- Identify and organize important information
- Summarize and communicate new information in writing
- Utilize MLA format for paper
Knowledge:
This assignment will help you become familiar with the following important knowledge in microbiology:
- Common fungal and protist pathogens
- Diseases caused by fungal and protists
- Treatments for fungal and protist infections
Basic Task:
1. Sign up for one of the fungal or protist pathogens
2. Research the organism
3. Write a paper detailing all information listed below in the detailed task
4. Create a PowerPoint presentation of your organism and present it to the class
5. Submit the completed paper in Dropbox by the given due date
Paper title:
- Give your paper a creative title
Paper Length:
- Length: 3-5 pages double spaced
- Font: Times New Roman 12pt
- Must be clear, organized, and well-explained
Paper Do's & Don'ts:
Do's:
- Create a paper that is easy to read and explains any specific terminology
- Write the paper as if you are writing it to someone not in the biology or medical field (remember to cite everything)
- Use Times New Roman 12 pt font
- Create a new paragraph for each subtopic
- Utilize a grammar and spell checker (keep in mind most spell checkers do not know science words)
- Be sure you cite everything. This includes the introduction paragraph. If you include any information you learned in your research be sure to cite it.
- Be sure you cite everything. This includes the entire paper including the conclusion paragraph. If you include any information you learned in your research even if you cited it earlier in the paper be sure to cite it again.
Don'ts:
- DONT Use slang or poor grammar
- DONT Plagiarize or copy from a source
- DO NOT utilize Artificial intelligence (this is plagiarism as it is not your work)
- DO NOT use 5 or more words in a row from a source. (Example provided at the bottom of these instructions)
- DO NOT have more than 4 quotes in your paper and/or 4 total sentences that are quoted.
Paper content:
Organism basics & cell structure:
- Scientific name of the organism
- Common name of the organism (if there is one)
- Is the organism a fungus or a protist?
- Is the organism multicellular or single-celled?
- Describe the cellular features of the organism - does it have unique cellular features?
- Types of organelles / cellular structures present (example: flagella, oral groove, etc...)
- Any structure that is not found in other fungi or protists
- Make sure to define any unique features that are not common to other types of fungi or protists
Pathogen life cycle
- Describe the replication cycle or life cycle of the fungus or protist
- The replication and life cycle are the same thing...just two different ways to say it
- If the organism has multiple life cycles (one in host & one in vector) describe both
Disease, symptoms, & epidemiology:
- What disease(s) does the organism cause?
- How is the organism transmitted?
- Who or what populations are at risk for contracting the infection?
- What is the reservoir of the organism?
- Where is the organism endemic?
- What are the symptoms of the disease?
- What is the progression of infection?
- Are there complications associated with infection?
- What is the mortality rate? (if available)
Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention:
- How is the disease diagnosed?
- How is the disease/infection treated?
- How is infection prevented?
References & Citations in text: Failing to Cite your course in text and or failing to provide acceptable references with links will result in a zero as this is considered plagiarism)
- List all references used to gather information.
- These references are listed at the end of the paper on a separate reference page
- Reference page(s) do not count in the page requirement
- Proper citation is used throughout the paper (intext citations, quotes are cited correctly etc)
- Make a new reference for every page. This means that if you use the CDC and you click on 5 links and learn information from all 5 links you cite all 5 CDC pages individually.
- DO NOT cite cdc.gov this is not the actual page within the CDC that you learned your information.
- Your references must take the reader to the direct page you learned the material from. This applies to all websites. IF you navigate off a page onto another one then it gets its on reference.
- Acceptable sources are used
- Ever sentence should have a citation to go along with it. The only way around this is if you knew the information prior to taking this course. If in doubt cite your source.
- Format your references using the MLA format - all links provided must be working links