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IMRaD Paper Introduction and Methods

Mrinalini Manektala

Writing and Reading

Hem Paudel

14 April 2016

Introduction

As students get older and advance through school, the workload they receive grows larger and larger and it seems like the amount of sleep they gets decreases. This is concerning because a lack of sleep can be detrimental to health, and possibly negatively affect academic performance. This is especially concerning in college students because poor academic performance during undergraduate years can have a big impact of what their future is, so it is a subject that needs to be studied and hopefully solved. What has been found in the past is that a lack of sleep or disrupted sleep causes daytime sleepiness the next day, which in effect results in poor academic performance. There are multiple reasons why college students get a lack of sleep or have disrupted sleep which include alcohol use and poor time management skills. What was not said in past studies is specifically how little or how much sleep students get, and how it directly affects their GPA. Most studies that were researched would use phrases like “a lack of sleep” or “a disrupted sleep cycle” but would not include the specific amount of sleep which is an important factor when researching how it affects academic performance. The current research will help with this unknown knowledge because it has asked students in a survey and in interviews specifically how much sleep they get, what it causes, and how it affects their academic performance.

Methods

Participants

            The participants used in this study consisted of all college students, ranging from the ages of 18-21 years old. There were around 30 participants used in this study who were all full time students at the University of Iowa.

Procedures

            There were both a survey and an interview used in this study, the survey consisting of six questions and the interview consisting of seven questions. The survey was taken online while the interviews were done in person. The questions for the survey included:

1. What is your age?

under 18

18-20

21 and over

2. What is your gender?

Female

Male

Other

3. On average, how many hours of sleep do you get per night?

5 or less

6-7

8 or more

4. How difficult is it for you to focus in class after an average night of sleep?

very easy

somewhat easy

somewhat difficult

very difficult

5. On average, how many times per week do you skip class because of sleepiness?

never

1-2 times

3 or more times

6. What is your current GPA?

3.6 - 4.0

3.1 - 3.5

2.6 - 3.0

2.1 - 2.5

2.0 or below

The interview questions included:

1.     Do you usually sleep well at night or is your sleep often disrupted? If so, why?
2. If your sleep is disrupted or if you get a lack of sleep, do you find it harder to be productive the next day?
3. Would you find it easier to be alert during class if you got more sleep?
4. Do you often take naps during the day if you're tired from not getting enough sleep the night before?
5. If you do take naps, how does it affect the amount of homework you get done during the day?
6. How much sleep do you get per night when you're studying for a test versus when you're not studying for a test?
7. Do you think getting less sleep to study the night before a test helps you perform better on the test? Why or why not?

Data Analysis

            The data that came from this survey was automatically recorded online through the website SurveyMonkey, which was what was used to create the survey. The author personally analyzed the interviews that were conducted. 

PowerPoint Articles

Mrinalini Manektala

Writing and Reading

Hem Paudel

12 April 2016

Analyzing PowerPoint Articles

            The two articles that were analyzed both talk about using PowerPoint. A difference between the two articles is that the one that was called “PowerPoint and Sentence Headings” talked more about what should be in PowerPoints to engage the audience and the other one talked more about whether it was effective or not. The first article went into detail on what to put in key points and how it would keep the audience interested and the other one talked about how well people learn from PowerPoint presentations.

            A similarity the two articles had is how it talks about the audience. Even though they talk about them in different ways, they both end up talking about the same thing. The first article talks more about what to say and do in your PowerPoint to engage the audience and keep them engaged, while the second article talks more about how PowerPoint affects them and whether it is effective in learning or not. 

Interview Questions
1. Do you usually sleep well at night or is your sleep often disrupted? If so, why?
2. If your sleep is disrupted or if you get a lack of sleep, do you find it harder to be productive the next day?
3. Would you find it easier to be alert during class if you got more sleep?
4. Do you often take naps during the day if you're tired from not getting enough sleep the night before?
5. If you do take naps, how does it affect the amount of homework you get done during the day?
6. How much sleep do you get per night when you're studying for a test versus when you're not studying for a test?
7. Do you think getting less sleep to study for a test helps you perform better on the test? Why or why not?

Survey
The purpose of this survey is to test how sleep affects academic performance. It is expected that the results will help get an understanding on the sleeping habits of college students and whether the lack of sleep negatively affects academic performance. 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YXWZY78

Survey Question Tips
Some things to avoid when conducting survey questions include: technical terms and jargon, vague or imprecise terms, complex sentences, double-barreled questions, and questions using leading, emotional, or evocative language.

Source: http://psr.iq.harvard.edu/files/psr/files/PSRQuestionnaireTipSheet_0.pdf?m=1357530492

Topic Proposal for Assignment 3

Mrinalini Manektala

Writing and Reading

Hem Paudel

5 April 2016

Assignment 3 Topic Proposal

My topic for this assignment is how sleep affects academic performance. This is an important topic to research because students of all ages, but especially college students, have the daily struggle of not getting enough sleep, and sleep is important part of being healthy. Since this is something that is affecting students’ health, it’s important to research and see if it affects their academic performance since education is an important part of life also. Two research questions I have come up with for this topic are: Does the lack of sleep negatively affect academic performance? And: How can sleep improve academic performance? I am planning on conducting a research on college students on how sleep affects academic performance. I am planning on making a survey to hand out to around 30 college students asking questions like how many hours of sleep they get per night, their GPA, their daytime productiveness, etc. I will take the results from the surveys to make a conclusion on how sleep affects academic performance. 

Topic and Research Questions

My topic for this paper will again be on sleep deprivation and academic performance. Two research questions I can use on this topic are: Does the lack of sleep negatively affect academic performance? And: How can sleep improve academic performance? 

Outline of Assignment #2

Mrinalini Manektala

Introduction:

a.      The topic I am going to be talking about in my literature review is: Does how much sleep a student get per night affect their academic performance? This topic is relevant to research because these says students, especially college students, are not getting the recommended amount of sleep which is extremely unhealthy and it is important to know if it is going to have a negative effect on their academic performance.

b.     The main issue this literature review will address will be if the amount of sleep a student gets per night negatively affects their academic performance. It will be covering students of several ages, from school-age children to adolescents to college students.

c.      The main topics of the paper will be discussing how differently the effects of sleep deprivation have on the different ages of students.

Section I: Sleep Quality in School-Age Children

a.      Variability in performance has effect on sleepiness in children.

b.     Higher vulnerability to poor sleep, insufficient sleep and sleepiness explains the effect size differences as important changes occur in children.

c.       Effect sizes were larger for studies including younger participants which can be explained by dramatic prefrontal cortex changes. 

Section II: Sleep Quality in Adolescents

a.      Inefficient daytime behavior results in disrupted and poor sleep. 

b.      Increasing school, family and social pressure and from an environmentally induced delay of sleep timing

c.       Changes of intrinsic regulatory sleep patterns lead to a marked increase in sleepiness that usually facilitates cognitive, emotional, behavioral and academic failure.

Section III: Sleep Quality in College Students

a.      Alcohol has a major effect on sleep quality and usually results in less sleep when consumed.

b.     Poor time management skills have a negative effect on the amount of sleep.

c.      Daytime alertness is a huge factor in how much sleep a student gets at night.

Conclusion: What I have concluded from researching these six different sources is that there are multiple reasons that children, adolescents, and college students do not get enough sleep and because they do not get enough sleep, it negatively effects their academic performance. 

Source Synthesis Chart 

Authors of Study	Issues of Diagnosis	Treatments	Debate over Causes	Wider Familial Effects
Curcio et al. (2006)	Pg. 333, Talks about whether sleep deprivation is a disorder	Pg. 327, talks about how to treat sleep deprivation	Pg. 323, talks about how it is a major problem
Trockel et al. (2000)		Volume 49, talks about different methods to fixing sleep deprivation		Volume 49, talks about how you can fix it at home
Dewald et al. (2010)	Pg. 179, talks about how sleep deprivation can be hard to determine sometimes		Pg. 184, talks about how the proper way to fix it is	Pg. 186, talks about how it can be happening at home
Sadeh et al. (2002)		Pg. 408, talks about how to fix sleep deprivation in different ages	Pg. 410, talks about whether treating separate ages differently is a good idea
Gozal et al. (2000)	Volume 107, talks about how diagnosis is different for adolescents	Volume 107, talks about specific ways for treatment for adolescents
Singleton et al. (2002)			Pg. 358, talks about whether alcohol consumption has an effect on sleep deprivation	Pg. 363, talks about how this could be happening without parents knowing

Source Synthesis Chart

Article Summaries 

Mrinalini Manektala

Writing and Reading

Hem Paudel

1 March 2016

Article Summaries: Does how much sleep a student get per night affect their academic performance?

1.     Curcio, G., Ferrara, M., and Gerraro, L. (2006). Sleep loss, learning capacity and academic performance. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com

·       The objectives/research questions of this article is if sleep loss and poor academic performance have a correlation.

·       The main results/conclusions were that students of different education levels are chronically sleep deprived or suffer from poor sleep quality and consequent daytime sleepiness; sleep quality and quantity are closely related to student learning capacity and academic performance; sleep loss is frequently associated with poor declarative and procedural learning in students; and studies in which sleep was actively restricted or optimized showed, respectively, a worsening and an improvement in neurocognitive and academic performance.

·       The research methods used in this paper was researching other people’s work and putting it into their own. They had 114 references they used for this article.

·       This source is relevant to my topic because it shows that sleep deprivation does cause poor academic performance, which is an answer I was looking for.

2.     Trockel, M.T., Barnes, M.D., and Egget, D.L. (2000). Health-Related Variables and Academic Performance among First-Year College Students: Implications for Sleep and Other Behaviors. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com

·       The objectives/research questions of this article is if sleep habits affect grade performance among first-year college students.

·       The main results/conclusions were that among all the variables they tested, sleep habits accounted for the largest amount of variance in GPAs. Later wake up times were associated with lower average grades.

·       The research methods used in this article were the authors analyzed the effect of several health behaviors and variables on GPAs of a random sample of 200 students living in on-campus residence halls at a larger private university.

·       This source is relevant to my topic because it talks about academic performance in college students, specifically first-year which is what I am.

3.     Dewald, J.F., Meijer, A.M., Oort, F.J., Kerkhof, G.A., and Bogels, S.M. (2010). The influence of sleep quality, sleep duration and sleepiness on school performance in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com

·       The objectives/research questions of this article is if sleep quality, sleep duration, and sleepiness affected school performance in children and adolescents.

·       The main results/conclusions were that sleepiness showed the strongest relation to school performance, followed by sleep quality and sleep duration. Effect sizes were larger for studies including younger participants which can be explained by dramatic prefrontal cortex changes during early adolescence. 

·       The research methods used in this article were researching other people’s work and forming their own conclusions. They used 62 sources.

·       This source is relevant to my topic because it analyzes different variables of sleep that affect academic performance which is what I am looking for.

4.     Sadeh, A., Gruber, R., and Raviv, A. (2002). Sleep, Neurobehavioral Functioning, and Behavior Problems in School-Age Children. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.

·       The objectives/research questions of this article is to examine the associations between sleep and neurobehavioral functioning (NBF) in school-age children.

·       The main results/conclusions were that significant correlations between sleep-quality measures and NBF measures were found, particularly in the younger age group. Children with fragmented sleep were characterized by lower performance on NBF measures, particularly those associated with more complex tasks such as a continuous performance test and a symbol-digit substitution test.

·       The research methods used in this article were using objective assessment methods on participants in their regular home setting. The variables were assessed for 135 healthy school children (69 boys and 66 girls) from second, fourth and sixth grade.

·       This source is relevant to my topic because it is showing direct results that fragmented sleep can cause problems with academic performance.

5.     Gozal, D., and Pope, D.W. (2000). Snoring During Early Childhood and Academic Performance at Ages Thirteen to Fourteen Years. Retrieved from http://www.pediatrics.aappublications.org

·       The objectives/research questions of this this article are if obstructive sleep apnea syndrome in young children is associated with an adverse effect on learning, and if the amount of sleep adolescents get affect their academic performance.

·       The main results/conclusions were that the questionnaire response rate for the adolescents was 82.8%. Frequent and loud snoring during early childhood was reported in 103 LP (low performance) children (12.9%) compared with 40 (high performance) children (5.1%; odds ratio: 2.79; confidence interval: 1.88–4.15). Furthermore, 24 LP and 7 HP children underwent T&A for snoring (odds ratio: 3.40; confidence interval: 1.47–7.84), while 21 LP and 19 HP children required surgery for recurrent tonsillitis.

·       The research methods used in this article were questionnaires were mailed to seventh and eighth graders attending public schools whose class ranking was either in the top 25% or bottom 25% of their class, and who were matched for age, gender, race, school, and street of residence. Snoring frequency and loudness at 2 to 6 years of age, tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy (T&A) for snoring or recurrent infection, school grades, and parental smoking and snoring were assessed.

·       This article is relevant to my topic because it assesses adolescent children and their sleep patterns associated with academic performance by a proper survey.  

6.     Singleton, R.A., and Wolfson, A.R. (2009). Alcohol Consumption, Sleep, and Academic Performance among College Students. Retrieved from http://www.jsad.com

·       The objectives/research questions for this article are the study examines the links among alcohol use, sleep, and academic performance in college students.

·       The main results/conclusions were that students with late sleep schedules were more apt to report daytime sleepiness. SAT score was the strongest predictor of GPA. However, gender, alcohol consumption, sleep duration, and daytime sleepiness also were significant predictors when other variables were controlled.

·       The research methods used in this article were personal interview surveys were conducted with a random sample of 236 students (124 women) at a liberal arts college. The interviews measured alcohol consumption, gender, academic class, weekday and weekend bedtimes and rise times, and daytime sleepiness.

·       This article is relevant to my topic because it measures the effects sleep deprivation has on GPA and exam performance in college students. 

Topic and Sources for Assignment #2

Mrinalini Manektala

Writing and Reading

Hem Paudel

25 February 2016

Topic and Sources for Major Assignment #2

            The topic I am going to be researching for this assignment is: Does how much sleep a student get per night affect their academic performance? I am interested on this subject since I am a student myself and I will be researching how it affects the different parts of the brain and body since I am a Human Physiology major. I think that this will be a subject that a lot of students are interested in looking at since a lot of students do not get enough sleep. The sources I will be using in this assignment are:

1.     http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079205001231

2.     http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07448480009596294#.Vs8-kJwrKhc

3.     http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079209001002

4.     http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8624.00414/abstract 

Quotation Activity

Mrinalini Manektala

Writing and Reading

Hem Paudel

25 February 2016

Quotation Activity

            I have written several papers in the past and included many quotes, but after reading the sections from the book I am now realizing I may have not done the best job. For example, in the first major assignment for this class, I included a quote saying: “If not written in a five paragraph format, it is still more organized than non-academic writing usually separated into different paragraphs about a topic or multiple topics. This can be seen in one of the journal articles I researched. “The second observation that questioned the primacy of the SK/ROMK channel as the K secretory channel in the CCD...”(Carissoza-Gaytan, Carattino, Kleyman, Stalin, 2013). I used this example because the paragraph starts with “The second observation” showing that the article is separated into different paragraphs about a topic which is what the organization is like in academic writing.” I think I did a decent job on the introduction and including the quote, but I do not think I did the best job explaining it after I quoted it. A way I could have explained it better after the quote would be by saying something like “I included this quote because the way that it states “the second observation” means that there had to have been a thesis included on all the observations on this topic, and it is organized into different paragraphs which is shows how properly academic writing is structured”.

            I have also done a lot of writing in the past for high school. Another example of where I could have explained my quotations better is from an English paper I wrote last semester. The paper was about a poem and therefore included quotations from the poem itself. “It is easy to tell that the tone of the poem is dark and that it was written in the 1800s by some of the words he uses. For example, in lines seven and eight the author says “Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor”. No one speaks like this in modern day because there are much simpler ways these lines could be worded.” I included all parts that I needed to, but I think I could have gone more in depth. For example in the introduction I could have said “You can easily make out that the tone of the poem is dark, dreary, and mysterious because of the jargon the author uses since this poem was written in the 1800s”. And for the explanation afterwards I could have said something like “This quote obviously included language we do not use in modern day and therefore it is easy to tell that the poem was written a long time ago. You can also make out the tone of the poem from these lines because it includes words like “dying ember” and “ghost” which add to the dark, dreary tone of the poem”. These are ways I could have included quotations better in my past papers. 

Peer Reviews and Conferences
Peer Reviews
I thought peer reviews were a good way to edit and review our papers. I liked them because other people in this class are in the same field as me, so they can help provide feedback that would be necessary specifically for my field. I also liked them because you get two more opinions on how you could improve your paper so you get the best out of your paper. A way we could improve peer reviews is have the students actually write on the papers rather than just the blogs. Overall, I like peer reviews and I want to keep doing them. 

Conferences
I thought meeting with you to do a conference was a lot of help. What I liked about the conferences was that you could tell us exactly what and what not you're looking for in person because a lot of them time it can be confusing to tell by just looking at the paper. I also liked them because you could explain the formatting of the paper which is what I needed the most help on because I had never done APA style before. A way we could improve on the conferences is having a rubric to look at while we are in the conference. Overall, I liked the conferences and I think we should keep doing them. 

Writing in Human Physiology

Mrinalini Manektala

The University of Iowa

Writing in Human Physiology

            When most people think of human physiology, or any science major for that matter, writing is not the first thing that comes to mind. Usually, what comes to mind is a lot of math or science, which is heavily involved, but according to Austin Gessell, he spends quite a lot of his time writing in his profession. I interviewed Gessell, who is a first year graduate student at the University of Iowa, to find out more about the types of writing used in his profession where he is a teaching assistant in freshmen chemistry classes. Chemistry is a huge part of school when taking the path of a human physiology major, so I thought he would know a lot about what writing would be like in the science field since he recently graduated from undergraduate school as a chemistry major. I also analyzed six different articles, three academic and three non-academic, to better understand what affect the different types of writing have on information presented about human physiology.

One type of writing used in human physiology is non-academic. Non-academic writing is something that is used every single day and includes a wide variety of types of writing including taking notes, writing email, submitting magazine articles, and everything in between. What makes non-academic writing different from academic writing is that it is not as formal and usually in a more casual setting, like a magazine article. Though it can include factual information like in academic writing, the structure and formality is on a lower, less intense level. For example, you can see in the following magazine article that the writing used is causal. “The following improvements have been made over the Stolwijk model:

•Increase in number of body segments from six to unlimited.

•Addition of a clothing node to model both heat and moisture capacitance.

•Addition of heat transfer by conduction to surfaces in contact with the body.

•Improved convection and radiation heat transfer coefficients.

•Explicit radiation heat transfer calculation using angle factors.

•Addition of a radiation heat flux model (e.g. sunlight striking the body)”

(Huizenga, Hui, and Arens, 2001). As you can see from this example given from this magazine article, it is a lot more casual since this information is given in bullet points. In academic writing, it would be written in formal sentences. Another thing that makes non-academic writing more casual than academic writing is including pictures, diagrams, and graphs. In all three of my non-academic sources there are either pictures, diagrams, or graphs included and they all have little sub notes describing what the picture is. For example, in one of my articles about the effects on human physiology during space flight, they have inserted a picture in the article when talking about the International Space Station outside in space with a sub note reading “An astronaut is tethered to the Canadarm2 outside the International Space Station during mission STS-114. Image courtesy of NASA” (Williams, Kuipers, Mukai, Thirsk, 2009). Again, the writing is very informal and casual, but is still informative. It can also be a little more creative and include sketches that people have drawn instead of pictures like in the magazine article “Chaos and Fractals in Human Physiology” (Goldberger, Rigney, West, 1990). A lot of the time non-academic writing can be creative, but what I have found is that it is creative in the parts that there are pictures included and it is not creative in the actual writing. “Creative writing in English classes was something I was not the best at, I was always better at writing in science academia, things like journal entries and lab reports”(Gessell, personal communication, 2016). I included this quote from Gessell because it justifies that creative writing in a scientific field is usually not common because academic writing is something that the people who are in this field are much better at. Overall, I would say that non-academic writing in human physiology mostly consists of magazine articles that are informative, yet casual.

Another type of writing that is used in human physiology is academic writing. This is the type of writing most used in human physiology and in the science field. According to Gessell, it is the type of writing he uses most (Gessell, personal communication, 2016). Academic writing usually consists of formal, scholarly essays and textbooks or some kind of educational book. The three academic sources I have analyzed were all some type of academic textbook or book used in human physiology. Academic writing is usually informative and can be just as informative as non-academic writing, but uses more formal language and usually a less personal tone when writing out the information. An example of this type of writing can be seen in a book about mathematical models in human physiology. “For example, when a vein is occluded during surgery, the resistance to the blood flow is increased, and as a result a fall in cardiac output is usually observed” (Ottesen, Olufsen, Larsen, 2004). This was written in a very formal and professional language, and if it had been non-academic most likely the wording would have been simpler and it would have been a shorter explanation. A lot of the time, academic writing is used to be informative and uses factual information to teach people information so definitions are used a lot in academic writing. Whether it be a research paper or journal entry, definitions need to be used so that the readers can easily understand what information is being told without having to ask questions or look something up on the internet. “Defined as an association of species and its environment between which energy and information are regularly cycled, the ecosystem in lower forms of life, and in human populations exhibits significant differences and some striking parallels” (Hawley, 1986).  This example shows a clear definition of the word ecosystems and it also shows how it is used to provide factual information in academic writing when writing about human physiology. Academic writing is not only limited to definitions, iota so includes just general information about the topic and often includes many things that are not common knowledge about the topic. In human physiology, this can include information about the body that people may not know about or it goes into further, specific details about things that people may know some general information about, but not a lot. This can be seen in one of the sources I analyzed for this report in an informational textbook. “Action potentials can be initiated only in portions of the membrane with abundant voltage-gated Na+ channels that can be triggered to open by a depolarizing event” (Sherwood, 2014). This shows that academic writing goes more into depth than non-academic writing. People may know what action potentials are, but maybe were not informed on how they were initiated. This is mostly what academic writing consists of, and is what is most commonly used in human physiology.

From analyzing six different sources, three non-academic and three academic, and from an interview with a graduate student about writing in the scientific field, it is easily seen that academic writing is the type of writing used most in the field. Although non-academic writing can be used every day like in email, academic writing is still what students, professors, and researchers mostly use since the information used needs to be presented in a formal and professional fashion. I have learned a lot about what types of writing are used in human physiology, and I can definitely see a lot of academic writing in my future.

Sources

1.     Goldberger, Ary L., David R. Rigney, and Bruce J. West. Chaos and Fractals in Human Physiology (1990): 43-49. Researchgate.net. Feb. 1990. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

2.     Hawley, Amos H. "Human Ecology." Google Books. N.p., 1986. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

3.     Huizenga, Charlie, Zhang Hui, and Edward Arens. "A Model of Human Physiology and Comfort for Assessing Complex Thermal Environments." A Model of Human Physiology and Comfort for Assessing Complex Thermal Environments. ScienceDirect, 23 May 2001. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

4.     Ottesen, Johnny T., Mette S. Olufsen, and Jesper K. Larsen. "Applied Mathematical Models in Human Physiology." Google Books. SIAM, 200. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

5.     Sherwood, Lauralee. "Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems." Google Books. N.p., 2014. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

6.     Williams, David, Andre Kuipers, Chiaki Mukai, and Robert Thirsk. "Acclimation during Space Flight: Effects on Human Physiology." CMAJ. N.p., 9 June 2009. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.