DEP200

The Reaction Paper Assignment

You will be writing a 1,000 word Reaction Paper in this course using the instructions and links found below. You will be completing the following tasks and gathering the following information for your paper:

1. Watch the epigenetics video from PBS available as a YouTube link in this folder (second item in the folder). Begin your paper by defining epigenetics in your own words and discussing your reaction to the video.


2. Interview your family members and complete the  Family History-Dr. Oz.pdf .  Find out which disease(s) you are most at risk for. 


3. Research and locate one article on epigenetics and whatever disease you are most at risk for (select a study on research conducted on humans) from a reputable academic source:

Reputable Sources:

• journal articles


• government publications based on research

Do not use:

• magazines of any sort, whether they are on paper or online


• Websites of any type, including epigenetics websites


• Wikipedia

How to Perform Your Research

• Use the College Library in person or online (log in with your new MDC ID number (the one that is all numbers). Your password is the last four digits of that same MDC ID unless you have changed it.

Read the epigenetics article you find. Continue your paper with a discussion of the epigenetics article. Be sure to paraphrase (put things in your own words) and be sure to cite the author(s) of the article you find using APA style (see the section below on using APA style). Aim for about a page for this part of your paper.

1. Discuss the concept of epigenesis in light of your family history and the article you read. Aim for one page for this section of your paper.


2. Complete the Living to 100 Questionnaires. Integrate your findings on the questionnaire into your discussion. Aim for another page.


3. Discuss how you can improve your health and longevity in light of your findings in this questionnaire, your understanding of epigenetics, and your knowledge of your family history. This should be your final page.

You can go over or under a page for any of the sections of the paper as long as your total paper is 1,000 words not counting the references.

General Rules for an "A" Paper (check your paper against this list)

◻    1,000 words

◻    Original work; plagiarism score of less than 10% (90% original work)

◻    Double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins

◻    Covers all 6 tasks

◻    Spellchecked

◻    College-level grammar

◻    Cite your article APA style (author & year within body of paper; full reference at end)

◻    No abstract, no cover

◻    Place your name and reference number on the first page. Use page numbers.

Submit the paper by the deadline in the Schedule and also in the Calendar. The box will open at the beginning of the semester so that you have time to submit your paper, review the originality report, and resubmit your paper if necessary until you have a plagiarism score of under 10%. Be sure to use the Turnitin Grammar Checker to ensure that your paper is well written and ensure that you have spellchecked everything. If you resubmit your paper, note that it takes 24 hours for your new score to show up in the Turnitin Drop Box.

Submission to Turnitin Drop Box

The Turnitin Drop Box is in Blackboard. You do NOT have to go to Turnitin to submit your paper. Turnitin is a plagiarism checking software. It checks to see if your work is original. I have set the Turnitin Drop Box so you can submit your paper as many times as you want until the due date. That will allow you to check your plagiarism score and see where your work is not original. You can then rephrase that section and put it into your own words. The expectation in this course is that your paper scores no more than 10% in plagiarism (90% original work). You will be able to resubmit your paper as many times as you need to in order to get it right until the Due Date. You will NOT be able to resubmit after the Due Date. Note that it takes 24 hours to see your new plagiarism score after resubmission. No more than 2 or 3 quotes in the entire paper, please.

Avoiding Plagiarism

You must be careful not to copy someone else's ideas and not to copy and paste ideas from the sources you find. Copying and pasting from someone else's work is considered plagiarism. You may use other people's ideas, but you have to put them in your own words and reference the source. Putting things in your own words is called "paraphrasing." And you must put the reference right after the idea. Needless to say, submitting plagiarized papers, including those copied from one of the Web sites that have "free" papers or even papers you can buy, will result in a penalty. That penalty in this course is that your grade will be reduced by the percentage of plagiarism over 10%. In other words, the less plagiarism, the higher your score; the more plagiarism, the lower your score. The paper is worth 10% of your grade in this course. Don't risk it!

APA Style and References

One thing you will need to do in college is learn how to find and use references. References support your ideas. College-level work must be supported by research. You are expected to do that for this paper. You will research, locate, and use one reputable source from the literature on the topic of epigenetics/epigenesis. The "literature" is composed of studies that have been conducted in a scholarly way to support ideas. Scholarly sources can be found in journals or in some Web sites, especially those that come from .edu domains (.edu is short for "educational" Web sites) or .gov domains (.gov are government sites). The College Libraries have dozens of good journals you can use. You will be using the College Library for this paper. You may do the research in person or use the Web to access our library. See your librarian for more information on finding credible sources.

In APA style, you cite a source in two places: within the body of the paper where you use the idea or words of the author of the paper; and again in the Reference List at the end of the paper. For example, you might say, "According to Researcher A (2011)...epigenetics is..." What you must do is supply the researcher's name within a sentence or at the end of a sentence in parenthesis (Smith, 2011). Then you give the full information for locating the study in the Reference List. That's what Reference Lists are for: they allow the person reading your paper to look up your source if they want to. So remember, citing references APA style, requires two things: 1) that you cite the reference within the body of the paper, and 2) that you list the full reference at the end in the Reference List.

APA Tutorial

There are multiple tutorials and other training sources on APA style at the APA Web site. You do NOT have to buy the APA Manual to do this paper.