Prospect Workshop Summary

With my major, we have had to write many of papers with research. I believe my comments to my group members were helpful, and the comments I have received definitely help an author when writing a paper. Two heads are better than one, right? The questions provided were really helpful when trying to edit my groups papers. It gave me things to look for when I was reading that I probably wouldn’t have noticed if they weren’t there. Another thing I thought was helpful was the way the groups were split up according to majors. This gave the people reading the papers an advantage because they knew what each other were talking about. . I thought it would be hard trying to edit someones paper, but Wiki made it easy, except it got annoying that I had to change the color every time I wanted to type something. O and the comments were mixed up from me and someone in my group because Wiki switched our papers around. It was really weird, and almost went unnoticed. Hopefully its fixed now, and wont screw up for our final papers.

#5 State of Research Prospectus

The problem for my research paper is will stretching prevent injuries during physical activity. I have found a lot of case studies and research done on this subject, some saying different things, some saying the same. When I first thought of this topic, I thought the answer would be simple. But as it turns out, the health care field is never simple. You would think that if you stretch your muscle, it won’t be as tight, so thus preventing injury. But that is not the case. There are other factors that you have to control in order to get an accurate answer. As complicated as it might be, its easier researching something you are interested in. This question always intrigued me since I took an exercise physiology class last year. My teacher told us that stretching is not effective unless someone is to do it chronically. Meaning for stretching to work, you have to stretch not just before exercise, but every day, a couple times a day. So seeing someone at the gym who holds a stretch for 5 seconds and then moves on, is really not doing anything for themselves. Interesting, right?

#4 Open Topic

I am nervous and excited for spring break to come. Over spring break I am going to different places in Italy. Exciting, right? Well I am nervous because I am traveling by myself. Well, kind of. I signed up to go to Italy with a group of people, but the group of people is from different parts of the US and I don’t know any of them. We are all meeting up at JFK (the airport in Long Island, NY), so I have to take a plane from Ronald Reagan to JFK all by myself. It will only be the third time in my life that I will be taking a plane, and the first time alone. I am excited to be traveling to Italy though. My mom is Italian, and I hardly know anything about the culture. It’s going to be great to see the different places and tradition and how different it is from America. I will be going to Rome, Florence, Isle of Capri, Naples, and Pompeii. I am leaving Saturday March 6 and returning Sunday March 14. It stinks that I have a final when I get back in my basic aerobic conditioning class, but I hope it won’t be too hard. I know I won’t be doing any studying when I am gone, unless it’s one the plane. When I went to Ireland last summer I slept for most of the flight, and it was an 8 hour flight. I did some reading, but nothing too much. I hope it does not snow that weekend and the flights get cancelled. I will be one angry student. So, wish me luck!

#3 Reading the Literature Review

The literature review discussed published information about stretching and injury prevention. The author found a lot of different case studies that said similar things and combined them into one paper. The author also found case studies that disagreed with the other case studies and argued both sides of the argument. The article used for the Anatomy of a Journal Article was an article I found to support my side of the argument. The literature review summarized and synthesized the arguments of other people, whether it supported my argument or not. The paper I read was organized like an abstract. It had objectives, data sources, study selection, data extraction, main results, and conclusion. After that, there was a commentary written. This is different from the case studies I have read in the past because the ones that I read usually have the abstract of the paper, and the actual experiment mapped out well enough that if someone else wanted to do that experiment, they could. Then, the author writes the results and conclusion on the experiment they performed. The literature review was just a summary of case studies, and then a commentary written about the subject. A literature review is a good source for a research proposal because it shows both sides of the argument and a opinion so it can help you with which side of the argument you want to write about.

#2 Open Topic

This weekend, I drove home (Suffolk, VA) to surprise my family! I told them I would come home before spring break, and I was going to go home two weekends ago, but it started snowing. And it started snowing bad, and everyone got snowed in! Then the weekend after that was homecoming and I had to go to that because I already got tickets for me and my friend. Even if I didn’t go to it, I still would have had clinicals. I was supposed to get 225 hours this semester, but since the snow knocked everyone out for a couple weeks, they lowered it to 180. But back to my drive home. I left on Friday around 5 p.m. and hit rush hour traffic. It would usually take me around 3 hours to get home from where I left from, but instead it almost took me four. I was getting kind of tired on the drive from waking up at 530 am and working and having clinicals back to back, but the excitement of seeing my family kept me up. When I got home, my family was surprised and I gave my sister a BIG hug! On Saturday, I woke up early to go apartment hunting with my mom and sister. My sister wants to move out and live somewhere closer to her job. She is looking for a place for her and her boyfriend who is currently in Haiti. We must have seen like 15 places, and of course the first one and last one we saw were really nice places. She wants to move in end of March, so hopefully I will be able to take another trip to help her decorate.

#3 Types of Writing in your Field

You might not think there is no writing in Athletic Training, but there is. We write something called SOAP notes. This stands for subjective, objective, assessment, and plan. It is a method we use for documenting injuries. This is important information in case we have to come back to the injury to see what we did and it’s not working, or in case we get a suit, and has to cover our tails. If I go into special education, writing is important for making IEP’s, which stands for Individualized Education Program. This is a specific plan written for students with special needs in school. The IEP lets the teachers know what accommodations the students need to best help the student learn. IEP includes assessing students in all area, considering the general curriculum, and how the disability affects the students learning, and develops goals and objectives that makes the biggest difference for the student. You can see how important this is for the student in need and how that little accommodation could help them learn better in school. Another consideration would be a GA position I applied for for Graduate school. It’s a physician’s extender, and I would deal with insurance. It is also important for writing the documentation for the insurance company so the patient could be reimbursed.

#5 Open Topic

Last night was Mason’s Homecoming basketball game. I have not been to Mason’s Homecoming since my freshman year (I’m a senior now), and I haven’t been to a regular Mason basketball game since my sophomore year. I took my good friend Matt with me, and we watched the game in the student section. There was a lot of Mason spirit around, along with drunken college kids, and annoying boys throwing torn up programs like confetti. This could be a reason why I do not attend many games. The actual game was good though. Throughout the whole game, it was close and intense. But, unfortunately, Mason ended up losing. I wanted to leave early to try and beat the traffic, but Matt did not want to since the game was so close. We left when the game ended, and surprisingly the traffic was not bad. I was thinking we were going to have to wait 30 minutes to try to get out of Mason, but it only took us like five minutes. When we left, my friend called for us to meet her and her guy friend at Chammps, in Fair Oaks Mall. There, the UFC game was on, so we watched that and got some dinner. After that, we went back to the house, and I passed out. O what a fun night!