In January this year the President of the United States, Barack Obama stated that “cannabis is no more dangerous than alcohol”. Evaluate the evidence regarding the President’s claim with particular reference to low dose, recreational use of each drug Homework Help

? Context of the argument is explained and justified
? Use of empirical evidence (from peer reviewed journals,
primarily experimental studies) to make an argument
o Minimal textbook use and secondary citations
? Integrated information to address such issues to answer the question
? Appropriate citations (in text and in reference list) provided for all non-original content presented, including paraphrased material
? This is a very global point about the essay regarding how well it has been set up.
? Are you continually linking the evidence you present back to the point you are trying to make? ? Have you gone beyond the initial readings to find peer reviewed scientific evidence to write the
essay?
? Has the evidence been cited when it should be?
? Does the evidence help answer the essay question?
? Is the evidence presented in a clear a logical fashion? ? Did the essay answer the question it set out to?
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Critical Thinking (40%)
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What this means
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? Introduction defining key terms and introducing relevant issues (outline of essay direction)
? Identified issues relevant to the question
o Clear explanation of argument
? Continued illustration of why evidence is relevant to answering question
? Evaluation of evidence in literature, not a descriptive review, that justifies conclusion
? Conclusion supported by the information presented in the essay.
o Argument provides clear justification of conclusion
? Context – Have you set out the direction of the essay clearly in the introduction?
oHave you only dealt with information specifically relevant to answering the question? oHow will your pieces of evidence build toward your ultimate argument?
? Review – Evaluation is the key word here – information must be shown to be relevant in justifying your argument by comparing and contrasting evidence to support your perspective.
? Analysis – In your argument did you highlight the strength or weakness of the information being discussed and link it back to your main point?
? Outcomes – Have you presented a clear conclusion for your essay?
o Is this conclusion consistent with the information you presented in the body of the essay? o Does the conclusion show that you have understood and applied the evidence covered in
terms of the question?
o Does your conclusion avoid leaps of logic?
o Can you apply the information to a wider world perspective?
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Writing Style (20%)
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What this means
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? Essay addresses question at hand
? All necessary components of the assessment have been
addressed
? Clear paragraphs are present
? Good sentence structure (no dot points)
? Expression is clear with appropriate use of terminology
? Flow of essay is clear
? Grammar and spelling is accurate
Hopefully these points are pretty straightforward.
Ask yourself – did you answer the question you were supposed to?
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APA Format (10%)
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What this means
? Title Page with descriptive title
o Page numbers and Header
? Double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font
? Non-biasing language used
? References in correct APA format in text and reference list
Please check the APA manual for details. This is available in all campus libraries. The Academic Referencing Tool is available via the library website to assist with how to format in-text citations and the reference list.
Essay Topic 1: Brain Behaviour Relationships Professor Simon Crowe
Essay Topic: In January this year the President of the United States, Barack Obama stated that “cannabis is no more dangerous than alcohol”. Evaluate the evidence supporting the President’s claim with particular reference to low dose, recreational use of each drug.
Starting References: Fuster, D., Cheng, D.M., Allensworth-Davies, D., Palfai , T.P., Samet, J.H., & Saitz, R. (2014). No detectable association between frequency of marijuana use and health or healthcare utilization among primary care patients who screen positive for drug use. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 29(1), 133-139. doi: 10.1007/s11606-013-2605-z.
Room, R., Babor, T., & Rehm, J. (2005). Alcohol and public health. Lancet, 365, 519–530. GENERAL ISSUES
It is important in the context of this essay that you do not devote too much of your time to irrelevant issues. This is a very rich literature and it will be easily for you to be overwhelmed by detail. My strongest caution is to make sure that you address the question asked rather than present all that you know about alcohol and cannabis.
That said, an approach to the issue could look something like this: INTRODUCTION
? Begin with a general orientation to the topic and outline how you intend to approach the question.
? Introduce the agents alcohol and cannabis.
? What does “recreational use” mean?
? What does “dangerous” mean, and how are you going to compare the respective risks?
? Provide a general orientation to how you will address the main points that you will
present in the body of your paper.
BODY
? What are the harmful/dangerous effects of both alcohol and cannabis? Don’t go overboard on this, there will be a lot of literature on this issue and you could easily write much more than the word limit on this issue alone. Sensibly summarise the effects.
? How are you going to compare the respective “harm” of each drug? Do they each affect the same or different things? If different how can you compare apples with oranges?
? How much relevant evidence has been gathered on the issue?
? Is the evidence valid and reliable for each drug?
? Form an opinion which actually responds to the question posed: what does the
evidence as you see it actually say?
CONCLUSION
? Re-iterate the main points of your argument, conclude and sum up indicating what sort of recommendations you would make taking into consideration all of the evidence that you have examined.
OTHER ISSUES
Be very careful about:
? Make sure that you actually answer the question.
? Presentation, spelling and grammar; getting this right is easy marks
? Appropriate APA-6 referencing style.
? The use of second referencing (i.e. citing a paper that has been cited by someone
else that you have read). If the paper is important enough to be included then you
should go to the trouble to actually read it.
? Determining the veracity of the methods used in the papers that you cite. It may be
that a paper does not support the majority of the literature that you have cited, possibly because the methods used were in some way flawed. It is appropriate for you to ensure the methodological quality of all of the papers that you discuss.
? Minimise the use of summarizing textbooks, I prefer if you read the original material and scholarly reviews more than generic text books.