Q. Do I have to use all of the references I wrote annotations for in this assignment?
A. No. As you work on a topic, your understandings will change, you will likely come across more useful sources. It may be that you end up using none of them. That would be a pity, all that work not used! So, it depends on what has happened as you have worked on the two tasks. It may be that they are the same set. It may be that they are not. Typically it is likely to be somewhere in between.
Q. I'm confused about the relationship between the two assignments. Are they the same thing?
A. The only thing that is the same or roughly so, is the topic or focus. That too may have changed a little, the more work you did. All of this is fine. If you've been keeping track of this in your notebooks, it will make the writing so much easier because you will be able to trace the development of your thinking. The 1st assignment was a preparation for the 2nd. Writing an annotation for each reference was designed to have you come to grips with the research literature you drew on. The 2nd task is a draft of a professional journal article. The two forms are very different.
Q. The journal I am writing for has a word limit less than the word limit for this assignment, what do I do?
If you plan on submitting the paper to the journal then you need to keep within the journal's word limit. To meet the word requirement for the assignment, you can write a supplementary piece that you can point to in your paper which you can make available online.1
If you are not intending to submit the paper then write to the word limit of the assignment.
Q. The professional journal I am writing for uses a format for references that is not APA 6th. What do I do?
Here I am referring to the references you have used for your paper, i.e. the ones that will form part of the paper and will be included in the journal's word count. There is also a list you have to submit for the assignment, the third part of this assignment.
If you plan to submit the article then clearly you will need to format it according to the journal requirements. This is very easy if you are using EndNote. All you need to work out the name of the style they want.
If you do not plan to submit the article to the journal then it makes sense, for subsequent sources to submit references in APA 6th format.
So the assignment has 3 parts: Introduction; the draft article (including references cited in this paper); and the complete list of references you have used while working on your topic.
Q Is there a problem if it is an academic rather than professional paper ?
Yes. Writing for an academic journal is much more demanding. The task is to write a piece for professional colleagues. If you have a professional need to write for an academic journal then we best chat about it.
Q. Linking to practice….. how I see it now, in future, what I am doing, what I am suggesting, or case studies of …?
How the research literature sees it needs to be the support for your paper. The task is to draw on the research literature to inform your professional peers about your issue. I have done a brief evaluation of what I think is a good example of the kind of thing that would work well in a professional journal.
Q What is the difference between an academic and a professional paper?
Basically, the journal it is published in, i.e. the journal will spell out what its purpose is, e.g. to publish research about X or Y. A professional journal will say it is concerned to inform it's readership about latest developments or whatever. Now the distinction does get blurry when you find some research papers appearing in professional journals. You won't find the reverse. The distinction is also tricky because you will find that some academics publish a lot of their work in professional journals, i.e. seeing their main role to communicate ideas/information to their school colleagues.
Q The journal I'm writing for many of the articles write under subheadings. I know that's not usual for an essay, but would it be acceptable for this?
Subheadings you will notice are used in almost all articles, academic and professional. You are writing the draft of a professional journal article, not an essay. Headings, sub-headings are all fine. It's the way these documents are structured.
Q Do we state in the title page the name of the journal we are writing for?
If you look at the assignment specs, you will see that you need to write an introductory piece for the assignment, in which you name the journal for which you are writing and why you chose it. The 2nd bit of the assignment is the draft paper and the third bit is all the referencess you have used. This means you also need to include references in your draft paper, but only those that you need for that paper. The final list of references is all you have used during this course to explore your topic.
Q I think I read on Wikidot that we should make an appendix and attach information regarding Journal specifications.
Yes. You do need an Appendix. It depends however on what you plans are for the paper, i.e. if you have written it just for the course or you plan to submit it for publication.
• If you have submitted just for the course then you don't need to worry about the technical specifications of the journal, it makes no sense. Just use APA 6th formatting, still write it as a paper, i.e. with an abstract etc. if that is what the journal wants but the formatting can be what is most useful, i.e. more practice for using APA 6th. In this case the Appendix ought to have information - just copy and paste - of what the purpose, audience etc. of the journal is, i.e. so i can make a judgement about how well your piece fits.
• If you plan to submit it to a journal then it makes sense to include both the technical requirements and the purpose/audience information from the journal as an Appendix. It also makes sense to format the paper you submit to me in the manner the journal requires, to save you extra work!