Peer Review Reflection

1) After reviewing Stephanie's paper, I noticed some improvements I could make on my paper as well. First, I think that I also have some run on sentences that could be more concise. I think that I try to put too much information in one sentence and it can become confusing for the reader to understand. I also need to go back and review my paper to fix these instances. I also am not sure if I cited my in-text citations completely correct, so I will need to review those as well. Stephanie's introduction was a tad bit short and my introduction may be too. In my introduction I should make sure there is a lot of good background information for the reader to learn more about the topic. I think that having two graphs in my paper is a good amount. I think Stephanie should add in at least one more graph so she has more visuals to present to her readers.

2) After reviewing Gabriel's paper. I reflected that in my paper I should be more direct to the point. Gabriel did a nice job at stating the main points and relating them to the topic directly. His graphs were also visually appealing and easy to read. I need to reflect my in-text citations and make sure they are correct as well. One improvement I suggested to Gabriel was to elaborate and explain his quotations more in depth. I could add more detail into my paper as well.

IMRaD Paper Reviews

Post your comments on my paper here please.

Introduction and Methods

Introduction

            On average, humans spend about one third of their life sleeping. This seems like a large amount of time. Sleep is a necessary activity in human life to stay healthy. Sleep affects human growth, stress hormones, immune systems, appetite, breathing, blood pressure, and cardiovascular health. Do sleep schedules affect student’s academics? Academics are extremely crucial to student’s especially in college years because this stage of their life is important in determining their future. Student’s sleep schedules may differ from the week nights versus the weekend nights. Student schedules are so packed that they may be spending their entire nights staying up doing homework or studying. Although, other activities may seem more important to students than sleep, this could reflect on their academic performance. Students’ academics involve a variety of lifestyle factors, and one of the most important ones may be getting a sufficient amount of sleep on a daily basis to succeed in classes.

            According to Hershner and Chervin (2014), “A potential obstacle to maximizing success in college is the high prevalence of daytime sleepiness, sleep deprivation, and irregular sleep schedules among college students.” Students stay up too late at night which causes them to not get a sufficient amount of sleep to be alert throughout the day and ready to learn. According to Dement (1997), “The average sleep requirement for a college student is well over eight hours, and the majority of students would fall in the range of this value plus or minus one hour.” Also, it is discussed that not getting enough sleep then puts humans in sleep debt. In order to get out of sleep debt a human needs to get extra sleep that is over the daily requirement. Students are so involved with their studies and extracurricular activities it makes it difficult to make time for extra sleep in such busy schedules.

            In another finding, it was found that sleep also correlates with alcohol consumption. It is stereotyped that all college students spend their weekends partying and drinking. College students indulge in alcoholic beverages and become intoxicated leading them into the next day with a sluggish hangover. In a study by Behav Sleep Med. (2015), “Sleep disturbance and heavy drinking may function as a negative feedback loop. Alcohol consumed 30-60 minutes before bedtime reduces sleep onset latency and consolidates sleep during the first half of the night at both high and low doses but fragments sleep during the second half, particularly at high doses.” Students may believe that they are catching up on sleep on the weekends, but they are really not receiving a healthy cycle of sleep if they are drinking alcohol before they go to sleep.

            Sleep can be difficult to prioritize in a college student’s lifestyles. Sleep schedules can differ day by day, week by week, or even month by month. Is sleep really affecting how students perform in their academics. A survey was conducted to closely examine the times students go to sleep on the week days, the week nights, if they are staying up all night to study, or even sleeping in their classes. It is more than just the aspect of sleep that is important it is when the students are sleeping that is also important.

Methods

Participants: Those who participated in this study were college students from the University of Iowa, who ranged in ages from Freshmen to Senior year. ____ students participated in this study that helped contribute to the results.

Procedure: Students were asked to complete an online survey where they were asked to complete a series of questions relating to their sleep schedules correlating with their academics. The first question was, “What time do you go to sleep on a week night?” The question provide the choices of before 9:00 am, between 10:00-11:00 pm, between 11:00-12:00 am, between 12:00- 1:00 am, and after 1:00 am. The next question was, “What time do you go to sleep on a weekend night?” The same answer choices were provided from question number one. The third question was, “How often do you do an all-nighter to study or do homework?” The answers choices provided were, almost every night, once a week, once a month, a few occasions, or never. The fourth question was, “Do you fall asleep in class?” The answer choices were always, usually, sometimes, rarely, or never. The last question was, “Do you believe you do better on an exam after getting a good night of sleep or studying all night?” The two choices to answer this question were, studying all night, or getting a good amount of sleep. These questions were asked on a website named surveymonkey.com. Bar graphs were generated to help display this data to vividly see the difference between the answers.

Data Analysis: (still waiting for some more responses on survey to complete the data analysis)

Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XZWD95H

Chart and questions

Survey Questions:

1) What time do you go to sleep on a week night?
-Before 9:00 pm
-Between 10:00-11:00 pm
-Between 11:00 pm-12:00 am
-Between 12:00-1:00 am
-After 1:00 am

2) What time do you go to bed on a weekend?
-Before 9:00 pm
-Between 10:00-11:00 pm
-Between 11:00 pm-12:00 am
-Between 12:00-1:00 am
-After 1:00 am

3) How often do you do an all-nighter to study or do homework?
-Almost every night
-Once a week
-Once a month
-A few occasions
-Never

4) Do you fall asleep in class?
-Never
-Occasionally
-Always

5) Do you believe you do better on an exam getting a good night's sleep or studying all night?
-Studying all night
-Getting a good amount of sleep

Synthesis Chart:

Author of Study	Target Amount of Sleep	Influence on Academics	Sleep Benefits	Other Information
J AM Coll Health. (2010)		Students at risk for sleeping disorders may also be at risk for academic failure	Teaching students how to sleep effectively can improve their well-being	Most college students are a risk for sleeping disorders
Sleep Breath. (2005)	Long sleepers (9 or more hours) had higher GPAs than short sleepers (6 or less hours)	Higher GPA with longer sleep times
Neuron. (2012).			A night of sleep results in a 20% increase in motor speed without loss of accuracy
J Addict Med. (2010)				Energy drink users tend to have greater involvement in alcohol consumption or drugs relative to non-energy drink users

IMRaD Proposal

-Topic: How sleep schedules affect student's academics

-This topic is important because students have such busy schedules and excessive workloads that they may not be getting a healthy amount of sleep each night.

-Questions:

1) How much sleep do students get during the week nights versus the amount they get on the weekends?

2) How much sleep is required a night to have a healthy life style?

My research plan is create a poll to post on the University of Iowa Class of 2021 student page and have people fill it out electronically. I will ask some different questions including how many hours of sleep they get on a school night versus on a weekend night, if they feel refreshed in the morning, and if they get a good night of sleep before an exam if they score higher. I plan to use graphs to prints this data.

IMRaD

There are several major differences between an IMRaD paper and an argumentative research paper. First, a IMRaD paper requires either an experiment, a poll, or an observation (at least for our specific guidelines in this class). An argumentative research paper requires you to cite sources to support your argument, but it is not necessary to conduct any additional experiments and to present the data.

Also, an IMRaD paper has a different tone than a argumentative research paper. The tone of an IMRaD paper is to inform the reader in a scholarly and direct manner. In a argumentative research paper the purpose is to use a persuasive tone to convince the reader to believe what you are writing by using sources to back up your argument.

Additionally, an IMRaD paper is formatted significantly different than a argumentative research paper. An IMRaD paper is much more concise, while an argumentative research paper contains much more information making it longer. An IMRaD paper also has a very strict format including, an abstract, introduction, methods, research, and discussion section. An argumentative research paper uses headings that are more the choice of the writer and that are related to what the topic is that is being written about.