PB2a

 http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/detail/detail?sid=6c14383f-9d2a-4573-950b-7264e1d02b69%40sessionmgr113&vid=5&hid=116&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=111561584&db=a9h

When looking into this assignment, I first thought that it was going to be difficult to find a publication that would interest me. However, after only my second search, I found “Managing Anger in Adolescents”, an article by Mary Lowth published in “Practice Nurse” Vol. 45, Issue 12 in December of 2015. I took interest in this particular article for two simple reasons. The first, anger is a fascinating concept in psychology and it is interesting to see how various people define anger and operationalize the very abstract concept. The second reason I found interest in this article is because it deals with the area of life which I hope to one day work with and help, adolescents.

Being a scholarly article, one would definitely expect this article to have conventions that are specific to the scientific and academic genres. One of the most prevailing conventions that caught my eye right from the start was that every time the word ‘anger’ came up, it was bolded. Since the entire purpose of the article was managing anger, it would make sense to call attention to every time the word comes up. Another convention that I found while reading through the paper is the capitalization and use of different color writing when switching main talking points. This provides a clear understanding to the reader that the focus of the upcoming section is switching and lets them know what the new section is going to consist of.

Since this is published on a webpage, there were also many conventions that are specific to online sources only. One of the more interesting conventions I found was links on the left hand of the page that were able to take you to specific parts of article. This convention is useful in many ways, but primarily I found that it was helpful for when I have already read it, and wanted to go back to a specific part, so instead of scrolling through to find it, I just clicked the main section title. Another set of links that made online reading more convenient was the ‘tags’ section at the end of the page. This convention not only made it useful when finding the article in the first place, but it provided a list of clickable words for reading more if interested. Next to the tags, there was also ‘further reading’, a section that provided links to more article in relation to anger and adolescents. Lastly, at the top of the webpage, there was a button that you could click in order to have the entire page read to you. This convention made comprehending the article much more convenient since the font size was really small and zooming in caused the need to scroll back and forth.

Being an article about mental health, there were many questions posed throughout the entire piece of work. The main purpose of these questions were to provide background specific to this area of study. “Is teenage anger a medical problem?” set up the topic for the entire article. More questions included “What is the problem with anger?”, and more generally “What is anger?”. The third question posed set up the section which was used to operationalize the concept of anger. According to Lowth in this article anger is “a defense mechanism, a coping mechanism, a means of displacing other difficult emotions, and a reasonable response in some circumstances.”  (Lowth) The operationalization of anger according to the writer is very vague, understandably so, because anger is hard to define. The most important aspect of the piece that struck me was the statement that anger and other mental health issues are normal. This seemed as the most important based simply on repetition. Furthermore, there were various sections that provided resources, links, and advice for those who suffer from anger and other mental health issues.