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Carolina Sanchez
Instructor: Scott Kneece
Writing 2
9 June 2016
Sleep? Or No Sleep?
As we start to write at a university level, we have to pay more close attention to the type
of academic disciplines we use. We need to pay attention to the way authors present and explain
a topic and their findings. We cant just blindly choose an academic discipline to support our
topic of research because we would not be taking into consideration that different disciplines
have different purposes, different content and different formatting. Just because certain
disciplines have a topic in common it does not mean they correlate with each other. As I started
to research the topic of sleep deprivation I noticed that different disciplines focused on different
aspects of sleep deprivation. When I looked into the psychological point of view on sleep
deprivation from the book Sleep, Neuronal Plasticity and Brain Function, by Peter Merlo,
Robbert Havekes, and Axel Steiger, it was clear that lack of sleep can lead to psychological and
physical problems. In contrast as I looked at the article, The Effects of Basic Military Training
on Shooting Tasks in Conditions of Sleep Deprivation, the author, Mario Jovanovi, expressed a
different point of view on sleep deprivation. This article researched how sleep deprivation
contributed to better handling of weapons and adaptation to stressful conditions in Special
Operations Battalion (SOB) training in the military. Psychologists and kinesiologists approach
the topic of sleep deprivation in a different way, in which one tries to prove that sleep deprivation
can lead to mental disorders and the other tries to demonstrate how soldiers who are trained
under stressful conditions such as sleep deprivation, are still able to perform their task with

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minimal difficulty. The book, Sleep, Neuronal Plasticity and Brain Function, is more effective
on explaining why sleep deprivation can cause negative effects on a persons metal health
because it provides evidence, from a variety of subjects, for the consequences that sleep
deprivation has on the physical body, compared to the article, The Effects of Basic Military
Training on Shooting Tasks in Conditions of Sleep Deprivation, where the the author only
focuses on a specific group of subjects who are being trained to properly function under stressful
conditions, such as lack of sleep.
We have been told that a good nights rest is necessary if we want to be able to function
throughout the day, but many of us are unaware of what happens when we deprive ourselves
from the sleep we need. Psychologists study the way humans behave, think, and feel. In the book
Sleep, Neuronal Plasticity and Brain Function, the editors set up the book in a certain way so
when researchers or scholars look at it, they are able to understand the purpose of their research
and what goal they are trying to accomplish. The book starts off with a preface where they give
brief background information on sleep and they give a short description of what can happen if
someone is sleep deprived (Peter Merlo 6). The book then goes on to give more in depth
information about sleep as a behavior. In the first chapter the author, Tom Deboer does a good
job on explaining the meaning of sleep, what it means to be sleep deprived, and the effects of
sleep deprivation. Deboer starts off his chapter on sleep with an abstract explaining what the
chapter is all about. He supports his stance on sleep by citing the sources he gathered the
information from, which helps gain credibility with the reader. He then moves on to explaining
what can happen to the brain and body if someone is sleep deprived. Deboer supports his
findings by providing graphs with data of electrical activity of the brain recorded in different

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sleep states (Deboer 16). With data Deboer provides, he supports the idea that sleep deprivation
can lead to negative effects.
Using graphs gives the author credibility with the person looking at the ending results. In
psychological studies, the authors want to be as credible as possible and use as much evidence as
they can to support their research. They have to be able to support their arguments with reliable
evidence. Reliable evidence would consist of other psychological research that has already been
proven and concurs with their argument. In the book, Sleep, Neuronal Plasticity and Brain
Function, the authors dont simply rely on their own research, but they also rely on past research
from other experts in the field of sleep. At the end of each section in the book, each author cites
their sources. These sources come from other psychologist in the same field of study and from
studies that have researched the same topic. For example, at the end of the text the author lists
the references he used to support his claims (Deboer 35,36) This lets the reader know that the
author is credible and able to support their findings. In this academic discipline the authors
looked at the negative effects that lack of sleep has on people, but there are academic disciplines
that also researched sleep deprivation and based on their research came up with different results.
In the academic article, The Effects of Basic Military Training on Shooting Tasks in
Conditions of Sleep Deprivation, the department of kinesiology approaches the topic of sleep
deprivation differently. This article is very brief and does not go into as much detail as the
previous discipline. Unlike the book, this article is written in a scientific report format. It starts
off with and abstract then an introduction and it is divided into sections for method, procedure,
analysis, discussion and conclusion. In the introduction the author, Mario Jovanovic, introduces
his topic of research and compares his study with other studies previously performed (Jovanovic
31). The article was written to inform us about the effects of stressful conditions such as lack of

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sleep on soldiers during military training. In contrast with the book, this author has evidence that
suggest that sleep deprivation does not have a huge impact on soldiers military task
performance.
The author gathered enough data to suggest that soldiers are not impacted by sleep
deprivation when trying to perform a military task such as shooting (Jovanovic 34). Jovanovic
displays his results by using graphs and providing a section in the text where he explains his
results and what the information in the data tables represents. The graphs show how well soldiers
performed their shooting tasks while sleep deprived and while being fully rested (Jovanovic 35).
The graphs consisted of a lot of number and abbreviations so if the reader is not familiar with
interpreting graphs, its data, and its terminology the results can be confusing. I dont know much
about the military and the terms they use so trying to follow along with the article and the
information the author was trying to get across was difficult for me. Although these two
academic disciplines differed in content, they did have some similarities in format. For example,
both disciplines started off by providing and abstract and ended with a list of references the
authors used to support their argument. Both disciplines were interesting, but the discipline that
helped me understand sleep deprivation better was the psychological discipline.
I preferred using the book, Sleep, Neuronal Plasticity and Brain Function, as my
psychological discipline on sleep deprivation because it was more detailed and it gave me more
information on what sleep deprivation really meant and what could happen if a person does not
get the amount of sleep that is necessary. The book was divided into sections and in each section
the author stated the purpose of their research and gave a brief explanation of what their
experiment was about. In each of these sections the authors also investigated different areas of
the brain that could be affected by sleep deprivation. The authors of each section supported their

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findings by providing reliable evidence. They provided the reader graphs displaying the results
of their experiment and the data from the graphs supported their claim that sleep deprivation can
lead to mental and physical complications. The format and content of the book felt more
appropriate for my research topic of sleep deprivation. This book was more useful for me
because I was interested in learning about the psychological effects sleep deprivation had on the
human body and this book provided a lot information about the cause and effects of sleep
deprivation.
Throughout this book I feel that the wording, references and resources they used are more
appropriate for the topic of sleep deprivation. Although the book was composed by psychologist
who are experts in their field of study, the reader can still understand what is being said without
the need of an experts help. In contrast the article, The Effects of Basic Military Training on
Shooting Tasks in Conditions of Sleep Deprivation, has good information, but it did not support
my research on sleep deprivation as well as I expected.
In the second discipline, The Effects of Basic Military Training on Shooting Tasks in
Conditions of Sleep Deprivation, the author provides the reader good information, but it is
mostly based on the effects sleep deprivation has towards military training and the accuracy of
completing such tasks under the conditions of sleep deprivation. This article was very brief and
did not point out the negative effects that sleep deprivation can have against soldiers in training.
The article mainly focused on the soldiers that were not affected by the lack of sleep and were
able to perform their task even under the condition of no sleep. The article focused on soldiers
who were expected to perform well even after being sleep deprived based on their military
training. The results of the study showed that soldiers were not affected by sleep deprivation due
to their military training (Jovanovic 34). This article was not helpful in finding more information

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about sleep deprivation and the negative effects it can have on the human body because it
focused on a specific group of people and it did not explore what could happen to the soldiers
who cannot perform their military tasks because they were sleep deprived.
In conclusion the psychological discipline was the academic discipline that best support
my research topic. Within that discipline I was able to understand more thoroughly what sleep
and the lack of sleep really means. It provided evidence that showed sleep deprivation can cause
psychological and physical problems. On the other hand, the article on sleep deprivation and
military training did not give me the information I needed. It was difficult for me to understand
because I was not familiar with many of the military terms the author used throughout the text. I
also did not know how to properly interpret the results the author gathered from his research. The
data tables were difficult for me to read because I did not understand what the number meant.
Overall, Comparing and contrasting these two disciplines was very interesting. I learned that
having a topic in common does not mean the content is going to be the same. I learned that when
researching a topic I have to pay close attention to the academic disciplines I want to use to help
support my research.

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Works Cited
Jovanovi, Mario. "The Effects of Basic Military Training On Shooting Tasks in Conditions of
Sleep Deprivation." Kinesiology 44.1 (2012): 31-38. Academic Search Complete. Web.
24 April 2016.
Meerlo, Peter, Robbert Havekes, and Axel Steiger. "Chronically Restricted or Disrupted Sleep as
a Causal Factor in the Development of Depression." Sleep, Neuronal Plasticity and Brain
Function. Springer-Verlag Publishing, New York, NY, 2015. 459-482. Current Topics in
Behavioral Neurosciences. ProQuest. Web. 24 April 2016.