Solved by verified expert:How to Write a Journal Article Review APA Style
Erica Sweeney, eHow Contributor
A journal article review is a common assignment in college and graduate school. Reviewing
journal articles is an important assignment on its own or as part of a much larger research paper.
Typically, instructors will give you guidelines on the type of journal articles to review and what
to include, but general APA journal article reviews will follow certain conventions. Articles
should be from peer-reviewed or scholarly journals and relate to the field of study that the class
discusses.
1. Search the library’s online databases, such as EbscoHost and others, to find scholarly or peerreviewed
articles. You can also look in indexes available at the library.
2. Read the entire article. Many journal articles can be quite complex and use complicated
wording and statistics. You may need to read the article a few times before you get a full
grasp of it.
3. Write a citation for the journal article at the top of the review. The citation should follow the
American Psychological Association’s style—consult the APA-style manual or the link under
Resources for citation information. You will need the title of the article, the journal where the
article is published, the volume and issue number, publication date, author’s name and page
numbers for the article.
4. Write a summary of the article. This should be one to three paragraphs, on the length of the
article. Include the purpose for the article, how research was conducted, the results and other
pertinent information from the article.
5. Discuss the meaning or implication of the results of the study that the article is about. This
should be one to two paragraphs. This is where you offer your opinion on the article. Discuss
any flaws with the article, how you think it could have been better and what you think it all
means.
6. Write one paragraph discussing how the author could expand on the results, what the
information means in the big picture, what future research should focus on or how future
research could move the topic forward. Discuss how knowledge in the area could be
expanded.
7. Cite any direct quotes or paraphrases from the article. Use the author’s name, the year of
publication and the page number (for quotes) in the in-text citation.
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Disasters, 2003, 27(1): 37–53
Elements of Resilience After the World Trade
Center Disaster: Reconstituting New York City’s
Emergency Operations Centre
James M. Kendra
Tricia Wachtendorf
Disaster Research Center
Univ of Delaware/
Univ of North Texas
Disaster Research Center
Univ of Delaware
In this paper we examine the reconstitution of the Emergency Operations Centre
(EOC) after its destruction in the World Trade Center attack, using that event to
highlight several features of resilience. The paper summarises basic EOC functions,
and then presents conceptions of resilience as understood from several disciplinary
perspectives, noting that work in these fields has sought to understand how a natural or
social system that experiences disturbance sustains its functional processes. We
observe that, although the physical EOC facility was destroyed, the organisation that
had been established to manage crises in New York City continued, enabling a
response that drew on the resources of New York City and neighbouring communities,
states and the federal government. Availability of resources — which substituted for
redundancy of personnel, equipment and space — pre-existing relationships that eased
communication challenges as the emergency developed and the continuation of
organisational patterns of response integration and role assignments were among the
factors that contributed to resilience following the attack.
Keywords: resilience, emergency operations centres, World Trade Center.
Introduction
In this paper, we examine organisational resilience in the response to the World Trade
Center disaster in September 2001, using as a case study the re-establishment of the
Emergency Operations Centre after the destruction of the primary facility. The
Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center
(7WTC), one of the most sophisticated centres of its type in the world, was the
designated coordination site for the various organisations that were expected to respond
to any major emergency affecting the city. It contained computer-equipped
workstations for organisational representatives, a communications suite, a conference
room, a press briefing room and a large number of staff offices. On 11 September
2001, the EOC was evacuated shortly after the attacks on the twin towers. At 5:20 pm,
the entire 7WTC structure collapsed as a result of fires that are thought to have been
ignited by the collapse of WTC Tower 1. The destruction of 7WTC was the only
recorded case of the collapse of a large steel-frame building as the result of fire
(Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2002). Following the evacuation of the
© Overseas Development Institute, 2003.
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148,
USA.
38
James M. Kendra and Tricia Wachtendorf
EOC, emergency management personnel moved to intermediate facilities, and finally
relocated it to a semi-permanent location at Pier 92 on the Hudson River. Less than
three days after the attack, emergency management personnel had established a site that
in many respects mirrored the destroyed facility and that, although lacking in elegance,
preserved and magnified many of the functional attributes of the original EOC
complex.
An EOC is both a place and a social system (Quarantelli, 1997). It is
comprised of representatives from various public, private and non-profit organisations.
Although those representatives answer to their respective organisations, when
functioning within the EOC they comply with additional requirements. The resilience
of a functioning EOC is related to features of each organisation as well as to features of
the operational environment, such as suitability of equipment and furnishings, and of
the set of participating organisations as an integrated socio-technical system. Because
the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) permanently staffs the EOC
space and plays an instrumental role in its activation, the resilience of the EOC as an
organisation during an emergency is possibly more closely related to OEM’s
organisational robustness than it is to that of other departments within the city. At the
same time, the instrumental role each department plays in the EOC organisation cannot
be overstated. Re-establishing the EOC demanded multi-organisational coordination
(including among organisations that were new to disaster response), access to
resources, identification of new resources and the intelligent maintenance of familiar
operational patterns as well as the incorporation of new ones.
Methods
Findings in this paper result from inductive analysis and are based on qualitative data
gathered during exploratory fieldwork that commenced within two days of the attack
and continued for two months thereafter. During that time the field team conducted
over 750 collective hours of systematic field observations. These included close
observation of key planning meetings at secure facilities, including the EOC, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Field Office and incident
command posts near the ‘Ground Zero’ area. The field team spent extensive periods
observing operations at Ground Zero; respite centres established for rescue workers;
family-assistance centres established for victims’ families; and sites for marshalling
volunteers, supplies and food. The field team also observed activities at major security
checkpoints in lower Manhattan and at other locations that were important in the
emergency response. The team wrote voluminous notes that provide a rich description
of observations and experiences; it took over 500 photographs; and sketched and
collected floor plans of various facilities to chart the spatial and organisational changes
over time. We were thus able to track the evolution of the reconstituted EOC, and
other facilities, from very early stages. We were particularly interested in the activities
of formal and informal organisations and the multi-organisational coordination of
different aspects of the response: identifying which organisations were involved in
particular functions of the response and early recovery, the effectiveness of interorganisational interaction, the degree to which responders implemented planned
emergency response activity and the extent to which alternative response strategies
emerged. We sought, in general, to identify successes and challenges experienced by
those responding to the disaster.
Elements of Resilience After the World Trade Center Disaster
39
In addition to direct observation in New York City, we collected numerous
documents produced by local, state and federal agencies as well as by individuals and
organisations with less formal ties to response efforts. These documents included
internal and public reports, requests for information or resources, informational
handouts, internal memos, schedules, meeting minutes and agendas, maps and internal
directives.
DRC also assembled an extensive electronic database of articles and webbased information. The database includes articles from major New York City
newspapers for six months following the attack. The database includes articles from
major periodicals, selected articles from newspapers worldwide and information from
the many government, charity, community-based, individual and private Internet sites
that emerged after the disaster. All of the information was later coded according to
relevance to the response and early recovery as well as to the primary operational
functions related to the response effort. The identification of these operational
functions was informed by the literature on disasters and based in large part on the
activities observed during the field component of the research.
The use of multiple data-gathering methods and sources, including direct
observation, documents produced by New York City agencies, documents produced by
victims of the disaster and by informal supporters of the official response, newspaper
accounts, and Internet-based data, allowed us to triangulate the resulting data. That is,
we were able to compare the information collected from one source with other sources
as a means to check for accuracy and validity of the data (Denzin, 1998; see also
McKendrick, 1999).
The Emergency Operations Centre
Quarantelli (1979) identifies six functions of EOCs: coordination, policymaking,
operations management, information gathering, public information and hosting visitors
(see also Wenger et al., 1987). Perry (1991: 204) has called the EOC ‘the key to
disaster response’. It centralises at a single location the personnel and equipment that
are needed to manage a response to diverse types of emergencies. All EOCs are
expected to have multi-hazard response capabilities; that is, response managers should
be able to cope with a variety of disaster types (see Kreps, 1991). At the EOC,
representatives from organisations crucial to response efforts interpret information
gathered from the remote locations of the emergency site and from outside sources
(using such means as maps, satellite data, weather reports, resource inventories, health
and safety statistics and news accounts) in order to understand and coordinate the
disparate, shifting elements of an evolving dynamic situation and to mount an effective
response through mobilising the assets of many branches of government. EOCs are not
fully staffed at all times; rather, they are activated only when an event crosses a certain
magnitude threshold requiring a multi-agency response. EOCs differ in their design,
equipment configurations and capacities, based on their community’s resources,
technical sophistication and risk exposures, but they all share the goal of coordinating
the interactions of various agencies at different levels of government. EOCs serve as
the headquarters for planning and response decision-making during a disaster event and
support operational response implementation undertaken in the field. The EOC
concept allows for interpersonal communication, technically supported information
exchange, and decision-making among the representatives of different agencies, who
40
James M. Kendra and Tricia Wachtendorf
are in turn communicating with their personnel either at the scene of an emergency or
elsewhere in their respective organisations.
The New York City EOC boasted an array of technological capabilities to
support the generic functions that Quarantelli (1979) elaborated. The facility at 7WTC
was outfitted with computer-equipped workstations for up to 68 agencies, arranged into
groups called ‘pods’ (based on response functions such as health and medical, utilities,
public safety, infrastructure, human services, transport, government and administration)
with an ability to expand by another 40 workstations if the need arose (OEM, 2001).
Workstations were equipped with software that made it possible to perform the
specialised tasks of the various constituent agencies. The site was equipped with
computer messaging systems for communication among staff, a phone system with
provision for microwave back-up, separate systems for fire department, police
department and EMS communications, coastguard-operated video monitoring of New
York’s waterways and traffic monitoring of the city’s streets. A raised ‘podium’
provided selected staff an overview of the EOC and its operations and allowed for
access to a variety of sources of weather information — including direct National
Weather Service feeds — video conferencing and ARCVIEW and MAPINFO
geographic information systems (GIS) packages. Podium staff could use databases and
maps to view the location of critical systems and facilities, such as the electric grid,
water system and hospitals (OEM, 2001).
In addition to its explicit, instrumental capabilities, the EOC at 7WTC fulfilled
another more symbolic emergency management capability: the projection of the city’s
authority and influence. A large table dominated the mayor’s conference room with a
telephone for each person seated at the table. Projection screens along one wall
facilitated the display of maps, charts and images. Windows enabled policy-level
conferees to look out across the work floor of the EOC, where the representatives of the
different agencies staffed the workstations. The mayor and staff from the mayor’s
office were clearly awarded a privileged space that symbolised and facilitated their
leadership. At the opposite end of the EOC was the press briefing room; the wall
behind the lectern was transparent and allowed for a view of the EOC work floor where
dozens of personnel from various agencies would be working during a typical
emergency. During news conferences or other broadcasts, cameras directed at the
speaker would also look out at the work floor and project to the public images of
response personnel as a backdrop to the messages being delivered by the mayor at the
lectern. The focal point of the work floor was the podium, installed on a raised
platform, staffed by officials of the mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM)
whose job is to coordinate the interaction between the other agencies. For example,
one feature of this process is calling agency representatives ‘to the podium’ to give or
receive information. The OEM official thus was in a commanding position both
physically (looking down on the agency representative) and organisationally (able to
influence although not totally control the information flow). The visual impression
from all directions was that of a busy, competent, technologically advanced emergency
response in a well-designed, well-equipped facility.
The Destruction of 7 World Trade Center
The broad outlines of the events of 11 September 2001 are now widely known, featured
as they have been on television and in other media. Because of the extreme hazard
Elements of Resilience After the World Trade Center Disaster
41
caused by its close proximity to the towers, 7WTC was among the buildings evacuated
after the second airplane strike. In addition, early reports of a possible third hijacked
aircraft with an unknown destination contributed to the decision to evacuate.
The evacuation of the facility was very rapid, and little or no equipment or
documentation was saved. Emergency managers, along with the Mayor and some
agency representatives, kept falling back from the attack area to intermediate sites in
order to set up a command post. Before long each of these alternative sites proved
hazardous or otherwise untenable. During the initial period after the attack, the city
made use of a mobile emergency operations unit that was able to provide a base for
initial re-establishment of the EOC.
Preliminary accounts conflict regarding the nature of communications
difficulties during this early time; most communications were down, but the 800Mhz
capability remained and OEM personnel could communicate with other staff.
Eventually OEM personnel reached the library of the Police Academy but they soon
found its configuration and communications capability to be inadequate. Meanwhile, a
parallel operations centre was established at a nearby high school to serve as a forwardstaging area. This was an improvised arrangement, with cafeteria tables being used for
meetings, wires running everywhere and very old telephones. Nevertheless, this site
was set up to resemble the spatial organisation of the original EOC, with workstations
and a command table. During the night of 13 September, approximately 60 hours after
the attack, the operations at the Police Academy moved to a large cruise ship facility at
Pier 92 on the Hudson River. This semi-permanent location housed the EOC until midFebruary 2002, when OEM moved to a facility in Brooklyn.
Conceptions of resilience and their relevance to the World
Trade Center response
Various conceptualisations of resilience, which can be found in several different
literatures, suggest an ability to sustain a shock without completely deteriorating; that
is, most conceptions of resilience involve some idea of adapting to and ‘bouncing back’
from a disruption. Wildavsky contrasts resilience with anticipation in this fashion:
Anticipation is a mode of control by a central mind; efforts are made to predict and
prevent potential dangers before damage is done… Resilience is the capacity to
cope with unanticipated dangers after they have become manifest, learning to
bounce back (1991: 77).
Elsewhere, he argues that dealing with unknown hazards ‘as they declare themselves’
is another expression for resilience (Wildavsky, 1991: 70). Others have defined
resilience somewhat differently. For example: ‘Resilience is the ability of an
individual or organisation to expeditiously design and implement positive adaptive
behaviors matched to the immediate situation, while enduring minimal stress’ (Mallak,
1998a: 1); and ‘Resilience is a fundamental quality of individuals, groups,
organisations, and systems as a whole to respond productively to significant change
that disrupts the expected pattern of events without engaging in an extended period of
regressive behavior’ (Horne and Orr, 1998: 31).
While defining resilience is clearly challenging, identifying the features of
organisations and other social units that make them resilient is even more difficult.
42
James M. Kendra and Tricia Wachtendorf
Although researchers differ in the terms they use to describe various features of
organisational resilience, they nevertheless orient their analyses around such features as
redundancy, the capacity for resourcefulness, effective communication and the capacity
for self-organisation in the face of extreme demands. Resilience appears to be as much
a set of attitudes about desirable actions by organisational representatives as it is about
developing new capabilities. Identifying resilience where it exists is less onerous than
creating it where it does not. Nevertheless, the various literatures do appear to consider
resilience as the ability to respond to singular or unique events.
Weick’s (1993) analysis of events surrounding the deaths of firefighters at
Mann Gulch offers one important approach to conceptualising resilience. In subjecting
the account of that disaster in Norman Maclean’s book Young Men and Fire (1992) to
an organisational reanalysis, Weick identified four principles, tenets or features that
allow for effective response in rapidly changing, ambiguous conditions. When in
place, these principles facilitate the collective ‘sensemaking’ that is required for a
group to comprehend and respond to crisis or sudden change. These principles include,
first, ‘bricolage’ (following Levi-Strauss, 1962), which is the capacity to improvise and
to apply creativity in problem-solving. Weick cites Bruner (1983: 183), who argues
that creativity (which Weick sees as a component of resilience) is ‘figuring out how to
use what you already know in order to go beyond what you currently think’. Second,
‘virtual role systems’ preserve intact in each person’s mind a conception of the system
of which they are a part. Each person ‘mentally takes all roles’, so that even in
situations of peril and disruption everyone is able to maintain a shared vision of risks,
goals and possible actions. This allows people both to fill in for an absent member
(one who is either physically or cognitively absent) and to refer to that conception in
order to align their actions continually with the shared goals of the group. Third,
‘wisdom’ is the capacity to question what is known, to appreciate the limits of
knowledge and to seek new information. Fourth, ‘respectful interaction’, following
Campbell (1990), consists of respecting the reports of others and being willing to act on
them; reporting honestly to others; and respecting one’s own perceptions and trying to
integrate them with others …
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