Students will be required to do the following:
1) Use on-line library resources (e.g., EBSCO) to search for primary research articles covering an area of personal interest/relevance from the biological primary literature.
2) Read, interpret, and critically assess the relevance, methodology, results and conclusions of research articles.
3) Summarize and evaluate research presented in a selected article.
Article report requirements (50 total points):
These questions are intended to get you thinking about the paper and to provide directions that you might explore in your analysis. Try to be as critical as possible when answering these questions. Article reports should be 3-4 pages in length (see below for minimum length requirements for each question). Your reports must be in the format listed below, with the answers to the following 8 questions clearly numbered and answered in sequence from 1-8. Failure to submit your report in this format will adversely affect your grade.
1. Introduction: Theory and hypothesis.
2. What is the general biological area that is being addressed in the paper? (2.5 points; >3-4 sentences)
3. Summarize the current accepted theory that covers the general biological question. Is there any disagreement among scientists? Explain. (10 points; >4-5 sentences)
4. Describe the specific hypothesis(es) that is(are) being tested in the paper. (2.5 points; >1-2 sentences)
5. Methods.
6. Briefly describe the specific methods used in the paper and the overall experimental design. (10 points; >5-6 sentences)
7. How well suited is the methodology for testing the hypothesis? Explain. (5 points; >3-4 sentences)
8. Results and conclusions
1. Choose the most important figure or table and concisely describe the experiment being performed and the result of the experiment. (5 points; at least 1 figure/table with a descriiption/summary >3-4 sentences)
2. Describe exactly how the results of the study lead to the reported conclusions. Does the data presented convincingly support the reported conclusions? Explain. (10 points; >5-6 sentences)
3. Describe the next experiment that you would perform if you were conducting this research. This might be an experiment designed to verify the conclusions of the paper, or may represent the next experimental question that should be asked. (5 points; >5-6 sentences)
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