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Biology 215

Journal Article

 

BIOL 215 project BIOL 215 My home page
 

This assignment is done individually. Each group member should use a different article in order to develop your project background.

Find a recent article in a scientific journal on your term project and anwer the questions (below) in a one to two page report. Start with PubMed or other science databases available through the Skyline Library and search on your topic. Read the abstracts and keep a record of interesting articles. You may have to go to SFSU or UCSF to see the articles.

Choosing an article and journal. There are many appropriate scientific and medical journals from which to choose. To evaluate the appropriateness of a Journal, the following should be true:

• Is the Journal associated with a professional society?
• Do the articles list the author's references?
• Are the articles written by the researchers, not a news reporter?
• Do the articles include data in tables and graphs?
• Do the articles include references cited?

Objectives

After completing this assignment, you should

  1. Understand the structure of academic articles.
  2. Identify differences and similarities between popular and scholarly/academic articles.
  3. Implement specific strategies for dissecting and digesting academic articles.

Background

Think about your hypothesis for your project to find articles related to that concept so you have an article that helps you with your project. What data were collected? How were the data analyzed?

Before beginning

Appropriate peer-reviewed articles are not found through google.

Watch this video to learn about peer-reviewed scientific journals, how to find them, and how to cite them. You can also learn how to cite journals by looking at the citations at the end of the article your choose.

Find a peer-reviewed article

that addresses one aspect of human-influenced change on one aspect of biodiversity. Websites, blogs, and wikis are not acceptable.

You must use an article that includes data presented in a graph.

You want articles that explain what other researchers have found in other areas of the world, not in your study site. If someone's already published your study site then you're not doing research.

Answer the following questions from the article

Put everything in your own words, paraphrase, do not quote.

  1. Give the citation in proper APA format. (4 pts)

  2. At what institution was the work done? (1 pt)

  3. What was the purpose of the work reported? (2 pts)

  4. How many references (citations) did the authors' use? (1 pt)

  5. In what part of the article were most of the citations used? (1 pt)

  6. Copy one graph and, in your own words, describe what these data show. Do not repeat the axes titles: The question is: What’s the conclusion from these data? (4 pts)

  7. Of what value to humans or to the body of knowledge is the work described? (2 pts)
 

*Citation example. Refer to the Style Sheet for directions
Reed, K.D., J.K. Meece, J.S. Henkel, and S.K. Shukla. (2003). "Birds, Migration and Emerging Zoonoses: West Nile Virus, Lyme Disease,Influenza A and Enteropathogens." Clinical Medicine and Research 1:5-12.

The format is: Authors. (Year)."Article title." Journal. Vol. #(issue #):pp-pp (or DOI if epub).