literatureassign

Reading, writing from, and understanding scientific literature
The Assignment

The assignment (10 pts) -- DUE at beginning of class FRI. January 25th

The purpose of this assignment is to give you some experience in finding, evaluating, reading, and writing from primary and secondary sources. My instructions are a bit "canned", directing you to do this and that, rather than letting you "run wild on your own". The goal is to have you explore the differences between primary and secondary scientific sources, as well as more public ones.

The assignment has 3 parts, as follows:

1. Go to the new periodicals area (where the new issues of journals are) and find an issue of the journal Science from 2001 that has at least a couple of ecological or evolutionary papers in them. Look through the journal carefully (to do a good job would take you at least 20 minutes) and answer the following questions:

a). Photocopy the table of contents and CIRCLE the primary articles (those reporting new findings with original data).

These are found under the heading RESEARCH and include primary research articles and reports.

b). How do these differ from the News, Essay, or Perspectives articles found under the headings NEWS and SCIENCE'S COMPASS?

c). Look at several of the "Letters to the Editor". Pick one and tell me in your own words what the "letter-writer" is trying to accomplish (include a xerox copy of the letter).

2. In that same issue, find a pair of articles – one of which is the research article or report and the other of which is the News summary of that article. Photocopy both (you can reduce them to 2 on a page to save space) and then write – in your own words – how the two articles differ in their approach, format, and style.

3. Now, go to the www and find the Science website (www.sciencemag.org). After looking it over a bit, go to the BROWSE BACK ISSUES and find your issue (remember to keep a photocopied copy of the table of contents to use as a reference). Look at how the online version of the issue differs from the printed journal page. Go ahead and find the primary article and News and Comments summary you used in #2, above, and print it out. Notice also how there are web links to various resources in the literature cited portions of this article (and also others).

What to hand-in:

1. Photocopied table of contents from the 2001 Science issue with circled articles and answers to questions on a separate page.

2. Photocopy of primary journal article and its accompanying News or Science Compass article and answers to questions on a separate page.

3. Printouts of table of contents and News / Science Compass article (from # 2) from the WEB SITE.

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