Overview
Assignment Steps
- Read the “Guide to Reading Academic Research Papers” located in the Canvas assignment folder.
- Select one journal article from the folder to read, annotate, and analyze. You may also find and select your own journal article; however, Dr. Ralston must approve it no later than one week before the assignment's due date.
- Read and annotate the paper using the steps outlined in the guide. Do not just highlight text. Make notes about the paper, write any questions, identify and define words you did not understand, and comment on parts of the paper you like/dislike or agree/disagree with. You may do this by hand or digitally.
- Critically analyze one of the figures included in the paper. Include the figure in a word document and answers to the following questions.
- 1. What is the purpose of this figure? How do you know?
- 2. What key elements are included in this figure that allows you to understand what is going on? What information does the author include that helps the reader understand the figure?
- 3. Do you think this is the best way to represent this data visually? Why? If not, how could the information be conveyed more clearly (different types of figures, breaking the figure into multiple parts, a table, etc.)?
- Write a one-page summary of the paper that answers the questions below:
- 1. What was the experimental goal? Why was it important to the broader world?
- 2. Briefly explain the methods of this paper. If you do not understand the methods, explain what parts you had difficulty with.
- 3. What were the main conclusions of the paper? How do they connect to the broader world and previous studies? What are some of the possible implications of this experiment? Do you agree with the conclusions that the author drew?
- 4. What did you like and dislike about this paper? What would you change, and what is one takeaway you can use in your writing?
Your summary should not exceed one page and should include a proper citation and reference
for the paper. For this assignment, you can discuss your paper as a group. However, each person must submit their own files. For grading, you should submit three files:
- A copy of the paper with your annotations. If you choose to print the paper and do the annotations by hand, please scan the paper and create a pdf file. I recommend an app called Genius Scan for this; however, there are many similar options. If you need help with this, please contact one of us.
- A one-page summary of the paper that answers the questions above and includes the proper citation and reference. For the citation and reference, you may use the formatting of whatever scientific journal is most relevant to your field of study.
- A single page with the figure you choose to analyze and the answers to the questions above.