Assignment #1: How to Read Scientific Publications
Assignment #1: How to Read Scientific Publications
A well-written scientific paper and its abstract should follow an underlying organization or structure to convey its content. This means that there are identifiable “parts” in the paper describing the work. Furthermore, these parts should be organized in an ordered sequence such as:
- Introduction
- Problem definition (Context)
- Previous approaches
- Critique (“Gap”): what is new?
- Purpose: why you/anyone still needs to work on this?
- Methods and Materials
- Results and Discussion
- Conclusions
- What has been done
- Future work: what hasn’t been done
In this course, you will be guided in the process of identifying the underlying structure of a well-written paper. You will focus on the language and its use for your own writing. In addition to capturing the language that works for you, we will show common language problems that we have identified among Brazilian-Portuguese native speakers. You will learn strategies and tips that can improve your writing and increase the comprehension of your manuscripts
For this assignment, you should have selected a few scientific manuscripts that are useful for your writing and/or related to your area. You will examine them with a fine-tooth comb!
- Select 3 scientific papers from reliable sources, in your area and of interest to you.
- It is important that you read the manuscripts and determine whether they are well-written.
- Can you verify whether the papers are CLEARLY written, especially if they are within your field of expertise.
- If possible, determine whether these essays have been written by native speakers of English.
- HOW? One way would be to seek the help of someone who is at native level or has mastered the English language well. Note that this may be very difficult to achieve.
- You can choose papers from journals with "high impact" or those that have a very selective editing committee. Selecting these types of papers as guidelines may steer you towards well-written papers.
- Read the material critically. Use the strategies proposed to read scientific publications.
- Skim the paper using the order suggested.
- Make sure you understand the title
- Read the abstract
- Go over the introduction
- Examine the conclusions
- Look at the section headings, figures and tables
- Anything else of interest to you?
- Try to answer these questions:
- What is the topic of the paper?
- What is it about, in one sentence?
- Can you understand the method(s) used by the authors?
- What are the contributions of this work? Can you list them?
- Remember, you cannot copy text “as it is”. That would result in plagiarism. The goal here is to identify parts that can help you produce your own terms and sentences.
Your assignment must be submitted as a text file.
- Name the file as follows: "assignment_1_yourfirstname.txt" (or ".rtf", or ".doc"/".docx" if you use Word), where yourfirstname is indeed your first name.
- Write the title of the assignment in your file, include your name and date.
- Your answers must include as much detail as possible (must include a couple of paragraphs).
Important
- Do not copy "text as is" from the web or your work will be considered plagiarism. You must use your own words.
- Throughout the course, you must cite your sources properly. Points will be taken off for failure to do so. See an example of a proper citation below:
Correct:
Stockman, Farah. "Foreign activists stay covered online." Boston Globe. Boston Globe, 30 01 2011. Web. 30 Jan 2011. <http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2011/01/30/mass_groups_software_helps_avoid_censorship/>;.
Incorrect: http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2011/01/30/mass_groups_software_helps_avoid_censorship - For help with proper citations you can usse online resources to create citations. Use, for example, citationmachine.net.