Assignment Problem:
The format of the term paper is a historical review based on three primary research articles. Your paper should trace the progress of a topic in physiology from a landmark primary research article to an important primary article published in the last twelve months. The article published between the landmark article and the current article should demonstrate the progression of the scientific idea you have selected. The format is very specific, and is probably not a format you have used in the past.
It is designed to meet two objectives: 1. to help you think about how scientific ideas build on each other and 2. To help you acquire the skills to read, synthesize and write about the primary biology literature. You will be graded on your introduction, description of each primary research article, the transitions between them, and your conclusion, as described below.
The first thing you need to do is to select your topic, and the three primary research articles you will use. You will have to read more than three articles to select the best ones for your paper. You should consider your topic and the selection of research articles carefully. If you choose articles that do not build on each other, you will not be able to write an appropriate introduction, transitions and conclusions. These components focus on the objective of describing how scientific ideas build on each other. If you chose articles that you do not understand, you will not be able to summarize them. The summaries address the objective of understanding and summarizing the primary literature. To find landmark articles you may also look in textbooks to find articles that are important enough to warrant a citation there; at the work of scientists who have won Nobel Prizes for Physiology or Medicine; or at articles that are often cited in recent reviews, the introductions of primary articles on your topic or the literature, as indicated in Google scholar. You must select a topic in animal physiology, not human physiology. You may not write on Pathophysiology (diseases) as the main topic, nor include the development of a technology or method as one of your main articles. You may not write about your lab research or a topic you are writing on for another class. If you are not sure about your topic or articles, talk to your TA.
The first assignment is to select a topic and the three articles you will discuss. Remember that your topic must be physiology, and not be human physiology, or Pathophysiology (diseases). Include a title of your term paper, which indicates the topic, and the citations of the three articles using APA citation style. Behind this page, staple the full abstract for each of the three articles. You may not e-mail or FAX this assignment or any other assignment to your TA. You are responsible for bringing the assignment to class. Do not include plastic covers.
The second assignment is to write the transitions (an outline) of your term paper. This is mainly the transitions between the articles. Each transition should be formatted as its own paragraph. Between each transition paragraph, you should also include a brief summary of what each article contributed to the topic. The summary should include a brief indication of what the purpose, approach, results and conclusions are, but this part does not have to be complete sentences. Include the reference section at the end with the primary references in chronological order (oldest first). Use APA format for citations in the body of your work (the text) and for individual citations on the references page. Other formatting, such as the order of citations and sections and other formatting should follow the instructions in this document, not full APA style. The assignment should be double-spaced, and include a header at the top with your name, lab section, the date and the number of words. It is recommended that you use italicized section headings, such as a question or a brief description of a major finding that indicates what is in the following section.
The third assignment is to write the entire summary of one of the articles of the series you have selected, in a coherent paragraph or paragraphs. The summary will be like the one we work on for the capsaicin article. The summaries should be 400 to 500 words for this assignment, and subsequent assignments. The assignment should be double-spaced, and include header at the top with your name, lab section, the date and the number of words. Turn in assignments one and two clipped behind assignment three.
The fourth assignment is to write a rough draft. The rough draft should include a title page that includes:
a) A working title for your paper
b) Your name
c) The due date of the assignment
d) The name of your TA
e) The name of the course
f) The number of words in your draft (3000 to 3500 words).
The draft itself should contain (double spaced):
a) An introductory paragraph or two
b) Paragraph(s) describing the first primary research article
c) A transition paragraph describing how the first primary article lead to the second primary research article
d) The second and third primary research article summary paragraphs with transitions between the descriptions of each article
e) A conclusion paragraph.
In addition, you must have a citation page that includes: the complete citations of the three articles you have selected under the heading "Primary Citations" in APA format.
Your introductory paragraph(s) should indicate the topic of your paper, why it is important and an overview of the progression of research that you will discuss. This is a formal paper. It is not appropriate to include personal stories in a formal paper. The significance of the material you discuss should be of general interest, not why you personally are interested in the topic. This is a section where you may want to refer to articles in addition to your three major primary research articles. The citations of these additional references, which may include review articles or books, should be listed in the "Other Citations" section. The introductory section should also lay out the progression of science that you will discuss so the reader knows what to expect. This is not the time to write suspense. The most effective method is to have one introductory paragraph describing the significance of your topic, and a second introductory paragraph describing the progression of the science from the first article you will discuss though the last, to let your reader know what to expect.
For the description of each primary research article you need to include:
Why the research was done. In other words, what questions were the authors answering, what hypotheses were they testing, or what system were they describing. What was the gap in our knowledge they were trying to fill?
What the authors did, which is what their approach was. Examples include, but are not limited to, looking at expression of protein X with immunohistochemistry, looking at expression of genes X, Y and Z with in situ hybridizations, or measuring physiological output such as respiration or cardiac function. It is important to state what protein, gene or physiological output was being measured, not just how it was measured, because knowing what was measured is how the approach logically links to the hypothesis.
The results: This is the summary of the most critical measurements the authors made. If you do not also describe what they did, the results will not be meaningful, so there may be some overlap or integration of the approach and results.
The conclusions: This is different from the results. It is the discussion of whether the results that they measured support or do not support the hypothesis, and why.
Your TA will be looking for these sections. You will earn a better grade if your TA can find these elements easily. A good way to do this is to start sentences with phrases like "The purpose of the study by Sun et al. (2002) was to..." "The authors approached this question by..." or "The result of the protein expression experiment was..." or "From the expression pattern of protein X the authors concluded..." You may use the previous phrases freely without it being plagiarism. They are common and relatively short phrases.
Between your paragraphs that describe the relevant results from each primary research paper you need to write a transition paragraph. The easiest and best way to do this is to describe the main contributions of the previous article and what questions were left unanswered by the previous article that will be answered by the next article. These transition paragraphs may be short, but they are critically important because they explain how the papers are related to make a story. Writing good transitions will also demonstrate that you understand the progression of science, which is one of the learning objectives of this assignment; therefore the points awarded for transitions are disproportionate to the fraction of space they take in your paper. You may have a situation where progress was made because a novel technique was developed. If this is the case, you should not include the technical paper as one of your Primary Citations, but you will need to explain the technical advance. Briefly describe the advance and why it was necessary for the research you are describing in the transition paragraph and include the citation in the Other Citations section.
For the conclusion paragraph, you should reiterate the importance of the topic you have selected. Then describe the progression of the papers. Wrap up with your conclusion of where the field is and, if possible, suggest what should be done next.
You will find out what score your rough draft would have earned, if it were the final draft. Use this information to improve your work for the peer review and final draft. If the score you would have earned is an A, you may take that score for your final term paper grade (multiplied by 10), or revise and resubmit, if you wish.
Organize your Primary Citations in chronological order. Organize your Other Citations alphabetically by the last name of the first author.
Your fifth assignment is to review the rough drafts of classmates during your lab section. You should incorporate your TA's comments.
The final assignment for the term paper is the final draft, which is due at the beginning of your lab section as indicated in the schedule. Clip your graded rough draft and the rubric used to grade it to the back of your final draft.
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