Scientific journal reading and writing: Finding and understanding the structure and style of Review articles

Stevenson CAP Biology 337-339 2023 Homework 05. Scientific journal reading and writing: Finding and understanding the structure and style of Review articles Due Wednesday Feb 15th 5 points 1. Find five review articles (not original data papers, not commentaries, not news articles). Good places to look for papers include Annual Review of Physiology and Physiological Reviews. The journals Biological Reviews, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics or Annual Review of Entomology may also have papers with a physiological focus. Sometimes there are review articles in the American Journal of Physiology, Functional Ecology, Journal of Experimental Biology, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, but these journals are mostly devoted to original articles. Another strategy is to type in a topic say “Osmoregulation in birds and then add the word “review” to the Google scholar search. For this topic, I found two papers and a book that are reviews. Mini reviews and TREND’s papers are not acceptable for this assignment. Such papers tend to be short summaries Review papers instead are longer papersand provide broad over views. They are often highly cited papers and have 100’s of papers they cite. Examples for osmoregulation Gutiérrez, J.S., 2014. Living in environments with contrasting salinities: a review of physiological and behavioural responses in waterbirds. Ardeola, 61(2), pp.233-256. Simon, E., 1982. The osmoregulatory system of birds with salt glands. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Physiology, 71(4), pp.547-556. Skadhauge, E., 2012. Osmoregulation in birds (Vol. 12). Springer Science & Business Media. Examples for the regulation of iron. Andrews, S.C., Robinson, A.K. and Rodríguez-Quiñones, F., 2003. Bacterial iron homeostasis. FEMS microbiology reviews, 27(2-3), pp.215-237. Andrews, N.C. and Schmidt, P.J., 2007. Iron homeostasis. Annu. Rev. Physiol., 69, pp.69-85. Ganz, T., 2013. Systemic iron homeostasis. Physiological reviews, 93(4), pp.1721-1741. If there is any doubt in your mind about whether the paper is a review paper or not, check with me or your TA. If the paper is not a review paper, I will not give you credit for the assignment. 2. Give the citation for each and write several sentences describing why you chose each paper. 3. Write an extended analysis of one review paper. Consider each of the sections or structural elements of the paper. Note the paper with not have a methods and results section because it is a review paper. Submit the pdf of the paper and your commentary. Use the questions below to help guide your writing. Title: Is the title affective and informative? See https://plos.org/resource/how-to-write-a-great-title/ as a guide to writing a title. Is it descriptive or does it help the reader understand the message of the paper? Abstract After reading the paper, does the abstract summarize what is in the paper? Does it represent the message of the paper? Introduction What topic are the scientists addressing? (i.e. Decode the title of the paper) What area or topic of physiology? (Where does this fit the topics and section of our course syllabus?) What fundamental physiological processes and themes were they studying? (What other physiologists and biologists would be interested in this paper? Who do the authors hope will read the paper?) How do they introduce the subject? (How do they relate their specific experiments to other studies that have been published?) How did they justify doing the review? (Why did they say their paper is timely?) Do the authors provide linking text at the end of the introduction that helps the reader navigate the rest of the paper? How is the rest of the paper organized? (If it is a review paper, it will not have a traditional methods and materials section) What are the section headings? What is the logic to this organization? Review each section and state: What body of literature has the section covered, and what were the authors able to conclude from that literature? Summary statements Are there any overarching conclusions? Does the order parallel the order in the presentation of the sections? How has this research changed the way people think about the world? Were there any new “facts” discovered? Do they discuss the broader implication(s) of their findings? Did they suggest what kinds of studies might be done next? Who funded the research? Could that influence the work? Your interpretation How important do you judge this paper to be? What ideas or techniques were difficult to understand? List any term you were unable to understand or look up in a biology text book. Did you find the review paper easier to understand or more interesting than a standard research paper? Checklist I have a standard review paper and I need to upload 1 PDF and 1 response document about the 5 review papers with an extended analysis of one of the reviews. Tips and Mistakes to avoid. 1) Look for papers that say “Review”, NOT a commentary article or primary research article. The review paper will not have methods and results sections 2) Recommend that you name the PDF files with the author, year and title: For example, “Andrews & Schmidt 2007 Iron homeostasis” 3) Make sure the PDF matches the paper you write about 4) Please do not upload papers in a zip file. I do not have time and space to down the zip file, unzip and then read the papers.

• Grid View