Evolution, Behavior, and Ecology

Library assignment

A critical component of progress in science is the communication of concepts, hypotheses, methods, results, and conclusions among practicing scientists. The most formal means of communication is through peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals. Such articles present original data generated by the authors of the article and the authors' interpretations of their results in light of previously published data. Thus, an important skill for students of science is the ability to use the primary or original scientific literature, which is a skill rarely if ever taught in high school science courses. Your C/I class is designed in part to give you practice using the Abell Library system, but not all C/I sections use the primary scientific literature. Also, many if not most students in the three Biol 115 sections will move on to Biol 116 in the spring semester, where one requirement is writing laboratory reports that make reference to the original literature. For these reasons, we who are teaching Biol 115 this semester have included an exercise that requires you to locate a specific article in the primary scientific literature, and to read it and prepare a summary that demonstrates the ability to use the literature and some knowledge of its content.

The purposes of this assignment are a) to familiarize you with the physical location in Abell Library of the original scientific literature, b) to acquaint you with the organization of original scientific articles, c) to teach you the proper format for citing original research articles, and d) to give you the opportunity to begin an exploration of the scientific literature that is pertinent to evolution, behavior, and ecology. The content of this assignment is as follows:

Go the Abell Library to the Current Periodicals section (northwest corner) and locate one or more of the following journals:
 
 

Browse through your chosen journal to find an article that interests you. You may want to browse through more than one journal issue, or you may want to browse through earlier issues of a journal. These are located in the Bound Periodicals area to the west of the Current Periodicals area. You may also want to browse through more than one journal. Some journals are "taxon specific"; for instance, the Journal of Mammalogy will have articles about mammals, and Herpetologica will have articles about reptiles and amphibians. These journals contain articles about a broad range of topics. Others journals are "subject specific"; Animal Behaviour contains articles about, oddly enough, animal behavior, and Evolution contains articles about evolution. These journals contain articles about a broad range of taxa.

Choose an article that presents original data and conclusions (e.g. not a review, summary, news article, or opinion paper). An original research article begins with a Title followed by the authors' names, addresses, and institutional affiliation. The body of the article usually contains the following sections: Abstract, Introduction (which may not have a heading), Methods (or Materials and Methods), Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, and Literature Cited (or References). The article you choose should be on a subject of interest to you, but it must also relate to the content of this course. Obviously once you have chosen an article you must read it. You must also make a copy to turn in with the document that you will prepare.

After you have read the article, you will prepare a summary document that contains the following elements:

1) Begin with a citation of your article, which follows this format:

Author(s) Last Name(s), Initials, Date of Publication. Title of article. Title of journal, volume: page numbers of article

For instance:

McMellen, A. B., K. V. Snipes, and W. E. Meyer. 1997. The effects of propylthiouracil (PTU) on the development of thermoregulation in neonatal Japanese Quail (Coturnix japonica). Auklet 23:101-108.

Goldsmith, S.K, Z. Stewart, S. Adams, and A. Trimble. 1996. Body size, male aggression, and mate selection in Plectrodera scalator. Journal of Insect Behavior 9:719-727.

2) Following the citation, briefly describe (in a sentence or two) the type of information (not the specific content of your article) that is found in the sections of the article outlined above.

3) Following this description, briefly (in a paragraph or two) describe one hypothesis tested or question addressed by the authors of the article, the results presented to test the hypothesis or answer the question, and the conclusions drawn by the authors relative to the hypothesis or question.

The document that you prepare should be no more that one page in length, should be computer word-processed, double spaced, in 10 or 12 point font, left justified, with margins of 1" on all sides.

Be sure to attach a copy of your article to your summary document.

Summary documents are due in my office (or to my box (61611) by 5:00 on Friday, 30 September.