CRITICAL ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

DUE: 11 OCTOBER, 1 NOVEMBER, 22 NOVEMBER

 

            Select and read a recent paper of your choosing in a professional journal reporting ecological or evolutionary research. You may choose from the primary (original research) or secondary literature (although at least one of your three short essays during the term should address the primary literature), but I’d prefer you don’t use the popular “news” press (e.g., NY Times, Newsweek...), or very short “note”-type publications. (It might be interesting to compare something from a more popular source with something from a more technical journal, and you might have other clever ideas as well; if in doubt, ask me.) Write an analysis/critique essay -- about 4-5 typed, double-spaced pages or equivalent -- including some or all of the following:


-- DO INCLUDE The full citation for the paper chosen, including author, year, title, journal, volume, and pages. Standard scientific citation format is something like (look at papers in the journals for examples):

             Bray, J.R. 1964. Primary consumption in three forest canopies. Ecology 45:165-167.

but you can use whatever format you’re comfortable with right now.


-- A brief summary of the paper (generally no more than half of your paper), concentrating on the questions addressed by the author(s), general approach to their address, and relevant findings. Don't rehash minutiae of procedure and so forth, nor feel compelled to be absolutely comprehensive; your reader should have a clear idea of what the study was about, what questions were being addressed, what the general approach and conclusions were, but they (I) can always go to the original if more is desired.


-- A critical appraisal of the paper addressing questions like: What are its intellectual strengths and weaknesses? Did author(s) show what they claimed to have shown? Were alternatives considered? Controls satisfactory? How might the work/paper have been improved? Were you convinced? BUT you don’t have to deal with all of these; whichever sorts of questions make sense for you in this case.


-- Speculation on where to go next. THIS IS IMPORTANT. What other interesting questions might this work relate to? What new questions were generated? What research needs to be done to follow up? (Authors usually do a bit of this, and you can take their ideas and run with them, but you might have additional thoughts.)


-- Perhaps a brief statement of why you chose the paper -- what interested you in the first place?


            In evaluating the paper you may wish to read and refer to other sources. If so, make sure they are correctly referenced. Use one of the styles of citation used in the scientific literature (look at journals, your text, readings...). e.g., mention author and date in text, and give the full reference at the end of your paper. Footnotes are not generally used in scientific writing.


            This assignment is intended to: 1) further expose you to the scientific literature, 2) provide occasion for you to pursue a particular topic in depth, 3) exercise your powers of critical analysis, and 4) provide an exercise in writing clear, succinct, grammatical English. Papers will be evaluated on the quality of writing as well as on intellectual content and organization. Be precise; don't digress, and avoid overblown writing (and don’t try to force your essay into a model that doesn’t fit; use outlines if they help you, but don’t feel constrained, for example, to forms that might have been forced on you in the past).


            Here are some thoughts on how you might SELECT A PAPER FOR REVIEW. You might have a particular topic you’re interested in; if so, try using on-line search engines. Go to the ‘databases’ page at Crossett Library website, and check out: BioOne, Academic Search Premier, INFOTRACT, JSTOR. Try searching for appropriate keywords, or just browse through the journals on-line. SEVERAL OF THESE JOURNALS are also on the shelves (current issues in reading room older ones bound, in stacks). NOTE particularly that Ecology is on shelves and in JSTOR, but JSTOR doesn’t have last few years. OR ASK ME for hints. Below are some appropriate journals at Crossett (there are others), some in paper, some through databses. Some have lots of stuff that’s not related to ecology or evolution; be selective if necessary. There are other journals elsewhere, if you happen to be spending time in another library.

            FINALLY, once you find a paper that looks interesting, read the Abstract. If it still looks interesting, and like you might be able to make sense of it, browse the Introduction and Discussion sections. Some interesting papers are likely to be inaccessible to you right now; that’s okay; just keep looking.

            Primary journals: Ecology, Ecological Monographs, American Journal of Botany, American Naturalist (lots of theoretical papers), American Midland Naturalist, Evolution, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Nature, Science

            Secondary journals: Science, Nature (these two are in both groups), Review of Ecology and Systematics, American Scientist, Scientific American, The Sciences (these last three hover between the “technical” and the “popularized” and might be particularly accessible at the outset). Things like Discover, National Geographic, etc. are good but distinctly on the popular side; they usually don’t give a very complete picture of the research; if you want to use something from such magazines, check with me.