EVOLUTION 2014: CRITICAL REVIEW ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS

Write a review and analysis of a paper from the primary research literature. Make sure you understand how this is different from a paper reviewing a topic. Here are the steps (more on each of them below):

          1) Choose an appropriate paper: ‘Appropriate’ means: a) it is a primary research article, b) it is interesting to you, c) it is accessible to you, at least in terms of general argument and research approach, and d) it has something explicit to do with evolutionary biology. This is not a trivial task, so get started soon enough to make sure it works; that will make everything else easier;

          2) Read the paper. Read it closely and several times, until you understand the premises, arguments, approaches, and results as fully as possible (this doesn't mean you have to understand the details of technical procedures and such, if you have a grasp of how the arguments work and how the results obtained relate to them. You may need to read some related material -- papers cited by this one, or ones that follow up on it...

          3) Write an analytic review of the paper. This isn't simply a summary. It can include background, context, commentary, reflection, suggestions, questions, exploration of implications, and, yes, critique. See comments below.  Simple summary shouldn't be more than about 1/3-1/2 of paper. INCLUDE FULL CITATION OF PAPER.

          4) Hand in your essay, by the end of the day it's due.  I'll accept hard-copy, but would prefer an emailed digital version in some standard word-processor format.  A shared google doc is okay; pdf or appleworks 'pages' files are not as good. 

Further notes on choosing a paper:

          Browse: The class syllabus includes a list of journals that are particularly worth looking at, but any biological journal will have some papers addressing evolutionary themes. Browse the journals (on line, or some are on paper in Crossett), or you can use the data-bases (below) to search on key-words or thematic terms.  Or use appropriate search terms in Google Scholar (scholar.google.com).  NOTE that the on-line versions in some of the library data-bases, are ‘embargoed’ for the most recent several months or years.  It's okay to review things that aren't brand new (although try to stay within last 8-10 years).

          For electronic browsing, go to the Library home-page, and choose the link to ‘Search the databases’. (If you want to find a particular journal, you can also go to the ‘Journals’ link, and search for the journal title; it will tell you if we have electronic access and provide a link).  Evolution is always a good place to start; it's in Crossett's subscription to Wiley-Blackwell database.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) also has a lot of good evolution stuff.  But almost any biological research journal will include some papers with an evolutionary focus. Look, first, for interesting titles. If a title looks interesting, read the Abstract; if that is interesting and at least generally intelligible, skim the Introduction and Discussion sections to make sure you’ll be able to grapple with the substance of the paper.

          Search: If you find something interesting but it's older and you'd like to find a more recent paper on a related topic, or you just have a topic in mind that you'd like to explore.  You can use several powerful search tools.  Several of the libraries science data-bases allow broad searching.   scholar.google.com is an extremely powerful search engine.  You can search on authors, on key words, etc. -- but the nicest feature is that you can find, for any published paper, subsequent papers that have cited it. 

          Choose: There will be a fair number of articles that involve, at the core of their argument, techniques (mathematical or otherwise) beyond your particular expertise. It is NOT essential that you understand everything (all the statistics, analytical procedures, whatever) in order to read and review a paper intelligently. However, it is important to understand enough. You will have to judge whether you are ‘getting it’ sufficiently. (Some evolution papers are intensely mathematical – some entirely mathematical models, full of partial differential equations and so forth. If you have the math for these and are interested, go right ahead – but be careful.)

          If you have any questions about the appropriateness of a paper, check with me.

Further notes on analytical/critical review:

          This is not just a book-report-style ‘restatement’ or summary of the paper. Of course, you should offer a concise, efficient synopsis of the primary questions (very important), arguments, approaches, conclusions. It is NOT necessary to recite details of methods and analyses and results unless you wish to comment on them specifically. Ultimately, the most important aspect of a review is your commentary. Why is the research interesting (in general or to you)? How does it fit into larger context (from other work you might look at)? How effective was the presentation (what might have made it better, clearer? look carefully at graphical presentations of results; are they effective? could they have been better?)? Are there logical inconsistencies or problems? What further research questions and possibilities are suggested (authors should do this, too)? (You may not address all of these questions in a particular review, but  you should ALWAYS try to address the last one.)

          As a general guideline (but only a guideline), you might think of devoting about a third of your essay to a synopsis of the study, focusing on the purposes/questions and general approaches and conclusions. It is not necessary to repeat intimacies of procedure and detailed results; get detailed in summarizing only where you need to in order to make a point. Shoot for something on the order of 5 pages.
        FINALLY, MAKE SURE you give, somewhere, a full citation to the paper being reviewed. If you refer to particulars from other published sources, cite them as well.  Use citation formats from the literature you/we are reading.