This assignment is meant to have you use what you learned about the scientific method in Ch1 on an article summarizing a Scientific Article. Remember that the scientific method is all about asking what, how and why. Scientists begin with an area of interest that brings up several questions. After thinking about those questions they settle on the main one, which becomes their hypothesis. To test this hypothesis, they set up an experiment where they test different things. The data obtained from those tests are then analyzed and described in their results. Based on those results they will either conclude that the hypothesis was correct, incorrect, or that they need to do even more tests or studies.
Please refer to page 11-12 of the syllabus on how to set up the paper and guidelines. You must submit this as a word document or pdf to the assignment in the weekly module so that it can be analyzed by UniCheck. Failure to follow the instructions can result in reduced points or a 0, for example: submitting another article or not answering questions. The URL link and article title must be included to receive points for this extra credit assignment. You can use sources like ScienceDaily, Science in the Classroom, or other similar sources. Do not use questionable sources like Facebook or questionable sources from there.
These are the questions you will use to help you summarize your paper in 1-2 pages for full credit:
1. What background research did the authors do? What were they interested in before doing their research? (The subject the authors are interested in that made them come up with a question that lead to a hypothesis.
2. What question(s) did the authors come up with? How did this question become their hypothesis? What more specific problem or question in their background research led them to develop a hypothesis: the question or theory that can be used to build an experiment)
3. Out of all their questions what did the authors decide to look at? Based on their hypothesis, how did they decide to set up their experiment? (This would be what the authors decided to compare in order to show what they hypothesize, aka want to prove.)
4. What did they test and what did they find? (This is where you look at their data or discussion of the data and see what information they got from it. Did their data support or not support their hypothesis?)
5. Based on what they found, what conclusions did the authors come up with? Did they prove their hypothesis? (After going over their data, what did the authors conclude about their experiment. Did they get the results they expected, did they learn something new, or did they find they need to re-do their entire experiment?)
6. (This question is worth 8 out of the 20 total for the assignment) What questions do you have about what the scientists did in their experiment? What did you learn about this topic? Is this something you feel you’d want to learn more about and why, or why not? How does it relate to anything you have learned in class so far? (This is where you can express your opinion A great response here would take up almost half a page)
HOW TO PREPARE THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE REPORTS: Please follow the format given for each report of the articles
selected for the class. You may not substitute another article for this assignment.
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I. A student must do one report in a word processing program such as Microsoft Word following the proper
format. Please send all of your reports with links to the articles reviewed in one Word document to the
instructor. This can only be through the Anti-plagiarism tool on Canvas, not through email.
II. The Reports will include the following information in the upper left-hand corner: student’s name and class
reference (course number and section number). Also required are: the number of the Report, its date due,
the title of the article, and its URL# (or source from the web).
Example: Student Name (Your Name)
CRN #99999—Report #1
Friday, November 3, 2019
DNA Dilemmas, SCIENCE NEWS
Mar. 15, 2019 Vol. 146, No. 25,
Page 408 (or web url)
III. Under the information in the upper left-hand corner, centered on the page, please type the word:
“Scientific Article Summary: [Name of Assigned Article].” (minus 1 pt if you do not include this.)
IV. Directly under the title heading, type a synopsis of the article following the questions given. Briefly
describe the article’s pertinent aspects in 2-3 paragraphs only. Describe what they are researching, their
hypothesis, what they tested, what they found out, their conclusions and any recommendations they made.
Please do not rewrite the article but be sure to cover all points. Do not forget your own thoughts and
conclusions on the article in the final paragraph as this is worth 10 of the 25 total points.
V. The URL/link to the article is a requirement for points. You must do the assigned article; you cannot
substitute another article.
VI. *Remember, no article URL and inability to find the article on the web, then no credit. * Please make
sure it works. There are No Exceptions here! In science you must always have supporting evidence.
Extra Credit: Please review this same section on page 5. Remember, The URL/link to the extra credit article is a
requirement for points.
