Weekly Assignments
Students are expected to send at least three questions for the discussion of the manuscripts to the instructors one day prior to the class session.
Oral Presentations (Due Week 8)
Each student will choose a manuscript based on one of the covered class topics. Manuscript choices must be submitted to the instructors for approval at least two weeks in advance of the midterm date (by Week 6), as listed in the course schedule. This is to ensure that no two students choose the same manuscript. Each student will prepare a 15–20 minute presentation using Powerpoint about their chosen manuscript and lead a class discussion session.
The presentation should provide relevant background in the research field (approximately 2–4 slides), a summary of the manuscript (approximately 1 slide), the manuscript figures and tables (approximately 1–2 slides per figure or table), and the determined results (approximately 3–4 slides). Most importantly, the students should identify the key experiment(s) and the key control(s) and critique this aspect of the experimental design and interpretation.
The students are expected to present sufficient information to be able to lead a short discussion with the class about whether or not the students agree with the conclusions presented by the authors, or if the class feels that more experiments are needed to validate the authors' conclusions. The students should also discuss what the manuscript findings mean for the research field and what potential next experiments should follow-up this work.
Written Assignment (Due in the Final Class)
Each student will receive a manuscript that is complete and submitted for publication in a research journal but not yet published and available online. The course instructors will be using a manuscript from a colleague that is related to the topics discussed in this course. The manuscript will be missing the introduction and discussion sections, but will include all figures and tables, along with the written results section. Each individual student is expected use the skills developed in this course to write introduction and discussion sections for the manuscript.
For the discussion section, of approximately 3–4 short paragraphs, students are expected to identify the conclusions the authors might have drawn from their results, what this means for the research field, and what the potential next experiments would be for follow-up work. For the introduction section, also approximately 3–4 short paragraphs, students are expected to provide relevant background of the research field and a brief summary of the hypothesis of the manuscript and work completed. Sources should be cited and included in the assignment as a references section.
We ask that this assignment be completed by working alone, not with other students in the course. Research into the published scientific literature is encouraged. Written assignments will be due at the beginning of the final class period. Each student is expected to arrive at the class with a printed copy of his or her assignment.