Written Assignment (due Week #8)
Students will be given the abstract of a published paper not discussed during the course on Week #6. Students will be asked to describe, in two pages (double-spaced) or less, the experiments (including controls) that might have been done to justify the abstract.
Oral Assignment (due Week #14)
Students will be provided with a research paper on Week #11. Each student or group will use Powerpoint to present the paper, including a brief introduction, key figures or tables, and a summary. A critical analysis of the paper will be presented by the students. For each figure, students will answer the following questions:
- What is the question that the authors are addressing?
- What are the experiments and techniques used to address the question?
- What are the controls for the experiments?
- What is the conclusion stated by the authors?
- Is this conclusion substantiated?
Most importantly, students will identify the key figure(s)/table(s) of the paper and the key control experiment(s) for that figure or table. Presentations will be 15 min followed by 5 min of discussion with the class.