Finding, Reading, & Citing Scientific Papers

Types of scientific literature? Primary literature ~ current, specialized, with data research articles, technical reports, conference proceedings Secondary literature ~ broader, less current, summarizes primary literature review articles monographs, some books Tertiary literature ~ broad, discipline-level, background information Textbooks Encyclopedias

Reliable sources Encyclopedias, including wikipedia, are fine to give you a general idea. Helpful for choosing a topic. Textbooks are great for filling in some of the blanks from primary literature. Need a definition or some help with a concept? Try your textbook! Primary literature should be the main source of information Peer-reviewed You can evaluate data and conclusions for yourself

Finding Peer-reviewed lit Articles and Databases (top right, just under top banner) Web of Science Narrow your results by category article type research area year Get full text, and save as pdf Google scholar Google-stalk the authors Interlibrary Loan Look at the references of the articles you found to find more

I found some, now what? Drag your pdfs into Medeley desktop You can also set up to sync with folders on your computer Mendeley pulls out the citation information and keywords but you should double check, especially for older papers You can highlight papers and make notes right in Mendeley Install plug in for word!!!!! when you are writing your paper, click “insert citation” and start typing authors’ names of key words List of papers comes up, choose the right one(s) Ta-da! Correctly formatted in-text citation!! You choose citation format from dropdown menu in plug-in toolbar When you’re done, hit insert bibliography and voila!

Reading Scientific Literature Is it worth reading? What kind of article is it? When was it published? Is the abstract relevant? Keywords? First paragraphs of intro and discussion? Getting Started You’re going to need to read it more than once You’re going to need to look some stuff up You’re probably not going to understand the stats, molecular techniques, etc. That is okay!

While You are Reading Write in the margins summarize a section or paragraph 3 goals are x, y, and z or note what is in each paragraph hypotheses point count methods note any thoughts or questions you had Highlight or underline key text don’t highlight too much, or you’ll never go back and read it all! but highlight enough to keep you on track Three point summary Why was the article important? What was the rationale? Main conclusions? Take home message.

First Read Introduction Skim Methods Skim results Focus on figures Discussion Gather materials you need to answer questions (textbook, paper from references, etc.)

Second read Re-read intro and discussion Anything that didn’t make sense? go back and get more detailed information from methods and results know the limits of your understanding Review figures Think critically Does everything make sense? Are conclusions logical from data? Assumptions sound, or weird? Write 3 point summary Why was the article important? What was the rationale? Main conclusions? Take home message.

Citing We will use the same format at the journal Conservation Biology Not one of Mendeley’s defaults, but you can download it free Install plug in for word!!!!! when you are writing your paper, click “insert citation” and start typing authors’ names of key words List of papers comes up, choose the right one(s) Ta-da! Correctly formatted in-text citation!! You choose citation format from dropdown menu in plug-in toolbar When you’re done, hit insert bibliography and voila! For the love of whatever you hold holy, use Mendeley and do not fumble with formatting the citations yourself.

Term Paper Work in pairs (groan) You choose your partner someone with similar work ethic someone with a similar schedule someone with similar or interesting topic ideas Topics are due 24 th of February, before the start of class to turnitin.com Before then you must Sign up for turnitin.com Instructions in the syllabus Tell me who your partner is, via turn it in. Both partners submit their own document, so I know it is mutually agreed on