ESL501 Created by Betsy Divine Adapted from Susan faivre

1. Why do you think there are various styles and formats for research papers (e.g. problem-solution, argumentative, IMRD)? 2. What type of research paper is most common in your field? Why do you think that might be the case? 3. If you know your 501 paper topic, what type of research paper do you think you will be writing? Why is that the best choice given your topic?

 Most research paper (RP) authors operate in a highly competitive environment. Thus, they need to convince publishers that their content is of importance and interest. They need to demonstrate that they are familiar with the relevant literature so as to show that their research questions have not already been answered. Thus, the goals of RP authors are primarily to show relevance, significance, and make a contribute their field.

Take a stand on an issue Compare/contrast different perspectives on a given topic Uses evidence or analyses to support a perspective on a given topic

Identify a problem that is not yet or insufficiently investigated Propose one or multiple solutions Evaluate solutions Explain how to implement the solutions to solve the problem

 Considering these topics, would a problem-solution or argumentative paper be more appropriate? Why? 1. Reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil Problem – Solution 2. Does the hydrated electron occupy a cavity? Argumentative 3. Cutting or raising taxes to spur economic growth Argumentative 4. Finding the missing heritability of complex diseases Problem – Solution

 Argumentative and problem-solution can overlap in the following ways: 1. Both may involve some sort of evaluation—which is more key to argumentative essays 2. Both may involve some sort of solution proposal—which is more key to problem-solution papers However Argumentative essays tend to argue for one way than the other Problem-solution papers try to answer questions or solve problems that are not properly addressed in either approach (models, methods…)

 Literature Reviews give background on previous research done on the subject. They are a means to demonstrate your knowledge, provide the reader with adequate background, and show that your argument is new and valid.  In IMRD papers, they are given at the beginning of a paper and end commonly with the thesis.  They are not a common component of Argument and P-S Papers as supporting sources are integrated into the text.  Lucky for you, however, we will do doing them in this class for practice.

PS papers commonly have four parts: 1. Description of a situation 2. Identification of a problem 3. Description of a solution 4. Evaluation of the solution

I. Introduction  A. Attention Getter  B. Background, interesting information: startling statistics, facts, quotation, personal experience, anecdote  C. Lead-in to thesis  D. Thesis: Somebody should do something II. Identify and demonstrate the problem  A. Current Condition or current policy showing why it is ineffective  B. Weakness of current condition  C. Explore causes and effects of the problem that the current condition does not solve 1. causes 2.effects III. Present Solution(s) IV. Answering possible objections, costs, drawbacks V. Conclusion: implementation of plan; call to action

 I. Introduction  II. The overall problem: identify and demonstrate  III. One part of the problem, solution, evidence, answers to possible objections, feasibility.  IV. Second part of the problem, solution, evidence, answers to possible objections, feasibility.  V. Third part of the problem, solution, evidence, answers to possible objections, feasibility  VI. Conclusion: implementation of plan; call to action

 I. Introduction  II. The problem: identify and demonstrate  III. Alternative solution 1: why it’s not satisfactory  IV. Alternative solution 2: why it’s not satisfactory  V. Alternative solution 3: why it is best: give evidence, objections, feasibility  VI. Conclusion: implementation of plan

For over twenty years now biologists have been alarmed that certain populations of amphibians have been declining. These declines have occurred both in areas populated by humans as well as areas seemingly undisturbed by people. However, offering clear proof of the declining numbers of amphibians has been difficult because in most cases there is no reliable data on past population sizes with which to compare recent numbers. Moreover, it is not entirely clear whether the decline are actually part of a natural fluctuation in populations arising from droughts or a scarcity in food. To address this problem biologists are changing the way that they observe amphibian populations. One good documentation method involves counting species over the course of several years and under a variety of climatic conditions. This method should yield reliable data that will help researchers understand the extent to which amphibian populations are in danger and begin to determine what can be done to stem the decline in populations. Read the following and identify the four components

For over twenty years now biologists have been alarmed that certain populations of amphibians have been declining. These declines have occurred both in areas populated by humans as well as areas seemingly undisturbed by people. However, offering clear proof of the declining numbers of amphibians has been difficult because in most cases there is no reliable data on past population sizes with which to compare recent numbers. Moreover, it is not entirely clear whether the decline are actually part of a natural fluctuation in populations arising from droughts or a scarcity in food. To address this problem biologists are changing the way that they observe amphibian populations. One good documentation method involves counting species over the course of several years and under a variety of climatic conditions. This method should yield reliable data that will help researchers understand the extent to which amphibian populations are in danger and begin to determine what can be done to stem the decline in populations

Please read the paper titled, “The Role of English in Research and Scholarship” and identify the four main parts.

 Situation- Background information about claims for research English  Problem- Reasons for doubting the accuracy of the figures  Solution- Alternative data leading to more accurate figures.  Evaluation- Assessment of the merits of the proposed answer.

1. Introduction 2. Thesis 3. Refutation 4. Conformation 5. Digression (optional) 6. Conclusion

In the following slide, an introduction to a basic research paper is provided.  Identify the following: 1. Background/Previous Research 2. Where and how the “gap” is established 3. Transition into thesis 4. Thesis NOTICE! You may need to include definitions of key terminology.

The public awareness of scientific fraud has increased remarkably since the late 1980s when controversy made front page new, in which a paper investigated for fraud had coauthored a Nobel Laureate [1]. During the 1990s scientific fraud was disclosed on numerous occasions [2]. In fact, it was recently suggested that fraud now is “endemic in many scientific disciplines and in most countries” [3]. However, the clandestine character and consequential lack of reliable information make it difficult to study scientific fraud. The characteristics and frequency of scientific fraud, therefore, are generally unknown, and its impact on medical research unknown. Biostatisticians routinely work closely with physicians and scientists in many branches of medical research and have unique insight into data. In addition, they have the methodological competence to detect fraud and could be expected to have a special professional interest in the validity of the results. Biostatisticians therefore could provide unique and reliable information on the characteristics of fraud in medical research.

 The public awareness of scientific fraud has increased remarkably since the late 1980s when controversy made front page new, in which a paper investigated for fraud had coauthored a Nobel Laureate [1]. During the 1990s scientific fraud was disclosed on numerous occasions [2]. In fact, it was recently suggested that fraud now is “endemic in many scientific disciplines and in most countries” [3]. However, the clandestine character and consequential lack of reliable information make it difficult to study scientific fraud. The characteristics and frequency of scientific fraud, therefore, are generally unknown, and its impact on medical research unknown. Biostatisticians routinely work closely with physicians and scientists in many branches of medical research and have unique insight into data. In addition, they have the methodological competence to detect fraud and could be expected to have a special professional interest in the validity of the results. Biostatisticians therefore could provide unique and reliable information on the characteristics of fraud in medical research.

 It is not advisable to try and understand every word when reading. Good readers use context and read considering their specific purpose. Here, we only need to “get the gist” in order to obtain our goal, which is to understand the structure of the these papers.  In the following research papers: Identify the components that make up a certain type of paper in terms of Goal or motivation of the paper How the literature is reviewed Results

 Hierarchical feature extraction:  In digital image processing, models are trained to extract features from a image. The features may be complex and clustered and therefore a hierarchy of learning algorithms is applied to reduce image classification errors and improve image identification performance.

 What is the goal/purpose of the paper? Identify the location of thesis in the abstract  Is this an Argumentative or P-S paper? Identify where this demonstrated in the paper.  How/Where is the Literature Reviewed? Identify the location and method  Where are the results located? What conclusions have they drawn from their results.

 “Contrary to former hierarchical classification methods that only consider local structure of the hierarchy, we propose a novel cross-level hierarchical classification method that utilizes both global and local concept structures throughout the entire path decision- making process” (p. 1007). 

 Section 2.1 reviews previous works on hierarchical classification. The authors state the advantage of such methods but also argue that “one disadvantage of these methods is that it is hard to consider different data representation at different node. Another disadvantage is scalability—the high dimensionality of the new representation in tensor space significantly increases the complexity of the new problem compared with the original one” (p. 1008). Section 2.2 reviews the literature that introduces the algorithm the authors will be using, which later connects to the methodological design in Section 3.

 “Experiment on a four-level twenty-one- node hierarchy in vehicle dataset demonstrates up to 1.5% accuracy improvement over the conventional classification. In the experiment on Caltech101, our proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art conventional classification by 1% with a 3-level hierarchy based on clustering” (p. 1010).

 Dopamine: a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers. It enables us not only to see rewards, but drives us to take action to get them. Dopamine deficiency would result in Parkinson's Disease, and people with low dopamine activity are found to be more subject to addiction  Pavlovian learning: an implicit learning via mental conditioning that does not require the subject’s consciousness (the example of Pavlov's dog).

 What is the goal/purpose of the paper? Identify the location of thesis in the abstract  Is this an Argumentative or P-S paper? Identify where this demonstrated in the paper.  How/Where is the Literature Reviewed? Identify the location and method  Where are the results located? What conclusions have they drawn from their results.

 “Until now it has been difficult to determine whether dopamine mediates the predictive or the motivational properties of reward-associated cues, because these two features are often acquired together. However, the extent to which a predictor of reward acquires incentive value differs between individuals, providing the opportunity to parse the role of dopamine in stimulus– reward learning” (p. 53)

 The authors first review stimulus-reward learning in rats that differ in the incentive motivational properties, bHR (high responders to novelty) and bLR rats (low responders to novelty). In the second section, the authors report that “ bHR and bLR rats produce fundamentally different patterns of dopamine release in response to reward-related stimuli during learning” (p. 54). In the final section, they report how they tested whether the acquisition and performance of conditional responses were differentially dependent on dopamine transmission.

 “Intact dopamine transmission is not required for all forms of learning in which reward cues become effective predictors. Rather, dopamine acts selectively in a form of stimulus–reward learning in which incentive salience is assigned to reward cues” (p. 53).

 Swales, F., Feak, C. (2007) Academic Writing for Graduate Students, New York: New York