WRT333

Structure and Content of Scientific Journal Articles (2 parts)
Given Sep. 12 | Due Sep. 26

Part 1

Preparation:

• Read the notes for week 2, listed on the syllabus or reading list.
• Find a scientific journal article, one that uses an IMRAD format. There are three ways to do this:
  1. Use one of the articles that I have posted.
     I strongly urge you to make use of my own paper, "Temperature-dependent Development and Feeding of Immature Colorado Potato Beetles..." (pdf).
  2. Use Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) to track down an article on a subject (from the natural sciences) that you have an interest in.
  3. Use an IMRAD article of your own choosing that you have from another class, or that is recommended by a professor in another class, etc.

When you have located an article, make a paper copy of it. (Hint: Choose a short article—one of 5-8 pages, for example.)

Copy and HAND IN the FIRST Page (which contains the complete introduction) only, attached to the following:

Note: Be certain that this is a refereed journal that uses the IMRAD format. Be certain that it is NOT a review article or an opinion piece. Students in Writing and Rhetoric, Public Relations, Communication Studies, English, Computer Science, Engineering, etc. are cautioned that most journals in non-Natural Sciences or technical journals are not IMRAD formatted scientific journal and are not suitable for this exercise. If you are unsure, bring in the article for Dr. Logan to review.

Review notes on IMRAD introductions, particularly Day's five suggested functions for the introduction, repeated here:

You are going to write a 5-sentence mini-introduction to replace the introduction to your paper. Using the article you have chosen, analyze the introduction of the article sentence by sentence.

1. Locate and copy as the first sentence in your mini-introduction one sentence which makes clear the nature and scope of the problem (Day's suggestion #1); be certain that this sentence points to what this paper adds to the literature; that is, don't choose a general introduction that is not precisely focused on this paper. Your "nature and scope" sentence, in other words, must tell "what did these people do in this paper."

2. Locate one (one only, and ignor all others) sentence providing background literature that orients the reader toward this particular paper's topic and copy that as your second sentence. (This represents Day's suggestion #2)
3. Scan the Introduction or survey the Methods. Find or write one sentence that informs the reader about the methods followed in this study (this will be a general statement such as "we investigated this in a series of laboratory studies useing variable temperatures and....") (Day's #3)
4. Similarly, if a summary of results (Day's #4) and conclusions (Day's #5) do not appear in the introduction, write 2 sentences that accomplish points 4 and 5.

Don't Overlook this:: Again, limit your rewritten introduction to 5 sentences (and don't compose a grammatical Eiffel Tower of complex, conjoined clauses to work around this!). Your purpose isn't to have a complete introduction, but merely to demonstrate that you understand Day and could follow his suggestions if you wanted to. When you are done, add a brief (1 paragraph) critique of Day and your introduction. Do you see why he makes his suggestions? Do you think that following them might lead to a revised introduction (i.e., fleshed out a bit more than your mini) might be of greater service to your reader than the introduction you began with?

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Part 2

We will discuss Day's views (see the online notes) on Methods and Results and Discussion in class. Using the same article that you used above, write a short critique (1-2 paragraphs) of the Methods and Results, focusing on the structural relations and distinctions. That is,

• Scan the two sections, reflect on Day's advice, and then write briefly whether you as reader were well served by use of headings in these two sections (could you find your way back and forth between a method and the result it lead to, and vice versa?)
• State whether Methods followed Day; could you (or a reader with some familiarity with this article's subject matter) understand the observations or repeat experiments?
• Specify whether Results were adequate to support conclusions (there may be many ways for you to express your opinion on this).
• Finally, discuss briefly whether the discussion actually discussed the results, and whether the article was closed in the discussion (hypothesis accepted or rejected, question answered or not, etc.).

Please note: A critique is not a summary or recapitulation. It is an analysis. Here, you are to analyze structure and content from the perspective of argumentation and presentation as it is constrained by the IMRAD format, using Day as a guide. If you feel that parts of your article violated Day's suggestions but nevertheless served the reader well, make note of this, explaining concisely and carefully.

How will this assignment be graded? Each part will be assigned up to 5 points (total for assignment is 10% of your course grade) as follows:

1. Part 1: 2 pts for numbered introduction; 1 pt for correctly finding nature and scope or for rewriting first paragraph to include it; 2 pts (1 each) for finding or adding sentences on results and discussion to introduction.
2. Part 2: 3 pts for critique of methods and results; 2 pts for critique of discussion.