Journal Entry
Goal of the Assignment
The goal of the Journal Entry is to get you thinking and writing about science on a regular basis. As the semester progresses, you should see significant improvements in your ability to read, analyze, and write about science. For this first journal entry, the goal is read your research article and identify questions you have.
Directions
Begin by reading this week’s research article. Then, write a journal entry about the research article. The purpose of this entry is to identify key points and experiments and to analyze the work.
Journal entries should be 300-500 words and written in paragraph form.
Details
Your entry will be graded in the following areas:
Paper Summary (3 points)
Summarize the article and identify main points and key experiments. DO NOT COPY TEXT FROM THE ARTICLE. Write in your own words.
Focus on the following areas (you do not need to address everything).
What was the question the researchers were trying to answer, or the knowledge gap they were trying to fill?
What was the researcher’s hypothesis (if given)?
What was the main point or finding of the paper? Try to summarize the most important point or finding in 1 sentence.
Describe one of the key (most important) experiments that were done (methods, results and conclusions).
What is the significance of the paper (why were they doing this)?
Analysis (3 points)
Analyze the article. This can include your response, questions, critiques and ideas about the article. You can do additional research when writing this section, but the thoughts and ideas should be your own. You may use the following prompts:
Where do you think the researchers (or the field) should go from here?
What experiments would you do next? Attempt to design a follow-up experiment
How would you have done the experiments differently?
Are there any alternative explanations or conclusions that can be drawn from this data?
What are some real-world applications of this work?
What are some limitations of this work? What should we be cautious about when interpreting this work?
Critique the article’s experiments, conclusions, writing, or presentation.
Why is this work significant or impactful?
What do you think is the most exciting or relevant finding and why?
Does this work relate to other research you have read? If so, how?
*you do not need to answer all of these questions specifically, these are just possible prompts
Writing (3 points)
Adhere to the scientific writing principles we discussed in class the first week. Target your paper to a general scientific audience with a background similar to yourself. Writing should be clear, concise, objective, and use scientific terms correctly.
Length and Citation (1 point)
Paper should be 300-500 words and include an in-text citation and reference for the article in APA or Journal of Neuroscience format.
Rubric Summary
Area
Points Possible
Paper Summary
3
Analysis
3
Writing
3
Length and Citation
1
Total
10
Rubric Details (used for grading in Blackboard)