Scientific research paper evaluation

A scientific research paper is a scientific paper (not a review article) from a peer-reviewed journal. An original scientific paper is where the authors actually did some laboratory experiments, presented the data, and made conclusions about their data (these articles must contain an abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections). You can access research papers using Galileo or going to a library that contains research papers. This is more than just finding a research paper and citing at the end of the assignment. You are expected to evaluate the accuracy of the methods used in the research and of the conclusions drawn by the authors. The purpose of this is to teach you how to find accurate information (the internet is not always correct!), how to read a scientific research paper, and to develop the skills in assessing the accuracy and conclusions made by others (critical thinking skills). In the assignment you must add an in-line citation next to the information that you obtained from the scientific research paper with the words “Scientific research paper” in bold in front of the citation, example = (Scientific research paper: Hollier, 2007). The citation in the references section must meet all the requirements of the references section in the syllabus.

The original scientific research paper must be about the topic you selected. The answers to the questions below must relate to the original scientific research paper and discuss their abstract, methods, results, and conclusions made in that paper.

At the end of the essay, after the last section (the conclusion section), you must use the heading of “Scientific Research Paper”. This section does NOT count towards the paper length of 2-4 sides/pages. In this section you must present your evaluation of the paper by answering the following questions about the original scientific research paper (type the question on one line, answer it on the line beneath it, and leave a single line space between the answer and the next question). The answers require explanations. Simply answering “yes” or “no” is not acceptable. Justify all of your answers. A minimum of 5 lines of text is required for answering each question. If any answers are less than 5 lines in length then you will earn an overall grade of zero for the entire assignment.

1. What two main points did you understand from the abstract?
2. What methods were used to conduct the research? Why were they appropriate?
3. What key finding did you see in the results?
4. Provide a summary of the author’s conclusions.
5. Were the conclusions accurate for the results presented in the paper?