Analyzing scientific paper
1.The goal of the “Abstract” is to provide a brief summary of the paper. Most abstracts present the research question, the methods used, the results, and the significance of the findings. In your own words, describe the research question for this study.
2.The goal of the “Introduction” is to help readers understand why the research question is important. To do this, scientists often briefly summarize what is and is not known about the research question, as well as what they did to address the question. They may also describe the structure of the rest of the paper.
a.What argument do the authors make for why their research is important?
b.What do the authors say is known and not known about the ocean processes affecting survivorship of fish (both larval and adult stages)?
c.How do the authors prepare readers for reading the rest of the paper? Consider the entire “Introduction” in your response.
3.You will now make a concept map of the information in the “Introduction.” A concept map is a diagram that shows the relationships among different concepts.
Create your concept map using the following terms as your concepts. These are examples- you may use other terms if you prefer and you may want to add some to the list below. Connect related terms with a line and label each line with a brief phrase describing the relationship between the terms.
| Mar Marine fish | Internal waves | Food availability |
| Larval fish | Surface slicks | Growth rates |
| Fisheries | Nursery | Predation |
Concept Map:
Read the following article and watch the 2 videos: https://sevenseasmedia.org/floating-plastics-pervade-pacific-fish-populations-larval-fish-are-eating-our-trash/ This article and associated videos describes the larval fish study to a more general audience.
4.Create a diagram or cartoon to illustrate the experimental design described in this article. Your illustration can be fairly general but should show how the scientists did the overall experiment.
Diagram or cartoon:
Return to the scientific paper. Read the “Materials and Methods”. This paper is written a bit different than most scientific papers. Usually “Materials and methods” come before results and discussion with the significance of the study is usually last. This paper was written to reach a wider audience as well and illustrate the significance of the study early in the paper.
5.What were the steps taken to retrieve and analyze the data? Is this far more detailed and complex than the media story from Seven Seas?
6.Annotate the copy of Figure 2 (also attached at the end of this handout) by following the instructions below. Write everything in your own words and in a way that a general audience would understand.
a.Add a title for the overall figure (in your own words).
b.Write a simple driving question for each part of the figure labeled with a letter (A, B, C, etc.). In other words, what question did the scientists try to answer in each part? [I know these graphs are a bit difficult to understand but do your best to interpret them. Use your knowledge from reading the paper as well as the media article]
7. Summarize the significance of this paper in your own words; how do these findings affect the ecosystem as a whole (including us)?
8. Do you think the media article and videos did a good job of representing the experiment and data in the scientific paper?
