This module, we discussed what makes quality research. Peruse your current news feed from your favorite social media account (if you do not use social media, search "news in science" or something similar). Select an article published within the past year, based on a "discovery" or scientific claim and evaluate it based on the "Rough Guide to Spotting Bad Science". You do not have to locate the actual journal article – we are examining media portrayal of science, so you do not have to go further than the actual news story.
A research article will typically have four main sections that will appear in this order:
Introduction (what and why). The introduction of a research article:
- Introduces the topic of interest
- Defines the purpose of the research
- Provides a rationale for why the research is important (based on previous knowledge in the field of study)
- Proposes specific research questions that will help add to the body of knowledge in that field.
These concepts should be made explicitly obvious in the introduction. There shouldn't be any guessing as to what the research is about, what the research questions are specifically, why the study was conducted, why the study is important to the field, or what contribution the author hopes to make. It is the authors responsibility to clearly convey these ideas to the reader, and thus it will be your responsibility when you write your paper for this class.
