WRITING A REVIEW PAPER



Writing a Review Paper

For this paper, you are required to have at least 12 references, 8 of them must be from peer reviewed, scientific articles. A peer reviewed, scientific article is an article written by a scientists or a collaboration of scientists that have performed experiments and are reporting their findings to the scientific community. The articles are published in scientific journals, such as: Journal of Physiology, Journal of Endocrinology, Journal of Nutrition, and MANY others. To be published in a journal, the author(s) submit the article for review, meaning that other scientists in the same and related scientific fields read, edit and comment on the article. Only when all of the reviewers approve the article is it published. This means that several other scientists agree with the data collection methods, statistical analyses, interpretation of the data and correct representation of the results in the article. So, these articles are generally accepted as valid experiments and results by the scientific community and represent decades of careful research in an attempt to explain the world around you. This method does not only pertain to Biology, but all areas of science, such as Geology, Physics, Chemistry, etc. Much of the research in the general field of Biology has been an integral part of the advancement of medicine and understanding of the human body and its functions! The peer reviewed articles you will use will be provided for you by the instructor.

How would you find a peer reviewed, scientific article? There are many ways to search for an article. One way to search is to use PubMed, an online (government database) site in which you can search by keyword(s). The search results will contain articles from many journals rather than trying to search just one particular journal. The drawback to PubMed is that there are few articles that are displayed in full. PubMed mainly contains article abstracts and you must be a subscriber to the actual journal to get the full text. In these cases you can write down the reference then search for it at the library. Medline is another article database that may be searched electronically, but you’ll need to search from somewhere that subscribes, like a library at a college/University. You can also search the journal’s website directly.

At the Victor Valley Library you may search their journal collection. These are journals that they may carry on the shelf and you may photocopy, or you can search their electronic journal subscriptions. They may have access to full text articles that you may have found on InfoTrac or PubMed and weren’t able to access from home. The librarians there are very helpful and will be eager to help you in your search process.

Medscape is a useful site to find additional references for your paper. This is a site that contains many articles written by doctors/physicians that are just informational articles and NOT peer reviewed scientific articles, as well as some true scientific review articles.

The peer reviewed, scientific article

There are a few ways to easily recognize a peer review, scientific article.

• The article will be from a JOURNAL, and will be sited as such. For example: Journal of Physiology 32 (1): 345-355. This means that the article is published in the Journal of Physiology, in volume 32, issue #1 and on pages 324-255.

• The article will contain the following components (some variation may be found): Abstract, Introduction/Background, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusions/Discussion and References. Notice that this is VERY similar to the Scientific Method that you should have learned in a general Biology course.

• There may be one or many authors, and they will be from Universities, Colleges or Major Medical/Pharmaceutical companies.

• It will NOT be an opinionated article or use quotes or dialogue

Most peer reviewed, scientific articles are presented in the above format, however you may come across a REVIEW article on specific topics. These articles are written to compile information from several primary articles to present the latest known information to the field. The authors do not present data collected from an experiment they conducted, but rather try to make a composite of many results from experiments conducted by many research labs on a given topic. You will actually be writing a review, a composite of all of the articles and data within that you have researched, so if you come across one of these papers it may serve as a good example of format for your review, but take caution not to plagiarize!

Writing the Review Article

The information presented in your paper should reflect information known to the scientific and medical communities via testing, data collection and reporting of replicable and verifiable experiments. You are essentially writing an essay on an assigned topic, only you are required to use a specific media- the peer reviewed, scientific article. To receive a good score, your article should contain the following:

• A general background about each of the assigned topics

▪ Who, what, where, when, how, why

• If the topic is a substance/structure: describe it chemically, physically. How is it made, when and why is it made or how does the body obtain it? Does it have a classification? What is its function, etc?

• If it is a process: what does the process do for the body? What structures perform the process? Why is the process needed? WHAT ARE THE STEPS OF THE PROCESS? Where in the body does the process occur? What is needed for the process to occur, etc?

▪ Include a detailed explanation of the NORMAL PHYSIOLOGY of the topics (above)

• How the two topics are interconnected in physiological context

• Perhaps some information regarding deviations from the normal physiology of the topic

When writing the paper, keep in mind that this paper is being written for a PHYISIOLOGY course, not a DISEASE/Disorder course. Although many of the peer review articles you will read may focus on a disorder, those subjects are models for study and conclusions about the NORMAL physiology will be presented. The instructor will be scoring your paper on how well you represent the PYSIOLOGY of the topic. The physiology of the body reflects how the body works on an organismal, organ system, organ, tissue, cellular AND MOLECULAR level and focuses on the “HOW”! Remembering the latter is KEY to a well written review paper.

Guidelines:

• The topic of the paper is ___Steroid Hormones_________ and _______Calcium Regulation_____ and the relationship of the two. DUE: ____5/3/2010________

• Use headings in your paper. This will make it easier for the instructor to read and score it. An organized paper is much easier to score than a paper that jumps back and forth between topics.

• The paper is a review (essay) of the assigned topics using information gathered from the literature you will compile and should NOT contain personal opinion, quotes or dialog.

o Paraphrase knowledge that you have absorbed by reading your articles. The paper should reflect what you have learned, not what you can regurgitate.

o The citations give the credit to the appropriate source…DO NOT USE QUOTATION MARKS!

o The paper must be written in ESSAY form. Do not use bulleted or numbered text.

• The length of the paper is to be no less than 5 FULL pages and no more than 6 full pages.

• The format of the paper is 1” margins on all sides of the paper, double-spaced, 12 pt regular font (Times New Roman).

• You must have at least 12 references, 8 of them from the primary literature that is provided to you by the instructor. The instructor will be looking for citations within the paper to match every reference listed and visa versa.

o Although there is no set number of required citations your paper must contain, there must be at least 12 different ones, one for each of your required sources. It is HIGHLY likely that you will have more since you did not conduct any of the experiments yourself and you will probably use one or more sources several times.

• Your four additional sources must be from VALID sources of scientific information. You may use your text, medical resources, and research websites provided by Universities (web address will end in “.edu”) or other major research companies. You may also use web sources such as the CDC (these web addresses will end in “.gov”). If you are not sure about your source, just ask!

o You may NOT use any web sources other than those mentioned above.

▪ You absolutely may not use Wikipedia or any personal websites.

o You may not use lecture or notetaker materials from this school or any other school (including University professor’s). That information originally came from scientific literature and the use of that literature is the purpose of this assignment.

• You must use citations within your paper for EVERYTHING that did not originate form your own head. If you did not perform the experiment and publish the results for the information you write in your paper you must give credit where credit is due. This means EVERYTHING you write must have an accompanying citation.

• Use the “(Author, Date)” format for citations only. There are a couple of variations based on how many authors wrote the paper:

▪ (Smith, 1999)

▪ (Smith and Rogers, 1999)

▪ (Smith et al., 1999) or (Smith and others, 1999)- this means there were more than 2 authors

▪ The citation is part of the sentence and goes BEFORE the period

• You must have a reference page alphabetized by the first author’s last name (if you do not remember what this means please ask).

• Your citations and reference list MUST be in the format provided to you by your instructor. This is not an English course and scientists use the CBE format, NOT the MLA format. If you do not use the format provided to you points will be deducted from your score. See the instructions at the end of this handout.

• You must provide sources you used that the instructor either:

o Did not provide to you, or

o Does not have direct access to (your text or other texts that do not reside in the Physio room, Taber’s, etc.)

o So, you must print and turn in with your paper any peer review articles and internet sources you used.

Some suggestions on writing the paper:

• Use the peer-reviewed articles as much as you can. This is the focus of the assignment. If most of your paper cites your text or other sources you will not receive a good score. Your score will heavily reflect how much information you used from the peer review articles.

• If you find a good article, chances are that those authors referenced articles that will also pertain to your topic. Use their references to accommodate your search. This is a very useful HINT!

• Focus on the PHYSIOLOGY, not the diseases! The instructor will be looking to see whether or not you UNDERSTAND the physiology of the topic, not what diseases that can arise from it.

• Use a spell-check and have a peer read your paper. Another part of your score will reflect how well your paper is written. Poor spelling and grammatical errors will lower your score. The VVC campus has a writing center that will be happy to review your paper and make suggestions.

• Follow instructions. You will also be scored on how well you can execute an assignment.

Very Important Note: Plagiarism and fabrication are forms of cheating and will result in an “F” grade on the assignment and disciplinary action.

Citing and Referencing your Articles

The following information for citation format was taken from the CSE Citation Guide and can be found online at:

Book

Bibliography: Voet D, Voet JG. 1990. Biochemistry. New York: J Wiley. 1223 p.

In-Text:

(Voet and Voet 1990)

Journal Article

Bibliography: Johnson DL, Lynch WE Jr. 1992. Panfish use of and angler success at evergreen tree, brush, and stake-bed structures. N Am J Fish Manage 12(1):222-9

In-Text:

(Johnson and Lynch 1992)

Technical Report

Bibliography: Cowardin LM, Carter V, Golet FC, LaRoe ET. 1979 Dec. Classification of wetlands and deepwater habitats of the United States. Washington: Fish and Wildlife Service. Report nr FWS/OBS/-79/31. 103 p.

In-Text:

(Cowardin and others 1979)

Electronic Journals

Bibliography: Slater PJB, Jones AE. Timing of songs and distance call learning in zebra finches. Anim Behav [serial online] 1995; 49(2):123-248. Available from: OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center via the Internet ().

In-Text:

(Slater and Jones 1995)

Bibliography:

Wolf BB, Green DR. Suicidal tendencies: apoptopic cell death by caspase family proteinases. J Biol Chem [serial online] 1999; 274 (29): 20049-52. Available from: Journal of Biological Chemistry Website via the Internet ().

In-Text:

(Wolf and Green 1999)

Note:The CBE Manual does not provide examples of citation for most electronic formats (listservs, the World Wide Web, databases). For citation examples in these formats, see:

The OSU Libraries' net.TUTOR Quick Guide: Citing Net Sources



Examples of web citations from the above website.

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