Philosophy 160

Professor Stemwedel

Fall 2004

Research assignment

Purpose:

The research assignment is intended to help you engage with scientific approaches to answering questions about our world (Student Learning Objective #3 for GE Area R) and to help you develop your information competencies as you explore the scholarly literature in science.

Specifically, this assignment requires you to find related articles in the scholarly (i.e., peer reviewed) scientific literature and the popular literature.  You will compare the presentation of a scientific finding or question to a lay audience in the popular literature with a presentation on the same issue to a scientific audience in the scholarly scientific literature.  Your job will be to provide an analysis of each of these presentations that focuses on the argumentative strategies.  What sorts of evidence and reasoning do scientists use to persuade a lay audience?  How does this differ from the sorts of evidence and reasoning they use to persuade other scientists?  When scientists disagree about an issue, what are the sources of this disagreement, and how might it be resolved?

For your research, you will need to locate:

Your analysis of these articles will culminate in an essay of approximately 5 pages (1500 words)

Timeline:

Phase 1:          Choosing a topic, searching the literature for appropriate sources.

Create an annotated bibliography of sources you have consulted; prepare a 1 page prospectus indicating which articles you plan to analyze in the final write-up and how they relate to each other and to the topic you have chosen.

Annotated bibliography, prospectus, and copies of the articles due in class Wed., Oct. 13.

Phase 2:          Drafting the final write-up.

Write your analysis of the popular and scholarly articles, their argumentative strategies and how these differ, the source of disagreement between your opposing scholarly articles, and how (if at all) this scientific disagreement is treated in the popular presentation of the issue.  Take your draft to the Philosophy and Logic Lab (FOB 231) for feedback and comments on improving it.

Optional: draft submitted for review by Mon., Nov. 15.

Phase 3:          Revise the final write-up.

Final draft of research assignment, plus copies of the articles, due in class Wed, Dec. 1.

Topics:

  1. Is the placebo effect real or not?
  2. Why did the dinosaurs go extinct?
  3. Is there a gene for breast cancer?  (Or, choose another "gene for" topic: shyness, being gay, etc.)
  4. Are low-carbohydrate diets healthy or unhealthy?
  5. Is autism caused by childhood vaccinations?
  6. Is organic produce healthier than conventionally grown produce?
  7. Are recovered memories reliable?
  8. Do cell phones cause brain cancer?
  9. Is "global warming" a real threat?
  10. Is Gulf War Syndrome a real illness?
  11. Are SSRI drugs effective at treating depression in children?
  12. Can you prevent cancer by taking vitamin C?
  13. Can you prevent Alzheimer's disease by smoking?

*You are welcome to research a topic that does not appear on this list provided you clear it with me first!

**Note that the focus of your research should be a scientific finding (or a scientific question that is still being worked out by scientists), NOT an ethical question about how certain results should be used, whether certain research ought to be conducted, etc.

General guidelines:

1.      The final write-up of the research assignment should be a short essay of approximately 1500 words, about 5 typewritten double-spaced pages in length.  You must write in full sentences and use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

2.      The research assignment will require you to write on one article from the "popular" press and at least one scientific article from a peer-reviewed journal (two if you choose a topic where there is disagreements among the scientists).  You are required to turn in copies of the articles you use with your essays.  Research assignments turned in without copies of your sources will not be accepted.

3.      Even though you are dealing with the experimental results, interpretations, and conclusions of the scholarly articles you use, you need to express them in your own words.  Extended quotations of the text are inappropriate in an assignment of this length, and even short quotations require your analysis (e.g., you will need to explain what the sentence you have quoted means, how it bears on the question, etc.).

4.      Misrepresenting the words or ideas of others as your own is plagiarism.  You will not receive credit for any assignment that contains plagiarism, and you will receive a failing grade for the course.

5.      Research assignments are due at the beginning of lecture.  Late research assignments will be penalized 1/3 of a grade for each day late (e.g., an A paper which is 1 day late becomes an A-).  The research assignment will count for 20% of your course grade.

Research Assignment Tips

1.     In your final write-up of the research assignment, you only need to discuss one popular article and one or two scholarly articles.  However, since the articles you discuss must relate to each other fairly closely, you will want to "read around" your topic to get a general sense of the debate (e.g., why do some scientists think low-carb diets are healthy while other scientists question this conclusion?) and look at a few articles before you decide which articles you want to discuss.

2.     The two library databases that will probably be most useful are Expanded Academic Index and Science Direct.  If youčre searching from off campus, you'll need a PIN (which you can get from the King Library circulation desk or online from http://mill1.sjlibrary.org/patroninfo/), the Username (spartans) and the Password (which changes every semester; this term it is "analyze").

3.     You need to find articles from peer reviewed ("scholarly") scientific journals.  The best way to do this (in Expanded Academic Index) is to limit your database searches by selecting "scholarly works only" under search options; for the most part, this will return only scholarly sources, although there are exceptions.  (Science Direct doesn't include this option, but it seems to contain mostly peer reviewed journals.)  If you have any question about whether the article you're using is "scholarly", please ask me!

4.     While you "read around" your topic, you may find it useful to start by consulting popular discussions of the issue (e.g., in Scientific American, Newsweek, or the Science section of the New York Times), textbook discussions, or review articles (scholarly articles that discuss what claims different scientists have made, what evidence they have presented to support their claims, etc.)

5.     Read the abstracts in your search results to see what the different articles located by the search are about.  This will help you select an appropriate article.

6.     One good way to find two articles that relate to each other on your topic is to use the reference section of one good article.  For example, if you have located an article disputing Osgood's evidence that vitamin C had anticancer activity, look up the reference to Osgood's article where he presents that evidence and try to find that article!

7.     You may be able to locate some articles as full text online.  Others may only be available in print journals.  Check the library's catalog to determine if they have the print journal you need!  (If they don't, you can usually use Link+ or Interlibrary Loan to get the article, but this can take a week or more.)

Whether you use an article from a print journal or one for which full text is available online, remember that you need to hand in copies of the articles with your assignment!

 

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