Biology. Introduction to the specialty. Task II: Review of a scientific article
The time has come to take the next step in the development of the ability to create professional biological texts. It is not enough to merely write a text in an academic or scientific style; it is not enough to merely correctly cite the sources used in it. This should be a review of a high-quality international biological article.
TASK II: Scientific Article Review "Pysanets' Question": So what? (the traditional question of Yevhen Maksymovych Pysanets, the first president of the Ukrainian Herpetological Society, which he asked after any presentation that did not already contain an accessible answer to this question for the audience) Students must write a brief review of a quality biological article that they choose themselves, taking into account their field of interest. It is not enough to simply write text in an academic or scientific style; it is not enough to correctly cite the sources used. This should be a review of a quality international biological article. Since English is the main language of science in the modern world, I suggest reviewing a certain English-language biological article published in the last decade in a reputable international journal. For example, such journals include the Nature Group. The article for analysis can be selected from the journals of this group (previous link) or using thematic search. Another of the most reputable journals is Science. You should use articles (Articles), not news (News), etc. You should choose open access articles (Open Access). You should not choose an article that is a review (Review), because reviews use other authors' works as material and their analysis methods as methodology. Choose research articles (Research, Regular Papers, etc.), where the material consists of certain biological objects, and biological research methods are used. You will have to understand the article and describe it in your own words — understandable for your fellow students! Of course, "by default" the language of the review is Ukrainian, since instruction takes place in Ukrainian. Reviews in English are acceptable; please do not use Russian (there is already too much of it in our environment). For students who have poor English skills, I recommend using online translators; it seems that DeepL has the best reputation among them recently, which, among other things, can be used as an extension for Chrome and a number of other browsers. In case of insurmountable problems with English, you can use articles in quality international journals written in other languages of the European Union (if you start searching for such articles, you will see how predominant English is in international science). How to distinguish a quality article worth reviewing from any other? This is an article that: — is published in a journal with a good reputation (preferably one indexed in Scopus, which can be checked using Scimago Journal & Country Rank, or Web of Science, which can be checked using Master Journal List); — reports the results of research by its authors (rather than being a review, a report about other people's research, news, educational, or popular science text, etc.); — contains detailed explanations of why something was done (typically — in Introduction), what exactly and how (typically — in Methods), what exactly was obtained (Results), and what follows from this (Discussion); — typically — contains the results of statistical analysis of the obtained results. And most importantly: this article should be interesting to you! In your review, pay particular attention to the structure of the scientific article you are describing. Compare this structure with the typical structure of an article: Title; Authors; Summary; Key words; Introduction; Material; Methods; Results; Discussion; Acknowledgements; References; Appendices. Some elements of this structure may be absent or combined in a certain way, but in most scientific articles you can see almost all of the listed elements. When reviewing an article, it is logical to go through these structural elements (except perhaps the summary, which itself will partially overlap with the review, and key words, which serve mainly for searching articles related to a certain topic). Review requirements: — it should be interesting for its author and potential readers (other first-year students); — the text must be written by the review author; automatic translators can be used during work, but inserting chunks of automatic translation of the original article text is not allowed; — it should be written in a style close to scientific; — it should be understandable without additional explanations for a reader with a school education; — the text must be written by the student independently, in their own words, or contain clearly indicated quotes; — the review must contain correct citation of sources, correctly formatted references in the text, and correctly formatted description of literature sources (you learned this in the previous task); — it must contain an active link to the page on the network where this article is located; — overall, the review should give an idea of why something was done, what material and what methods were investigated, what was recorded, what follows from this, and why it is important. Approximate length of the review — about one and a half pages (if necessary, you can deviate from this guideline). The experience of analyzing the first reviews makes it possible to identify several typical deficiencies. It is easier to fix problems with the title of the work. Imagine a review, say, of this article. What title of this review (title in the text, not the file name!) is most adequate: — Ivanov, 2; — The Scent of Attractiveness and the Smell of Success: Crossmodal Influences on Person Perception; — Review of the Article "The Scent of Attractiveness and the Smell of Success: Crossmodal Influences on Person Perception"; — Research on the Influence of Other People's Smells on Their Perception, According to the Work by Charles Spence in the Journal Cognitive Research (2021); — Review of the Article: Spence, C. The scent of attraction and the smell of success: crossmodal influences on person perception. Cognitive Research, 2021. Is the answer clear to you? Of course, the two latter titles are the most understandable. In addition to the title of the review, you should indicate the name and surname of the review author — that is, your name and surname. Should you transliterate into Ukrainian the names and surnames of the authors of the articles you are reviewing? Most likely, this would be unnecessary. However, providing a translation of the article title (in the review text) would be useful. It is more difficult to write text that will be understandable for its potential readers. The epigraph to this page contains what can be called "Pysanets' question." You should remember that any research, any results make sense not by themselves, but in connection with the concepts that existed before this research. An article that makes sense answers some explicit or implicit question. This answer may clarify something, open new possibilities, pose new questions. When it is clear how the discussed research develops existing concepts, opens new possibilities, the answer to the question "so what?" becomes clear. The optimal option is not to wait for someone to ask this question, but to immediately structure the review in such a way as to provide an answer to this question in advance. Reviews should be posted in pdf format in the WhatsApp feed under the name Surname_Task II.