The critical paper analysis
Biology 36: Animal Biology
1998-1999
The objective:
The objective of this assignment is to write a critical analysis of a scientific paper. Your critique itself will
be a 5-page paper. Before writing this paper, you will complete two preliminary exercises (due dates 1 and 2) designed
to help you gain the background information necessary for performing a critical analysis. Save each assignment,
you will hand in all of the assignments as your final project.
To get an idea of how a critical analysis is written, look at the "News and Views" and "Perspectives"
articles in the journals Science and Nature; also look at the letters to the editor and technical comment sections
of these journals (these sections are often more critical).
Assignment 1 - paper selection.
Select a paper from either Journal of Morphology, Paleobiology or Evolution. Do not select
a paper that was published before 1995. Be sure that you select a paper in a field that interests you: you will
need to do much reading in the field to properly interpret the selected paper. Also, try to select a paper that
makes an important or controversial contribution to the field: it is hard to write an interesting review of a boring
paper. Check the questions below in assignment two - if you don't think you will able to answer them, you might
consider another paper.
Submit a general plan for analysis of the paper, a list of references you will read, and a copy of the paper (I
will return it).
The general plan for analysis should include a brief summary of the paper, a description of why the paper is interesting,
and the general approach you will use in analyzing it. Convince me that the paper is worth analyzing. Do not exceed
one page.
Provide a reference list of at least 10 papers. At least 5 of these should not be included in the references of
the original paper. Choose papers that will help you specifically address the questions in the next assignment
(see 2nd due date below). For each reference, give a short explanation (no more than 3 sentences) of how the paper
will help you address the questions below and analyze the paper.
Assignment 2 - preliminary work.
Assignment 2 is a set of questions designed to help you get started looking at the paper
critically. By the time you have finished with this assignment you should have in mind a direction that your analysis
might take. Remember that the quality of your critique will be dependent upon the depth of your general knowledge
in the area. Be sure to do enough reading so that you feel confident to make an informed critique.
Do not hand in the answers to the following questions, but be sure that you can answer each one. For the assignment,
hand in a 1-2 page description of your plan for analysis of the paper. It should describe what the general theme
of your analysis will be (i.e. will you criticize the methods? compare the paper to another similar paper? show
how the paper revolutionizes its field? demonstrate that the authors overinterpret their results?, etc.).
Hand in Assignment 1 with Assignment 2.
A. The general research area. While usually rather specific in scope, all good scientific research operates within
the context of a larger biological model. It is important to understand this framework when assessing the details
of a particular paper.
1. What is the general biological area that is being addressed in the paper?
2. Why is achieving an understanding of the general biological area important?
3. Summarize the current accepted theory that covers the general biological question. Is there any disagreement
among scientists?
B. Specific hypothesis. A good scientific paper addresses one or more specific hypotheses. To understand the significance
of a paper, one must determine how the specific hypothesis that is being tested fits into the larger theory. A
good hypothesis should test an important part of the larger theory and it should be falsify-able. The experiments
must be designed so that they could potentially contradict as well as support the accepted theory.
4. Describe the specific hypothesis(es) that is being tested in the paper.
5. Describe possible results that would contradict the accepted theory.
6. Describe possible results that would support the accepted theory.
7. Will testing the hypothesis(es) contribute to better understanding of the general biological theory?
C. Model systems. Scientist can not measure every variable relevant to their research question. Thus, the choice
of a particular model system that is well suited to answering the question is essential. The details of the model
system include the type of organism chosen and the type of measurements that are made.
8. Describe the model system used in the paper.
9. Is the model system appropriate for testing the specific hypotheses?
10. Have other systems been used to try to understand the general biological question? If so, describe them briefly.
Methods. Methods refer to the specific experimental techniques used in a paper (i.e. patch clamping, Southern blotting,
enzyme assays, etc.)
11. Briefly describe the specific methods used in the paper.
12. State how use of these methods is suited to testing the specific research question.
Experimental design. Experimental design refers to the general experimental strategy. For example: How many trials
were performed? What controls were used? Etc.
13. Describe the overall experimental design.
14. State how the overall experimental design is suited to testing the specific research question.
Results and conclusions.
15. For each figure or table, concisely describe the experiment being performed and the result of the experiment.
16. What are the conclusions of the study?
17. Describe exactly how the results of the study lead to the reported conclusions.
Assignment 3 - Rough draft of the critique.
Write a critical analysis of the paper. The analysis should be no more than 5 pages of text (font 10-12 point,
line spacing 1.5-2.0, margins 1 inch), a reference list, and one page of figures, graphs, or drawings. The references
and figure page do not count in the 5 page limit. One challenge of this exercise is deciding what information is
essential to making your arguments. For the rough draft, you may slightly exceed the 5-page limit.
Hand in Assignments 1 and 2 with Assignment 3.
A reader should be able to understand your paper without having read the scientific paper. Thus, you will need
to give some summary of the paper. However, the analysis should not be simply a summary of the paper. Instead it
should critically analyze the paper. It is impossible to cover all aspects of a single paper in a 5 page critique,
thus you need to decide what the important aspects of the paper are. Your paper should "hang together"
as a whole, and not be an unconnected set of observations - thus organizing your critique around a particular theme
is recommended. Your grade will primarily be based on the quality of your critical analysis and the clarity
of your presentation of this analysis to the reader.
Here are examples of questions that your analysis might address: Why did the authors perform this study? How
does it fit in with other work in the field? What was the purpose of the study? What methods did the authors use?
Are the methods appropriate? Are the results presently fairly? Were the proper controls performed? Were the proper
statistics used? Do you believe the results? Are the results interpreted fairly and accurately? Are the proper
conclusions drawn? Do the authors overstate their case? Are they overly cautious about presenting conclusions?
How could the study be improved? What further experiments would you suggest? What is the impact of this work on
the field?
You may address questions listed in the preliminary work assignment, but you do not need to consider every question
that was address in the preliminary work assignment. Of course, you may also address questions not listed here
if you think they are important.
Assignment 4 - Final draft of the critique.
The analysis should be no more than 5 pages of text (font 10-12 point, line spacing 1.5-2.0, margins 1 inch), a
reference list, and one page of figures, graphs, or drawings. The references and figure page do not count in the
5 page limit. The penalty for exceeding the 5 page limit is ½ grade per page.
Hand in Assignments 1, 2 and 3 with Assignment 4.
Your grade on the final draft will be based on the quality of your critical analysis and the clarity of your presentation
of this analysis to the reader. The degree of improvement of the final draft compared to the rough draft will also
be considered.
Grade distribution:
Assignment 1 - 20%
Assignment 2 - 20%
Assignment 3 - 20%
Assignment 4 - 40%