2nd Research Assignment
Many of the essays in our textbook are chapters from popular science books; other essays are articles from popular science journals, such as Scientific American. Such articles attempt to present complex scientific ideas and debates to an audience of interested non-experts. These articles generally lack scholarly documentation, and most are not subject to the vigorous peer-review process of professional publication. But these popular articles rely upon scholarly and professional research articles. In many cases, the same authors have written both technical and popular articles on the same subjects (as is the case with many Scientific American articles).
This assignment asks you to locate one of the textbook essays (not the Darwin text) in its original publication (book or journal), and to locate three technical sources cited in, used for, or related to the article.
In the case of book chapters, such technical sources are usually found in the bibliography; for popular journal articles, they are often found in a "Further Reading" section at the end of the article. You may also look for technical articles written by the same authors on the same subjects.
Once you have found these three technical articles, write a two page essay describing the structure and organization of the technical articles, and comparing them to the popularization.
Who is the audience for these technical articles? How can you tell?
How are the technical articles organized? How does this differ from the popular article?
How does the language differ? The tone?
Does the popular article accurately reflect the technical points?
At the end, include a bibliography listing the popular article (give a citation for the original publication) and the three technical articles you used.
Citation style guides are available from the GMU Writing Center (for most publications in the sciences, APA or CBE/CSE is the preferred format).
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