Worksheet 1 – Scientific Writing: Instructions
This worksheet is designed to help you practice finding, reading, and paraphrasingpeer-reviewed scientific articles.Refer to your TA’s in-class lecture and the required reading (Turbeket al., 2016) for guidance.Remember that your TA’s office hoursare also a valuable resource!
You must cite peer-reviewed scientific articles (primary and secondary literature).For this assignment, you areNOTpermitted to cite books. While you may use Internet search engines (Google Scholar, Web of Science) to download research articles, you may NOT cite websites.
How to Format Your Citations
Once you have explained an idea, you should finish your sentence with an in-text citation.Example:Seagrasses have been found growing at depths up to 90 meters (Duarte, 1990).
If you are citing more than one reference for an idea, then include all references in chronological order in the same in-text citation but separate them with a comma.
Example: Electric communication has evolved multiple times in teleost fish species (Alves-Gomez 2001; Maynard-Smith and Harper 2003,Bernal et al. 2007;).
When creating your “Literature Cited” list (i.e., “Bibliography), always list the articles inalphabetic order.Use a hanging indent (i.e., all lines after the first line should be indented.)
ARTICLE WITH ONE AUTHOR
In-Text: (Last name Year)
Example:My sentence explaining this study’s major conclusion(Alves-Gomes 2001).
Literature Cited:
Last name, Initials. Year. Title. Journal name Volume number: Start page-Last page.
Example:
Alves-Gomes, J.A. 2001. The evolution of electroreception and bioelectrogenesis in teleost fish: a phylogenetic perspective. Journal of Fish Biology 58:1489-1511.
ARTICLE WITH TWO OR MORE AUTHORS
In-text 2 authors: (Author 1 last name 1 & author 2 last name, year)
Example:My sentence explaining this study (Rypel& Layman 2008).
In-text 3 authors: (Author 1 last name et al., year)
Example:My sentence explaining this study(Archer et al., 2012).
Literature Cited: Author 1 last name, Author 1 initials, author 2 initials author 2 last name, …,final author initials final author last name. Year. Title. Journal name Volume: start page-last page.
Example – two authors:
Rypel, A.L. and C.A. Layman. 2008. Degree of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation predicts population characteristics of gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus) in Caribbean tidal creeks. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 65:335-339.
Example – three or more authors:
Archer, S.K., S.A.Heppell, B.X. Semmens, C.V.Pattengill-Semmens, P.G. Bush, C.M. McCoy, and B.C. Johnson. 2012. Patterns of color phase indicate spawn timing at a Nassau grouper (Epinephelusstriatus) spawning aggregation. Current Zoology 58:70-80.
Worksheet 1 – Scientific Writing: Questions (100 points)
Reminder: Follow the correct formatting for all worksheets (12 pt font, double-spaced, do not include original questions BUT KEEP THE BULLET POINTS WITH THE QUESTION NUMBER). Incorrect formatting will result in a 5% penalty on this assignment.
Answer/address all of the following questions. You are creating an outline of your “Introduction” for your scientific paper. Include in-text citations after your bullet points. In all cases, we require that your work be typed.Plagiarism is unacceptable and will result in an automatic 0 on this assignment.
Over the next few weeks, your will be investigating this question: Does predation affect the life history of FIU’s Eastern Mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki)?
For each question, the required citations are the minimum and you can use more citations than listed (e.g., if the question is asking for 2 citations, you can cite more than 2 citations).HOWEVER, each question should have unique citations to meet the minimum referencerequirement (i.e., find a new citation for Q#5 compared to Q#4); your “Literature Cited” section would thus have at least 8 unique references. However, you can still cite the same article multiple times across questions (e.g., after citing 2 unique articles for Q#5, you could also cite an article from Q#4 in the paragraph to strengthen your answer/content and thus have 3 citations total for Q#5). Peer-reviewed references can be from any year.
8.Your TA will use this space to assign you a grade and provide feedback on grammar and spelling.(4 pts)