Assignment 2

Before beginning this assignment, read over the Final Paper: Scientific Journal Article Critique instructions located in Week Five of the course. Then, select a scientific journal article that you will critique in the final week of this course. The article must be located in ProQuest and needs to be from a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal covering a topic related to environmental studies. Once you have selected an appropriate article, provide the proper APA citation for this article and write a brief three- to four-sentence summary of how the article’s research supports the main topic.

Required Resources

Articles

1. Laurance, W. F., Albernaz, A. K. M., & Costa, C. D. (2001). Is deforestation accelerating in the brazilian amazon? Environmental Conservation, 28(4), 305-311. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/203158425?accountid=32521 
   • Focus on the results section
2. Thisted, R.A. (2010).  What is a P-value? (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Dept of Statistics and Health Studies, the University of Chicago. Retrieved from http://galton.uchicago.edu/~thisted/Distribute/pvalue.pdf

Multimedia

1. Igines. (2012). How to make a bar graph in Excel (Scientific data) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV6WreL9wxo
2. Jjmcgrory. (2011). Excel 2010 scatter diagram with trendline (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP_Ziu7RO4I

Websites

1. Anderson, G. (2004). How to write a paper in scientific journal style and format (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Bates College Dept of Biology. Retrieved from http://abacus.bates.edu/~ganderso/biology/resources/writing/HTWtoc.html

• How Do I Write the…Results
• How Do I…Tables and Figures
• How Do I…Reporting Statistical Results

Final PaperScientific Journal Article CritiqueBeing able to read and critically analyze scientific journal articles is an important part of learning and applying scientific research to environmental management. Through the first four weeks of this course, you have become more familiar with the various components of scientific literature by reading and writing sections of your own. For your Final Paper, read and critically review the journal article selected in Week Three of the course. To begin, read “Using a Scientific Journal Article to Write a Critical Review (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..” Next, utilize the information from this week’s reading to critique the selected article. The critique at a minimum should contain the following information:Introduction (about two pages)Briefly summarize the journal article selected including the full citation for the paper, the purpose of the study, the methodology utilized, the results obtained, and the conclusions drawn by the author(s). Utilize questions posed in the “Analyze the Text” section of this week’s readings to develop this section.Body (about four pages)Highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of each section of the paper (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion). Utilize questions posed in the “Evaluate the Text” section of this week’s readings to develop this section.Conclusion (about four pages)Discuss the significance of the research. Utilize questions posed in the “Establish the Significance of the Research” section of this week’s readings to develop this section.Your paper must be eight to ten double-spaced pages in length and formatted according to APA (6th ed.)