BIO 341: Cell Physiology: Evaluating Articles

As you search for literature, you'll need to be able to judge how relevant the articles you find are to your project. This is particularly important so you don't spend your time and energy trying to understand an article that will not be useful to you.

You'll also want to carefully evaluate articles before you request them through InterLibrary Loan. Though students don't pay directly for articles, there is an institutional cost; please choose responsibly.

Colorado University has developed a great resource to help students evaluate different sources (click here to re-direct)

In your lab book or Moodle you have access to an article on Tobacco hornwarm  titled "Effects of stress on the hemolymph juvenile hormone binding protein titers of Manduca sexta". Prior to lab, you may have looked at this article and begun to think about whether or not this article would be a good resource for your project, and why.

TO REFLECT

1-What leads you to think this article might be a useful resource for your current project?

2-What leads you to think this article might NOT be a useful resource?

3-What is your conclusion? Is this a viable resource?

Take a few moments to find each of these articles.

Based on our discussion today, try to judge if each article would relevant to this project, and why.

We'll look at each article as a group after everyone has had a few minutes to look at the articles on their own.

Sample Article Titles

Article 1 - An inducible HSP70 gene from the midge Chironomus dilutus

Article 2 - Biological and immune response of Galleria mellonella (Lepidoptera : pyralidae) to sodium tetraborate

Article 3 - Up-regulation of heat shock proteins is essentail for cold survival during insect diapause

Article 4 - Identification of up-regulated proteins in the hemolymph of immunized Bombyx mori larvae

The credibility of your assignment rests on the credibility of the resources you have used in it to support your arguments. Before you include a resource in your assignment you will need to evaluate it to consider if it is appropriate for a university level assignment. Below is a figure that might help you further understand credibility of sources. For more information on evaluating authority, bias, accuracy, currency, utility and peer-review click on this link.

What is the intended audience?
What's the source's authority?  Is it peer-reviewed?
Is the content biased?
How accurate is it?
How current is the information?

Content reproduced with permission of James Cook University