Student Reviews of Scientific Literature: Opportunities to Improve Students’ Scientific Literacy and Writing Skills

 

Susan J. Karcher

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2001, Volume 22

Abstract

This mini workshop presented what has worked in a large sophomore-level laboratory in genetics and molecular biology class of 200 biology majors. At Purdue, we have had students summarize recent scientific journal articles related to their course. Students first emailed citations of recent articles to the course instructor to get approval of the articles to be summarized. Students wrote brief–one to two paragraphs–summaries of the articles. The summaries were evaluated by the instructor; students had an opportunity to re-work their summaries. The summaries were then posted on the course web site for all students to read. Students had two opportunities to do such summaries during the semester.

Keywords:  writing

Clemson University (2000)