BSC 1010
Literature Summary Paper – Assignment Guidelines
Write a short (1-3 pages, double spaced) narrative summary of scholarly research literature
that addresses a biological question of your choice.
Scholarly research literature includes peer-reviewed original research articles as well as
review articles (as secondary sources). A good search strategy is to use established tertiary
sources (textbooks, biological databases, Wikipedia, Khan Academy are a few examples) to
define the terms and scope of the questions you want to answer. Then, rewrite the
question to narrow the scope and precisely define the information required. Check your
sources for any relevant citations to scholarly articles. Make a list of key search terms to
find relevant scholarly articles in Web of Science or Google Scholar.
Your paper should include the following elements:
1. Informative title with proper formatting as noted above
2. Statement of the question written in your own words. Use appropriate terms and
concepts from the course textbook to help ensure scientific accuracy.
3. Summary of 2 articles related to the question including 1 original research article and 1
review article. Your summary of each article should be a few sentences long and in your
own words. Each article must have an in-text citation. In-text citations are essential to
organize your argument, gain the confidence of the reader, and avoid plagiarism. Do not
use quotations in this paper.
4. Overall conclusions relating to the question posed, including your statement of how
confident you are in the answers and/or what remains to be learned.
5. References section in CSE style 1. Suggestion: use a tool such as https://zoterobib.org to
format the references. For example, this is an in-text citation: (Tenorio et al. 2004) and
this is the matching bibliographic citation that would appear in the References section:
Tenorio MD, Villanueva MJ, Sagardoy M. 2004. Changes in carotenoids and
chlorophylls in fresh green asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L) stored under
modified atmosphere packaging. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
84(4):357–365. doi:10.1002/jsfa.1631.
Grading: the paper will be graded on a percentage scale (20% for each of 5 items above).
Additional Resources: check the Writing Services web page for writing resources or to
schedule an appointment. See: https://floridapolytechnic.libguides.com/writingservices
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Council of Science Editors.