Geology 112
Writing Assignment #1
Research Article Dissection Activity
Due Friday, February 5
The goal of this activity is to develop strategies of gleaning the most important
information from research articles. Such articles can be long, dense, and highly technical
but remember this – it got published because it added to the knowledgebase in a
particular field. As a reader, your job is to understand what the novel contribution of that
article was. Fortunately for you, I have chosen an article from a journal that only
publishes short (4 or less) pages. Nonetheless, these are meaty articles and will require a
thorough reading.
Note – It is rare, especially for individuals not familiar with a field of research, for one
read of a research paper to be enough. Read through once and do not hesitate to go back
to sections for a second (or third) look!
The first time through the article, focus on the introduction and statement of purpose for
the article. What are the authors trying to accomplish? Do they state a clear hypothesis
or idea they are trying to answer?
Try to determine what information is NEW in this paper (their DATA), versus
INTERPRETATIONS they are making in their paper.
This is really the crux of reading any research paper. What is the information presented
in the paper and what is interpretation. While we might disagree with the interpretations
as new information comes out, the data will serve as a useful resource for a long time.
While re-reading the paper, work on really understanding the details of the information
presented. Are there some unfamiliar words? If so, it might be a good time to look some
of them up. Some of the terms you will probably be able to understand in context
without worrying about the exact definition. However, if you find yourself getting more
confused, it is probably time to step back and see if you can get a better grasp of the
vocabulary.
Questions to think about:
Abstract:
The researchers want to get across what they did, how they did it, what they found, and
what it means. Can you identify each of these within the abstract?
Introduction:
 Does the introduction prepare you for the rest of the paper with sufficient
background for continuing on with the paper?
 What knowledge gaps are detailed?
 What are the specific research questions being addressed?
Methods, Results
This paper doesn’t have an identified section for these topics due to its brevity, but the
middle portion of the paper will be the main source for the data, results, and
interpretations. Look at the figures / tables and read the captions to see the data the
researchers decided to include. Do you understand what each figure / table is meant to
convey? In other words, the figures / tables were carefully chosen in order to support the
arguments / ideas in the paper, so the reader should begin to see why.
Discussion/Conclusions:
Did this paper confirm or contradict previous studies? What are the important points the
author(s) have chosen to discuss? Do you see the connection between the knowledge
gaps presented in the intro, the results gathered by the author(s), and the points selected
for discussion? Are direction for future research suggested and what are they?
After you have read through the paper and are reasonably comfortable with
its content, I would like you to write a short (no more than 2 pages double
spaced) paper summarizing it. Use the following questions as a guide.
Please note that I DO NOT want you to write a paper answering these
questions in order, but hopefully these will help you identify the details of
the paper to include in your summary.
 On what basis (data) did the authors decide between the two models
of crustal evolution? What are the two models?
 Did the authors collect any new data or did they only use previously
collected data? How did they assure that the information would be
meaningful?
 How did the authors define the base of the crust?
 Do the authors interpret crustal thickness differences through time?
 What are the main characteristics of Archean crust?
 What is the interpreted mechanism by which Proterozoic crust gets
thicker?