Scientific Paper Analysis (Individual Assignment #3)

One of the best ways to understand the style you are expected to use for a technical report is to view a sample
report similar to what are expected to write. In this course, we ask you to model your lab reports on an article for
a scientific journal. The purpose of this assignment is to look at a scientific journal article to help you understand
how you should present the findings of your experiments in your lab reports. Choose one of the following papers
(all are posted on Canvas) for your analysis:
1.

Kelly ST and Zydney AL. 1997. Protein fouling during microfiltration: comparative behavior of
different model proteins. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 55: 91-100.

2.

Selekman JA, Das A, Grundl NJ, and Palecek SP. 2013. Improving efficiency of human pluripotent
stem cell differentiation platforms using an integrated experimental and computational approach.
Biotechnol. Bioeng. 110: 3024-3037.

3.

Cabello A, Abad A, Garca-Labiano F, Gayn P, de Diego LF, and Adnez J. 2014. Kinetic
determination of a highly reactive impregnated Fe2O3/Al2O3 oxygen carrier for use in gas-fueled
chemical looping combustion. Chem. Eng. J. 258:265-280.

Although the format for your lab reports is not identical to the format of these papers, these papers provide good
examples of how we generally would like you to put together your lab reports. In the boxes provided with the
questions below, answer each question in three sentences or less (one sentence will be sufficient in most cases)
based on the paper you choose. You do not need to read the entire paper to answer these questions, but you may
find it interesting/helpful. You should complete this assignment individually and upload it to ELMS (as a PDF
file). This assignment is worth 10 points. The deadline for each section to submit this assignment is provided in
Table 1.
Table 1. Deadlines for turning in Individual Assignment #3
Section

Day and time due

Tuesday (0201)

September 22 at 10:00 am

Thursday (0101)

September 24 at 10:00 am

Friday (0401)

September 25 at 11:00 am

Monday (0301)

September 28 at 10:00 am

Questions to answer for assignment (please delete text above before submitting)
1.

Logistics
a.

What is your name?

Insert your answer here.

b.

2.

Which paper did you look at for this assignment?

Introduction
a.

What type of information is provided in the introduction?

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3.

Results and discussion

a.

By just skimming the results and discussion sections, what can you say about the difference in
content between the two sections?

b.

4.

How are references cited in the paper?

Figures
a.

Where are figure captions placed and what information is provided in them?

b.

How are experimental data and models/regressions shown differently on graphs?

c.

Where are the units for the numbers in graphs?

d. Based on what you see in this paper, if a figure axis has very large numbers or very small
numbers, what can be done to avoid having many zeroes in the axis labels?

5.

6.

Tables
a.

Where should table titles be placed?

b.

Where are the units for table entries placed in this paper?

c.

If columns or values in a table need more explanation, how can this information be provided?

Equations
a.

How are equations labeled?

b.

What has been done to make the formatting of the equations look professional?

c.

Where are the variables that appear in equations typically defined in this paper?

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7.

General
a.

What are three things (not addressed in the questions above) that you think would be helpful to
do in your reports? (You may want to consider content, formatting, etc.)

b.

What is one thing in this paper that you think could be improved? (Again, you may want to
consider content, formatting, etc.)

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