Do you believe that science as a discipline (I guess any field could be filled in here) is objective? I think a lot of us have made the mistake of believing that the practice of science is in a way ‘infallible’…that it is completely free of subjectivity. I know when I was an undergraduate I erroneously believed that anything that was published was ‘real truth’, it was published in a science journal so it must be. After being a researcher for over 10 years, going through higher education myself, publishing papers and getting to see firsthand what happens behind the scenes, I can tell you that is a fallacy.
Now don’t get me wrong, the scientific method and the way that we as scientists devote ourselves to find ‘truth’ is absolutely a foundation in the field of neuroscience and psychology. What I mean here is not directed at the scientific method; what I mean is that any and all practice of science is susceptible to bias. All sorts of biases. Not just in what type of research gets funded and published for example, but also the fact that science is practiced by people. People are inherently biased. We all come to the field with our own backgrounds, beliefs, stereotypes, and you would be naive to believe those leave the door as a scientist steps into the lab. I wanted to include an article in this course that spoke to this, though it is not content specifically part of a physiological psych/neuroscience course. However, I believe it is important that we take time to reflect on the intersections between neuroscience and issues of class, race, etc.
Assigned Article: Article 4_Seeing Color in Neuroscience.pdf
Here are the general formatting rules you should follow to receive full points:
To get full credit, your paper needs to be 1pg long (double-spaced; this is 23 lines of text), no more no less.
Your paper needs to be 12 point font, Times New Roman, and 1” margins.
Do not to introduce the paper in your writing (for example, say “The paper that I read was called ‘Effects of Hyperbaric …” because there is only one paper we are all reading and I know which paper it is).
You do not need any citations or reference page or title page. Again, it is only one paper you are discussing and you can simply say “The study” or “The investigators”.
All/any information from the article needs to be paraphrased, do not copy any phrasing and there should be no quotes in the response paper that you write.
Your paper should be written in first person and written in plain English. Plain English means it is written in simple terms that someone who has not read the article can understand your response paper.
Content:
The content of your paper should be a ‘response’ to it; you should be able to demonstrate to me that you read the article and that you have some thoughts regarding the information presented. I just want to know your thoughts on the content in the article. It is your job to organize it the best way you believe will portray your thoughts.
Here are some suggested questions that may guide your paper (do not feel you must answer all or just one of these, these are just examples of items you can write about in your paper):
What could you teach someone about the content you read in the article?
Did the article change your perspective on a particular social/personal/psychological issue?
Do you agree with the conclusions made by the authors, why or why not?
What are some questions that the article sparked for you? What do you think is the answer to these questions?
Was there something that impacted you personally? Maybe you can relate to some aspect of the article?
Was there something you did not know about neuroscience as a field that you found in the article and what would you share to the general public about this topic?
Things to Avoid:
-Do not try to answer all of the questions above in 1page, it creates a very disorganized/disjointed paper. I suggest choosing one or two at the most and expanding on those.
-Do not give me only a summary of the article, I will assume you’ve read it (I’ve read it too) so no need to recount everything that is in the article.
-Do not critique its methodology by only saying that it needed more participants or that they needed a more diverse pool. This can be said for most articles so it does not add any substantial constructive criticism.
-Do not critique the writing style, I know it is scientific and has fancy science words, this is how it should be written because it is primary literature in science.
