Analysis of Scientific Literature

Catalog description

This course has two goals: teach students to read primary literature (journal articles) and humanize science/ scientist. We use a newly devised method, C.R.E.A.T.E (Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze the data, and Think of the next Experiment) and supporting materials to give students tools needed for reading and analysis of complex material, interpretation of tables, graphs, charts, etc, and critical analysis of data. Because we read paper in series, and communicate directly with some of the authors, students also get a "behind the scenes" view of how projects evolve in labs and about the people behind the published papers. If you take this course, you can expect to significantly improve your scientific reading/ analysis skills, and get a more realistic perspective on "how science is done".