Research Literature and Seminar

Catalog description

This course provides students with the fundamentals of scientific thinking and scientific writing. The course starts with a brief overview of the history and philosophy of science as it pertains to biology. Students will learn about each steps in scientific processes including empiricism, parsimony, and developing and testing hypotheses. Students will be taught how to write in scientific style, how to critically read and analyze scientific articles, how to avoid obfuscatory scrivenry, establishing flow, organizing a scientific document, how to present scientific data and statistics, how to cite figures and tables, how to cite scientific sources, how to avoid plagiarism; and concepts of bioethics Discussions and presentations of issues of current interest in the biological sciences and of related career opportunities also will be covered. Prerequisites: BSC 304 , 305, 306, 307, concurrent enrollment in one or more of these classes or permission of instructor.