behav server   Peter Kabai
  Wildlife lecture notes   Student essays
   
 
 

 

Advice on assignment

 

 

 

 

Students are required to read and critically review 2-3 original research papers of his/her own choice. Please also get some background information on your subject on the Internet or other sources.

Assignment (2-4 pages) should be submitted by 1st May via e-mail. Please name your file this way:
your family name_2011_species (or problem)

Working in pairs is possible. Pairs review 4-6 articles, on the same topic.

Do not reproduce copy-righted figures. Your work will be uploaded on the Internet.

Plagiarism is a serious offense and will not be tolerated.
Plagiarism: copy-paste, patchwork, or to present results, ideas or thoughts of someone else as yours without giving credit.

In the old days it was not so easy to steal ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNC-aj76zI4&feature=related, today it takes only a little surfing. Resist the temptation.

Cite the paper you review like this:
Farid, M.F.A., El-Shennawy, M.M., Mehrez, A.Z. & Salem, A.M.M. (1983). Protein requirements for maintenance of Barki desert sheep. World Review of Animal Production, 19: 31–36.

Cite any webpage you use by giving the title of the page and the address. Important: cite the specific page you used and not just the website.

Cite the articles or web pages in your text whenever that information is used. For example: "The zebrafish dorsal habenula projects to the IPN (Aizawa et al., 2005; Gamse et al., 2005) and is thus analogous to the medial habenula of mammals.". Alternatively, you can number your references and cite the serial numbers: The zebrafish dorsal habenula projects to the IPN (3, 15, 16) and is thus analogous to the medial habenula of mammals.

After you get a confirmation of acceptance you can come for oral, which will focus on your chosen topic. Additionally, please remember basic concepts we discussed (polygyny, ritualization, optimal territory size etc.)

  1. find the research articles of your interest
  2. send me an e-mail of your choice
    (peter.kabai###gmail.com, replace ### with @)
  3. after approval write your review
  4. send it by e-mail
 
What is a research paper?
 
Any article from a primary scientific journal. Usually has Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion section.
  How can you get an article to review?  
1) Visit PMC homepage and type keywords into the search box. Keywords like "wildlife" or "tiger" will result in hundreds of free articles.
 
 

2) From any PC at campus you can register to a free science database (ScienceDirect).

Have a Hun at hand (the form is in Hungarian) and register here

 
Please make sure that the selected article has not been reviewed by others. You can check that here
       
  Structure of your assignment  

1) What is the yout question/interest?
2) Why is that question important/interesting?
3) What are the results? Just briefly, highlight the most important points.
4) Critically discuss the findings.

Style: preferably more like a news item (an example) than a scientific article.

       
 

Why the fuss about primary literature?

Imagine you want to write about cognitive capacities of gorillas and bump into this video. Well, quite interesting, however, you are not adviced to use this before you find the primary source, Can you?

 
       
 
 
  A few suggested articles to be reviewed
       
 
Scandinavian Brown Bear Project, excellent site with free articles under "Publication"
 
http://www.bearproject.info/english/bearproject.php
 
On Coriolis force
 
http://www.aos.princeton.edu/WWWPUBLIC/gkv/history/Persson98.pdf
 
From Norway: Timing and Synchrony of Ovulation in Red Deer Constrained
by Short Northern Summers
 
http://folk.uio.no/atlemy/pdf/art44.pdf
 
Fitch and Reby: The descended larynx is not uniquely human
 
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~wtsf/Fitch&Reby.pdf
 
The influence of top-down, bottom-up and abiotic factors on the moose (Alces alces) population of Isle Royale
 
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/
 
The descended larynx is not uniquely human
 
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~wtsf/Fitch&Reby.pdf
 
Age-dependent sexual selection in bighorn rams
 
http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/
 
Contributions of nitrogen deposition and forest regrowth to terrestrial carbon uptake
 
http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/2/1/5
 
Clouded leopard phylogeny revisited: support for species recognition and population division between Borneo and Sumatra
 
http://www.frontiersinzoology.com/content/4/1/15
  Complex phylogeographic history of central African forest elephants and its implications for taxonomy   http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/244/abstract