You must read the paper assigned to you, and then write a two-page typed report (1.5 SPACE) by answering the following questions below. The information requested you may find it in the various parts of the paper, which may not be in the same sequence as the questions. In each paper, depending on the journal, these questions may be covered at different places or even at the end of the paper or in some cases some parts may be joint together.
You should not number your answers and you do not have to answer these in the exact order indicated below. Try instead, to incorporate the answers in proper sentences as if you were describing the scientific work to someone else.
You must hand in your assignment electronically and in a hard copy as well as you must submit a hard copy of the literature paper you have used. Assignments should be handed in by the 21st of Nov the latest. Late assignments will lose 5 points/day.
1. Introduction and Background:
What hypotheses are being tested in this paper?
What information induced the authors to perform the experiments?
What new methods or insights brought to bear on the problem?
2. Methods:
What are the critical methods of the paper?
What enabling technologies are used?
What are the weaknesses of the methods used?
Are there other or better approaches that could be used?
If this is a genetics approach, what would be a biochemical or molecular approach?
If this is a biochemical or molecular approach, what genetics methods could be used?
3. Results and Discussion
What are the primary conclusions of the paper?
Did the authors prove their hypotheses?
What novel information or directions come from this work?
What control experiments were performed?
What assumptions still remain in the work?
How could these assumptions be tested?
What other explanations for the observations are still possible?