STEM Librarian
Getting Started on Class Discussions
Each week you will be paired up with a classmate to a lead discussion of a topic based on your assigned article. The discussion involves both summarizing the article (a one-page handout is suggested) and generating questions on the topic based on the article.
| Date | Science Topic | Application/Professional Development Topic |
| Jan 12 | Class Overview | Library Research:Christina Chan-Park |
| Jan 19 | Discuss research topic/question | Career Overview: Wayne Hamilton |
| Jan 26 | Hydrogeology | Groundwater Conservation District: Scooter Radcliffe |
| Feb 2 | Environmental Geology | Texas Water Development Board: Natalie Bellew |
| Feb 9 | Engineering Geology | Engineering Consultant: Bob Wallace |
| Feb 16 | Remote Sensing | Aerial Photography Exercise |
| Feb 23 | Depositional Systems | Brazos River Visit |
| Mar 1 | Mining Geology and Economic Geology | Trinity Mine Visit |
| Mar 15 | Applied Geophysics | |
| Mar 22 | Professional Geology & Graduate Schools | |
| Mar 29 | Geology and Safety |
Finding Articles for Class Discussion
If you know the title of the article you have been assigned, simply type the article name into OneSearch.
- OneSearch This link opens in a new window
OneSearch is a discovery tool that provides a single place to search most of the content available from the Baylor University Libraries, including:
- traditional library materials (books, journal titles, media, etc.);
- the Baylor Digital Collections;
- BEARdocs, (electronic theses and dissertations, honors theses, technical reports, faculty publications, etc.);
- research guides;
- and -- most importantly, much of the full text content to which the Baylor Libraries subscribe from a wide variety of sources.
- traditional library materials (books, journal titles, media, etc.);
If you have the volume/issue/page number for the article you have been assigned you can either look the journal up in OneSearch and then link the journal or go directly to publisher's website.
- GeoScienceWorld This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing, abstracts, and some full text to journals and books in the geosciences.
- Elsevier Journals in the Earth SciencesElsevier is a leading scientific publisher that publishes over a hundred earth science journals. You can browse or search for your assigned article directly from their website.
Reading, Summarizing, and Annotating a Scientific Paper
Scientific research articles usually include
- abstract: highlights of the major points of the paper
- introduction/background: context and purpose or the experiment
- methods: what was done
- results: sometimes combined with the methods or analysis
- analysis: how well did the experiment work
- discussion: sometimes combined with the analysis or conclusions
- conclusions/future work
Knowing the different sections of a scientific article will make it easier to understand the article. By comparing the same section across papers, you might be able to discern how the science has evolved or the influences of one group on the other.
Questions and themes to consider as you read.
- Evaluation of the author’s background. Affiliation of authors and (if possible) some evaluation of their level of expertise. Sometimes you can check the bibliography and see that they have published many articles on the topic. In other cases this is harder from a journal article.
- For whom is the article intended? Other researchers in the field? Physicians? General public?
- Brief summary of how study was conducted and key findings.
- This may include the purpose or the hypothesis behind the experiment, the method used to test the hypothesis, whether the data support the hypothesis or not, and why.
- Relevance of this information to your bibliography topic. “This study clarifies the mechanism by which the disease is transmitted…..: etc.
