BIOL 117 Human Reproduction Analysis

Assignment: Choose an article from the course list and write a one-page analysis.

Use the information provided below to help you craft your paper.

The Grading Rubric for the assignment has been provided.

A Brief Overview of the Article Analysis

The purpose of writing an article analysis is to demonstrate that you have read, understood, and demonstrate your critical thinking skills. Typically, an article analysis does three things:

1. Summarizes an article’s main points.
2. Analyzes the evidence offered to support the writer’s main point, taking care to point out where there are flaws in the argument.
3. Reflects upon the significance of the article, its connection to other reading/concepts in the course, and/or its importance in the field of study.

Your primary audience is your professor; as such, you should keep in mind an academic audience interested in the topic about which you are writing. Your writing does not have to be overly formal but should communicate with the reader in a respectful and efficient manner.

A Process for Writing an Article Analysis

A good article analysis can be written only if you’ve read the article carefully and thoroughly—and preferably, multiple times. The following tips assume you will read the article 3 times; even if you don’t do that, try to answer the questions below. Difficulty answering these questions indicates you may need to reread the article, read more carefully and slowly, or discuss the article with your classmates or professor.

1.Read the article one time all the way through. Get a general sense of what the article is about, and how the pieces of the article fit together. Do this initial reading in a quiet place where you have plenty of time to complete the article in one sitting. Stop reading only to look up terminology you don’t understand. If you read a passage that you don’t quite understand, re-read it 2-3 times; if you still do not understand the passage, mark it with a pen or pencil and move on. Try not to hold a pen or pencil as you read; the point is to gain an overview of the entire article rather than to jot down detailed notes about the article.

2.On your second reading of the article, answer these questions in the margin. They are meant to help you understand what the writer did in conducting research as well as discover the writer’s main points.

·What is the thesis (or central claim, or main point or main argument)? The thesis is typically found near the end of the article’s introduction.

·Can you summarize the article’s main point in your own words?

·What are the premises for the argument?

·What evidence (data, research findings, historical trends, theories, opinions, stories, anecdotal evidence) does the article’s author offer to support that central claim? Make a list of the specific evidence used throughout the article. Is that evidence sound?

3.On your third reading of the article, answer these questions in the margins. They are meant to help you to respond, critique, and reflect upon the article:

• What do you think is the most important or effective regarding the article’s research/argument?
• What limitations do you see in the research or argument? That is, what counter-claims or arguments can you make in response to the article?
• What did you learn from reading this article? Make a list; these might be a huge new understanding of the issue or small tidbits of information you found helpful.
• In what ways does this article connect to the content of the course, to help your understanding of the topic, and/or class discussions?

Only after you have read the article three times and answered the kinds of prompts listed above does it make sense to begin writing a draft.

As you can see from the reading process outlined above, each time you read the article, you are generating ideas to incorporate into the three areas of your article analysis. You can use the summary you wrote after your first reading of the article in the first portion of your essay. You can use the margin notes that you generated about the writer’s research and arguments in the middle portion of your essay- the analysis section. And you can use the margin notes that include your reactions to the writing in the final section of your essay.

A Process for Evaluating Your Draft

Once you have written a draft of your article analysis, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• Did you accurately, fairly, and objectively characterize the article’s arguments and research in your summary?
• Did you avoid quoting from the author’s own summary or thesis statement when summarizing the study in your paper? The urge to do so might indicate you haven’t yet grasped the author’s main point(s), so re-reading the article—and/or discussing it with your classmates or your professor—might be in order before you write much further.
• Is the summary of the article the right length? A good guideline is that it should be no longer than one-fourth of your entire essay. After all, the point of this assignment to analyze the article, not summarize it!
• Does your analysis account for at least half of the entire essay? If not, you probably need to re-read the article and your notes to generate more ideas for your draft.
• Does your analysis explain how the writer supported their main points with specific research, data, historical events, theory, etc? Typically, an article analysis describes these things in the order that the information appears in the article under analysis.
• Does your analysis point out any weaknesses in the writer’s argument(s) or finding(s)?
• Does your analysis describe specifically what the article contributes to the topic you are studying?
• Did you describe your own point of view of the topic in light of having read the article?
• Throughout the entire essay, were you professional? That is, did you disagree respectfully with the writer (when necessary)? Have you demonstrated that you’ve read and thought about the article carefully?

Prompts for Writing Consultations

• Begin by talking about the article under analysis. What is the article’s main point? What seems to be the new information offered by the article on this topic?
• Talk about the writer’s process of reading the article. What was difficult to understand? Are the terms or passages that the writer hasn’t quite grasped?
• Analyze the writer’s summary of the article. Is it brief, objective, and clear? Does it avoid quoting from the article itself—that is, has the writer been able to articulate the information in his or her own words?
• Discuss the analysis. Are most of the essay dedicated to analyzing how the parts of the article fit together and how the article fits into the larger discussion of the topic? Are the author’s premises and evidence identified and analyzed?
• Discuss the writer’s response to the article. Does it remain professional in tone? Does it follow logically from the summary and analysis? Does it fit the professor’s requirements for the assignment?
• Is the writing well-edited? The most common errors to look for include problems with commas and semi-colons, awkward word choice and phrasing, the use of the second person (“you”), and subject pronoun agreement.