Article Summary Assignment

(Choose one of the two attached articles for this assignment)

In Unit 1, you practiced answering Conceptual Questions. The goal was to make connections

between your work in the lab and the big ideas inherent to that work (but not always obviously so).

The focus was on your ability to articulate your ideas logically, clearly, thoughtfully, and succinctly.

These efforts culminated in Long Assignment #1 – your Hypothesis. Congrats on your good work

thus far!

In Unit 2, we will read about some of the major ethical quandaries related to protein engineering and

an argument about it as a way to assess your ability to interpret ethical quandaries with agency and

rigor. In other words, your Conceptual Questions, in Unit 2, will become ethical summaries and

responses.

Meetings #5 & #6 will progress as follows:

o Read the assigned source with the utmost care so that you accurately understand it.

o Then, in a paragraph of no more than 16 lines of text (1” inch margins all around, 12 pt

Times New Roman), write a summary of the source without interpreting it (i.e. no

personal opinion or analysis). Instead, be as objective as you can. Assume that you are

writing for intelligent, public readers who are not familiar with the text; present them with a

clear, concise, and accurate overview. Some tips:

should be active verbs (e.g. “Mukherjee describes the research…” not “It is

described by Mukherjee…”)

▪ You should quote the source as needed to give your readers a sense of the

language and key claims of the text, but do not overdo it.

▪ Use spell-check and grammar-check tools before submitting!

Note: Summarizing and evaluating data – be it raw data from an experiment, the ideas put forth in a

scientific journal article, or the language of a poem – is how we come to understand that data. It is

therefore important that you give yourself any and every opportunity to practice, and it is why we are

building your capacity to do so this semester iteratively.

a helpful critique that highlights portions you feel were well done, but also points you feel were not

sufficiently or adequately addressed, points that were over-emphasized, or even places where the

overall logic of the post might be reorganized to better make a point. You should also think about

the overall implications of the work, as these ideas will be fair game for discussing in class, even if

they will not be directly addressed in your summaries.

Six Steps: (1) Read the source.

(2) Compose your summary and/or response in clear, economical prose.

(3) Before the day of class, make a discussion post with your summary.

(4) Prior to class, reply to at least two of the discussion posts from your colleagues

with constructive feedback.

(https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/northern-white-rhinos-are-almost-gone-should-

scientists-bring-them-back)

ARTICLES FOR LAB 6

(https://www.wired.com/story/can-a-genetically-modified-bug-combat-a-global-farm-plague/)

(https://time.com/6047051/genetically-modified-mosquitoes/)

Article Summary + Response Assignment

of the salient aspects of the material as a way to assess your comprehension of the material. Now,

in Meetings 7 – 9, you will again summarize an article, but then you will also build an argument

about the article's presentation of the material as a way to assess your ability to interpret ethical

quandaries with agency and rigor. In other words, your Conceptual Questions in this portion of Unit 2

will become ethical summaries and responses.

Meetings #7, #8, & #9 will progress as follows:

o Read the assigned source with the utmost care so that you accurately understand it.

o Then, in a very short paragraph of no more than 6-8 lines of text (1” inch margins all

around, 12 pt Times New Roman), write a "micro" summary of the source without

interpreting it (i.e. no personal opinion or analysis). Instead, be as objective as you can.

▪ Follow a logical structure of the source’s main ideas, sequential or otherwise.

▪ The controlling verb tense should be present tense, and most of your verbs

should be active verbs (e.g. “Mukherjee describes the research…” not “It is

described by Mukherjee…”)

▪ You should quote the source as needed to give your readers a sense of the

language and key claims of the text, but do not overdo it.

▪ Use spell-check and grammar-check tools before submitting!

o Next, compose your ethical response in a paragraph of no more than 20 lines of text.

The most straightforward way to go about this is to structure your response to praise,

critique, argue. In other words, articulate (1) one or more ways in which the ethical

the overall implications of the work, as these ideas will be fair game for discussing in class, even if

they will not be directly addressed in your summaries.

critique.

(4) Prior to class, reply to at least two of the discussion posts from your colleagues

with constructive feedback.

(5) Prior to class, upload your article summary and critique to Gradescope.

(6) Come to class prepared to share and discuss with your peers.

(continued below)

Other

Overall mark