Poster Assignment Instructions 2014-AUT PDF

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Poster Assignment Instructions...

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Cell Biology and Genetics (91161) 2014 Autumn Researching, Reading & Communicating Scientific Information Assignment Instructions Due date for poster & presentation – Week beginning 26th May, 2014 during your normal prac session time. Late submissions will not be accepted Students are responsible for ensuring their poster & presentation is assessed by their demonstrator during their normal scheduled prac session. Background Being a “scientist” involves many skills. Apart from designing and performing experiments and analysing results, it also involves writing and publishing the findings of those experiments. Publication of findings and peer review is an important facet of the scientific method, which consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. The scientific community adheres and operates under the principal that this process must be objective, free from bias and subjective interpretation of the findings. This is facilitated by the process of full disclosure, where scientific findings, data and methodologies are documented and archived, allowing for full scrutiny by other scientists, along with verification of the results by other scientists who reproduce them. The process of full disclosure occurs via the publication of the information in the scientific literature in a variety of journals depending on the topic and discipline. This allows for researchers to see what others have done and what new advances and knowledge exists in a particular research area. This is where the library assumes an immense importance for scientists, as these journals are housed and electronically accessed via library collections. In high school, the library was focused on the collection of book volumes. At university, the focus is on the journal collection, for it is Journals that contain the most up-todate information. Therefore students need to be able to develop confidence in accessing the massive amount of information contained within the library e-journal (and book) collection. Once you know how to access this information, students then need to develop skills in selective and strategic searching in order to successfully find exact matches and relevant information to assist in answering their question/s and hence to eliminate irrelevant information. We live in a complex world and with the advent of the Internet we are now overwhelmed with information. Learning to navigate through the information labyrinth is a skill that takes time and practice. This assignment is the first of such tasks that you will be assigned during your university course, as a means of developing your research and communication skills. Learning Objectives 1. This assignment aims to train students in searching and accessing scientific literature using electronic databases via the library web site. 2. It aims to provide students with the opportunity to experience the process of gathering, evaluating and applying information relevant to a scientific problem and an appreciation of the existence of different sources and types of information, such as peer-reviewed publications, databases, research and review articles, textbooks, catalogues and technical reference books. 3. It also aims to train students in identifying and selecting relevant material from a vast array of complex information. 4. This project also aims to introduce students to the process of preparing and presenting a scientific poster. This is an important and commonly used method of communicating information amongst scientists. By having students prepare a poster and give a presentation of the scientific research data, the assignment also aims to develop students’ spoken and written communication skills.

Assignment Instructions Select one of the following broad topics to begin your research. 1. Cell Division 2. Cell Metabolism 3. Cell Signaling 4. Cell Motility Begin searching through the 11 journals listed in the table below, to find research articles published in the year 2012 only that are related to your chosen topic. All of the journals listed below are available as e-journals from the UTS Library website. Once you have done some initial searching and reading, select ONE of the RESEARCH PAPERS (published in the year 2012) as the basis for preparing your scientific poster. The poster you design must explain the work described in the paper. You can use the figures and data from the paper on your poster and you must include the original authors names, their affiliations and the original title of the paper on your poster. Essentially you could view yourself as having been delegated the task of preparing a poster for this group of scientists. The task is to prepare a poster based on the work they have published in the paper you have chosen. Your name, student number, prac class time, day and lab number should appear somewhere towards the bottom or back of the poster – acknowledging you as the person responsible for designing the poster. You will present your poster to your laboratory demonstrator and to a small group of fellow students during your normal prac class in week 13 (week starting Monday 26th May, 2014). The papers you read in order to prepare the poster will form the basis of your reading list to be submitted with the poster . Please note: although the poster must be based on a paper published in 2012 from the list of journals shown below, you are expected to read as widely as possible from journal articles sourced from any journal or date, in order to understand the topic you are presenting. You will find that REVIEW articles on your given topic will assist you in getting background information. Also refer to the papers referenced in the article that you have chosen, as these will also provide valuable background information. All relevant papers you read can therefore be included in your reading list. You must choose your research paper from any one of the following journals using an article published in the year 2012 which will form the basis for the preparation of your poster. Table: Journal List and their corresponding ISBN/ISSN 1. The Journal of Cell Biology

0021-9525

2. Journal of Cell Science

0021-9533

3. Cell Biology International

1065-6995

4. European Journal of Cell Biology

0171-9335

5. Plant Cell

1040-4651

6. Gene

0378-1119

7. Microbiology

1350-0872

8. Cell

0092-8674

9. Cell Calcium

0143-4160

10. Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics

1085-9195

11. Developmental Cell

1534-5807

Instructions for the preparation of your scientific poster The poster is to be size A3 and legible when standing at a 1 meter distance. The poster must also contain an abstract, no more than 200 words, which is located on the upper left hand corner of the poster. The font of the abstract must be no smaller that size 14 font. You can use a number of software packages that are suitable for putting the poster together: eg Powerpoint® is available on the University’s Computers. You can have your poster printed and laminated by a professional printer. This should cost no more than $5-6. What to include on your poster: Title Banner / (Authors of the paper and their affiliations) Abstract (max 200 words) Introduction (optional) Main body – this will include methods (brief) and results / images, graphs etc Conclusions References Any text appearing on the poster should be paraphrased into your own words and not copied directly from the original paper (except the title of the paper, author names and affiliations). However, feel free to change the title of the paper on your poster if you think you have a better one! Referencing Remember, you must suitably acknowledge any source of material and images that you may use. Be very careful not to plagiarize material. If you are not sure, refer to the following website and follow the links on plagiarism http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/help/referencing/harvard-uts-referencing-guide Use of any of the scientific reference styles is acceptable, as long as references in the list contain the title of the paper/chapter. Refer to any scientific journal article for examples of referencing styles. Useful tips and things to keep in mind when preparing a poster Posters are used as means of presenting information in a brief, rapid and visual way. They can be used as a way of getting feedback about preliminary data and ideas. They are commonly used as a means of presentation at scientific conferences. The poster needs to be attention grabbing and aesthetically pleasing to attract viewers. Brevity -- keep words to a minimum, use point form, flow diagrams and use imagery and graphics in place of lots of text. Coherence – it must communicate the aims, methods, results and conclusions clearly and concisely. It should be able to do this and present the information in a stand-alone manner without the need for further explanation. Simplicity -- tell a story or elaborate an idea in the simplest way. You only have a few moments to get the message across and grab the viewer’s. Evidence – provide suitable reference material to support your claims.

Reference Books Chapter 16 -- Zeegers, Deller-Evans, Egege & Klinger. Essential Skills for Science & Technology. Oxford (2008) Chapter 7 – Knisely. A Student Handbook for Writing in Biology. 3rd Edition. Sinauer/Freeman (2009) Reed, Holmes, Weyers, Jones. Practical Skills in Biomolecular Sciences. 3rd Edition. Pearson / Benjamin Cummings (2007) Jones, Reed & Weyers. Practical Skills in Biology. 4th Edition. Pearson / Benjamin Cummings (2007) Please also see the references available from the library and notes on UTSOnline.

Instructions for presenting your poster Each student will present their poster during their normal laboratory session in week 13. You will need to give a 5 minute talk explaining your poster and communicating the main findings of the work from the paper you are presenting. You should include an explanation as to why you chose this particular research paper for your poster. You will need to anticipate any questions that fellow students and demonstrators may have. In order to present effectively you need to have a clear grasp of the essential concepts and methods used by the authors of the research paper. This therefore implies that you have understood their work enough to be able to explain its main findings. In order to do this you will need to read some of the reference papers that are included in the paper itself, and other papers the authors or others may have previously published on the same topic. Review papers are also a useful and fast way of getting some background information on a research topic.

You will need to provide a hard copy of the paper you have used in preparation of the poster to your demonstrator, along with a list of references on a separate sheet of paper, include related papers you consulted and read whilst researching your chosen topic [minimum of 5 other papers should be sourced – note, these additional papers do not need to come from the journals listed above or restricted to 2011 publications].

Awarding of marks will be based on the following set of criteria 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Quality of the presentation – does it cover the important points, clearly explain the data and accurately present the research findings? Ability to respond to questions from the audience about your presentation. Relevance of the paper chosen and presented to the chosen topic. The clarity of the information on the poster – how well has the information from the research paper been summarized and displayed on the poster. Written presentation, clear and concise, free from grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors. Provision of hard copy of the paper used in preparation of the poster Provision of list of reference papers used in researching poster background – using an appropriate referencing style

ALSO REFER TO THE FAQ FILE FOR THE POSTER ASSIGNMENT AND THE CHECKLIST, AVAILABLE ON UTSONLINE....