First use Pub-Med or other sites to find one or at the most two complementary papers on the virus you would like to study. The virus is Influenza Virus. Additionally, find some good reviews on viruses. Also, read the reviews I will be posting under “Assignments”. While you are preparing the more extensive term paper, follow instructions provided below to summarize introduction, data, conclusion, and future studies into Power Point slides.
1. Introduction
(a) Viruses- general taxonomy
(b) The classification of the specific virus you will discuss
(c) What is the importance of your topic? Any mechanism/ biochemistry?
2. Present research data showing how question/s have been answered.
Each slide must have a title highlighting what the research data presented establish or the Question addressed. Include appropriate props and legends to help you explain each part of the data.
3. Conclusion : What is learned from the data presented and how it furthers knowledge. What is still not known?
4. Future studies : What unanswered questions could you ask and what experimental methods would you use to answer them? You need to present some details of the strategy. (You cannot simply say “I will do Western blot” or SDS-PAGE or PCR).
Structure and Organization of the Term Paper:
Use Pub-Med or other sites to find two complementary papers on the virus you would like to study. Additionally, find some good reviews on viruses. Also, read the reviews I will be posting under “Assignments”.
Follow the structure of a typical J. Biol. Chem. Paper (Download one).
Deviate from the above paper structure a little by making the introduction longer, with more figures to briefly include the following:
An overview of the different families of Viruses (Taxonomy).
Their mechanisms of action, and effect on the host cell
The specific virus you will be focusing on and some structural and functional details. What questions are being asked in your paper and how they are answered?
Write the “Experimental Procedure” section in your own words using the necessary procedures given in the paper/s you are going to use. Use subtitles for each procedure.
Write the results by including only those figures that you need to use to make a complete story. In case you use two complementary articles, then first read them carefully, and make a complete story by using only appropriate figures from these articles. Present only these figures in your paper. Make sure to number the figures, write figure legend in your own words, and place them near or immediately after the section in your text that reports results included in this figure.
Write the discussion carefully by not repeating statements from the results. Rather, by including what the results mean, how they relate to one another, and how they tie together to produce one mechanism or model. Make sure to clearly mention what is still unknown or unclear and then, in the last one or two paragraphs, propose experiments with proper strategies (not detailed methods or short statements like “I will do Western Blots or column chromatography”). This section will fetch you about 20 points out of 150.
Make sure to use citations within the text (from the Introduction to the Discussion) in the J. Biol. Chem. style. If you are already familiar with reference managers (such as Endnote), you could use a reference manager in the J. Biol. Chem. style. Otherwise, you would have to insert the citations by hand (as numbers) and then place the references at the end of the article against the same numbers as cited within the text. (Read the J. Biol. Chem. Paper carefully to understand this point).
Use your own thoughtful title for your paper and write your name in the place of author as shown in the J. Biol. Chem. article.
Each of the above parts will carry a certain number of points. So, avoid being disorganized. The overall idea is to learn writing a smart research paper. Take help from others and from doctoral students and post-docs to improve your work.
Point Distribution:
Title(5):
Abstract(15):
Introduction(25):
Methods(20):
Results(25):
Discussion(20):
Future Studies(20):
References(10):
Organization(10):
Total(150):