BIOL 318 - Plants and Society (Simokat)

How can you tell if an article is "peer-reviewed", or "scholarly"?

Watch the video below to learn how to figure out whether the source you found is a "peer-reviewed" article.

How to Read a Scientific Article

This video will teach you how to approach reading a scientific article - it's not as straightforward as you might think! Watch the video below, and use the note-taking template at the bottom of this page to help organize your thoughts and prepare you to write your literature review.

In order to complete your literature review, you'll have to read and understand a number of scientific articles. Using the template below - whether you download a copy for yourself or reproduce it in a lab notebook - will help you stay organized and give you a way to prepare to write your literature review. Without comprehending or noting the main arguments of the articles you read, you won't be able to summarize them for a literature review - this template will help you to do this. Especially important are the sections "Main Concepts" and "My Critical Response" - this is where you will take note of your understanding and also start to figure out how the article relates to your research question and the other articles you've found.