A scientific journal publishes articles or papers written by scientists or teams of scientists. These articles report on experiments or studies conducted by the authors. Sometimes, one experiment or study can result in more than one article or paper. Scientific journal articles undergo a process known as "peer review" before they are published. That means that when a paper is submitted to a journal, it is reviewed by the authors' peers, or, others in their field who can make judgements about the validity of the article's conclusions and the methodology used to reach them. Usually, the authors are affilliated with a university or other research intstitution.
Scientific papers follow a certain structure, so that papers can be read quickly and readers know which part to turn to to find what they are looking for. See this great site from Kenyon College to understand more about...
TIP: When using a search engine like Google, search for the term "open ______ journal"; where _________ is the discipline in which you are researching (for example, "chemistry.")
Final Project: AP Chemistry
Students will present work from a scientific journal article published within the past five years. The presentation to the class should be about ten (10) minutes in length. The requirements for the presentation are as follows:
1) The journal article may be from any branch of scientific research. It is not restricted to chemistry.
2) The journal article must describe an actual research experiment. It may not be a review article that covers a particular subject broadly.
3) The presentation (in PowerPoint or KeyNote) must show who did the experiment and their professional affiliation (which college or institute), must describe the problem being investigated, must reveal the methods used by the researchers, and must explain the conclusions reached by the researchers.
4) The presenter should comment on current/future applications of the research.
5) The presenter should also discuss possible follow-up experiments (what is the next step?).
6) The presenter is encouraged to be critical of the experimental setup and/or conclusions where appropriate and suggest improvements to the described experimental methods/equipment.
7) Students not able to present in person must provide a slide-by-slide script to accompany the electronic presentation.
TIP: After entering your search query, scroll down until you see the "Academic Journals" results.
JSTOR is an archive of scholarly articles; the parameters of your final assignment say that your article should be no more than five years old. Use the Advanced Search option to specify the date range you're looking for.
Does not include peer-reviewed articles, but would help with background information on an unfamiliar topic.
