Purpose of Assignment:

1. To investigate the information content of DNA and genes. To answer questions such as: What is the genetic code? How is the information encoded? How is it structured? How is it used?

2. To practice performing a literature search for technical material. Reference: CSCI 475 web page on "How To Do A Literature Search".

3. To learn how to read technical material critically. Reference: CSCI 475 web page on "How to Read Technical Articles".

4. To practice writing an article review and perform a credibility analysis.

5. To start a knowledge base for your team.

The Assignment:

1. First, read the article handed out in class "Teaching Students to Critically Evaluate the Quality of Internet Research Resources" by Professor Cunningham. Reference: CSCI 475 web page on "Critically Evaluating the Quality of a Research Source".

2. Find three (3) relevant articles to review. One must be from popular press, e. g., Newsweek, Time or Reader's Digest. One must be from a scholarly journal. One must be an article from the World-Wide Web, say, found by using the altavista search engine. An article can not be one that is already listed on the CSCI 475 Web pages. Reference: CSCI 475 web page on
   " Scholarly Journals Vs. Popular Press".

3. Write a one to two page review of each article. Read each carefully and write a summary in your own words.

4. Analyze each article for credibility using Professor Cunnington's criteria. Give an overall rating of credibility for each article.

The assignment must be written on a word processor. Hand in the writeups and a copy of each of the three articles.