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Intentionally flawed manuscripts as means for teaching students to critically evaluate scientific papers
Author(s) -
Ferenc Jaroslav,
Červenák Filip,
Birčák Erik,
Juríková Katarína,
Goffová Ivana,
Gorilák Peter,
Huraiová Barbora,
Plavá Jana,
Demecsová Loriana,
Ďuríková Nikola,
Galisová Veronika,
Gazdarica Matej,
Puškár Marek,
Nagy Tibor,
Nagyová Soňa,
Mentelová Lucia,
Slaninová Miroslava,
Ševčovicová Andrea,
Tomáška Ľubomír
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
biochemistry and molecular biology education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1539-3429
pISSN - 1470-8175
DOI - 10.1002/bmb.21084
Subject(s) - journal club , identification (biology) , critical thinking , scientific writing , complement (music) , medical education , psychology , computer science , engineering ethics , mathematics education , medicine , engineering , chemistry , biology , art , biochemistry , botany , literature , complementation , gene , phenotype
As future scientists, university students need to learn how to avoid making errors in their own manuscripts, as well as how to identify flaws in papers published by their peers. Here we describe a novel approach on how to promote students' ability to critically evaluate scientific articles. The exercise is based on instructing teams of students to write intentionally flawed manuscripts describing the results of simple experiments. The teams are supervised by instructors advising the students during manuscript writing, choosing the ‘appropriate’ errors, monitoring the identification of errors made by the other team and evaluating the strength of their arguments in support of the identified errors. We have compared the effectiveness of the method with a journal club ‐type seminar. Based on the results of our assessment we propose that the described seminar may effectively complement the existing approaches to teach critical scientific thinking. © 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 46(1):22–30, 2018.