Writing Abstracts

Zachary A. Musselman

Millsaps College

This activity has benefited from input from faculty educators beyond the author through a review and suggestion process.

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This activity has benefited from input from faculty educators beyond the author through a review and suggestion process.

This review took place as a part of a faculty professional development workshop where groups of faculty reviewed each others' activities and offered feedback and ideas for improvements. To learn more about the process On the Cutting Edge uses for activity review, see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.

This page first made public: Apr 30, 2008

Summary

This activity requires students to read a journal article with the title, abstract and keywords removed. After reading the article, they must submit a title, abstract and keywords.

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Context

Audience

Upper level undergraduate course in geomorphology

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Critical reading
Reading comprehension
Scientifc writing

How the activity is situated in the course

This activity is assigned three times during the semester, with the article relevant to the topics being discussed in lecture

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

Goals include improving critical thought, reading comprehension, and scientific writing, organization and presentation.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Higher order skills include analysis of written presentation of theories and data, synthesis of ideas and critical evaluation of the scientific merit of specific research projects.

Other skills goals for this activity

Description of the activity/assignment

This activity requires students to read a journal article with the title, abstract and keywords removed. After reading the article, they must submit a title, abstract and keywords.
Designed for a geomorphology course
Has minimal/no quantitative component
Addresses student misconceptions

Determining whether students have met the goals

While reading their submissions, I look for highlights from each article. I try to determine if they understood what they read, sometimes this takes some revisions, but often the outcomes are worth while.