Writing for scientists
Mr.Hunter
9/10/23
Michael Torres
- “What problem is this paper trying to solve?”
In this paper, they are trying to the cognitive and brain development of children who have been neglected in their early years.
- What work has been done before in this field to answer the big question? What are the limitations of that work? What, according to the authors, needs to be done next?
Previous work was brain development studies, foster care studies, and early deprivation studies. Some limitations of the work were Variability and long-term follow-up.
- What exactly are the authors trying to answer with their research? There may be multiple questions, or just one. Write them down. If it’s the kind of research that tests one or more null hypotheses, identify it/them.
The authors are trying to research if foster care intervention can lead to cognitive and brain development in neglected children compared to institutional children, one hypothesis is that there no difference in brain development with foster care children compared to institutional children
- What are the authors going to do to answer the specific question(s)?
The authors will use a combination of research methods and data analysis to answer specific questions.
- Paraphrase what the authors did for their methods. You won’t understand most of it.
Cognitive tests, Brain activity recording.
- Paraphrase their results section. You won’t understand most of it.
- Based on what you can understand, what do the authors think the results mean? Do you agree with them? If possible, can you come up with any alternative way of interpreting them? Do the authors identify any weaknesses in their own study? Do you see any that the authors missed?
From what I understand the foster care intervention had a positive impact on cognitive and brain development. I would like to know if these impacts affected these children going into their teens and adulthood. Causality Vs. Correlation even though the results show a correlation, the causality can’t be determined
