learn with discussion - (May/26/2008 )

My habbit is to learn with discussion. If i read a lot and not discuss its some thing like i forget after closing the book.
Can some one explain me these simple things.

1) what is introduction, give me three basic tips for that.

2) what is review of literature and how to differentiate it from the introductrion.

I shall be very thankful to you.

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My habit here is to learn by copying. I just read other introductions and write it the same way...some background, some important results of other studies, problems and open questions, some goals, some blabla. but it depends also for what it is. A publication, a thesis, an application,...? And what the supervisor or the journal wants.

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tricky tricky tricky.....it's like the million dollar question, don't you think?

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Julebo, It is good to discuss once you have acquired basic information about a subject. Sometimes people tend to completely replace reading with forums, discussions and arguments, of course they learn a lot, but many a times without a proper foundation, basics, it turns out to be a strange premise. And then it is too late for them to go back and read basics. So, they don't. And the travesty continues.

See some of the articles here: http://search.vadlo.com/b/q?sn=158621799&a...ture+&rel=0

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Thank you cellcounter.

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Introduction = short overview on the topic that was dealed with

Review = exhaustive overview on the literature available on a topic





My habit is learnig by summarizing. Have a book where I have the important (for me) information condensed...so I dont have to go through all 600and something papers I have read again, as I usually know where in my notebook I have the info I need
And I tend to explain my new knowledge to innocent victims crossing my way ....helps me to remember things too...



You are talking from my heart!
But around here the problem is: if there is nothing in wikipedia the students just ignore the topic, as reading papers (in a foreign language) is very difficult in the beginning and so they often avoid scientific literature until they have to finish their Master .... and some are really really shocked that their (basic) textbooks have mistakes or inaccuracies in them
But around here the education for literature research and literature use is very very bad (sorry I am a little frustrated about this topic at the moment; as one of our master students told me some days ago she could not find anything on the topic in the internet; the topic was very exotic: DNA extraction from soil samples! )....

Nevertheless: Cellcounter, thank you for the useful link!

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Are you serious about the masters student

http://search.vadlo.com/b/q?keys=DNA+soil&...mp;sn=158621799

Thanks for your kind words..

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sad but true...but at least she managed to copy the principle of PCR from wikipedia (including a picture of the PCR-tubes) but it is really sad round here; tried to read a paper with my students (end of their study!) recently - nothing sophisticated just a small paper about PCR diagnostics - and asked them to summarise the key messages...horror. But for most of them it was the first scientific paper they were forced to read, so what could I expect

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How will they graduate?

I think you may need to give them a small talk about the expectation of a master degree.

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It is sad but true: around here we are very short in staff, so some people "use" master students to do some kind of routine lab work (which should at least in theory been done by non-scientific lab staff)...what I mean is: they dont need to know about what they are doing (better dont know, instructor stays the shining star )- they just should repeat a kind of experiment 100 or so times, summarise the results, copy the thesis from their precursors fill in their own results and have graduated

But thank god there are at least some "good" students : highly motivated and eager to learn (although they seem to become the exception durning the last years)....and a lot of working groups (the vast majority I would say) where the master students are educated very good

But "gazing sheep" like mentioned above tend to frustrate me...and then I forget about the good sides of science But the above mentioned case is hopless...was talking to her again and again with the consequence: "I was having an "A" in all my courses, I know what I am doing"...so I decided to have lunch and a small beer to calm down and watched her repeating the initial experiment again and again and again and it never worked (routine experiment; which was thought as educational task to get used to the method)

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