Assignment 1
Peer Review: An Overview
Pre-Writing Due: May 27
Paper Due: May 30

Introduction
You are flooded with all sorts of information from blogs, web sites, newspapers, radio shows, advertisements and a myriad of other places. Often, their information is difficult to verify, but each claims to provide reliable, valid information. This flood can lead us to into various temptations, but there are two extremes that should concern us. The first is the temptation to think of all claims as legitimate because they are all "opinion," and all opinions are equal. The second tempatation is to divide information into "true" and "not true." What can go wrong when we accept either of these extremes?

1. When we treat all claims as equal, we run the risk of ignoring the outer, material world. For example, it's a bad idea to sleep on railroad tracks even if you believe it's ok to do so. We also risk losing our ethical/moral values (Auschwitz is profoundly evil, and saying otherwise is also evil). By ignoring how any piece of information fits into the larger beliefs, needs, and communities of our culture (as we'll see in the case of fraudulent stem cell research) we fail to appreciate the larger cultural fabric that sustains knowledge.
   
   
2. When we treat some kinds of information as true, we're ignoring the history of how we got to those conclusions. Often, we fail to understand that a good explanation fits itself into the other explanations that have addressed a larger problem. It's often difficult to see how knowledge is created within specialized communities by their strictly enforced methods, definitions, interests, etc., but your work will lead to such insight.

In both cases, there's a failure to appreciate the history of our knowledge. If we don't know how knowledge was created, we won't have the tools for thinking inventively. We'll be doomed to endlessly repeating what we've been told. My argument is that everyone needs to think about the limits of what they "know" so that they can see that it's best feature is the opportunity to invent, and create.

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Assignment
For the entire term, our course is going to do a detailed case study of a recent, bizarre incident : the fraudulent work of a stem cell scientist (Hwang Woo Suk) that was published in one of the most respected scientific journals in the world. The journal (Science) uses a process called "peer review" that is designed not only to prevent fraud, but to ensure that scholarship and research are connected to existing knowledge. Peer review is a standard practice in scholarly and research journals. The case raises lots of questions about how knowledge is created, validated, and accepted by communities of experts.

This assignment will become the first section of your final, term paper. Remember, your work accumulates, and each piece is usable for the next assignment. As you get near the final project, you will have completed all its major pieces.

1. Our class will begin building an index of sources that address the nature of peer review. Our index will grow to include information about the scientific claim, its social context, and the strategy that enabled the fraud to succeed.
   
   
2. Pre-writing task #1: Identify a popular source on peer review. Write an annotated, bibliographic entry for that source. Use Purdue's description of Annotated Bibliographies to write your entry. Post your entry to the class list serve. These postings become the shared property of everyone in class.
   
   
3. Pre-writing task #2: Identify a scholarly article on peer review. Write an annotated, bibliographic entry for that source. Use Purdue's description of Annotated Bibliographies to write your entry. Post your entry to the class list serve. These postings become the shared property of everyone in class.
   
   Pre-writing assignments are DUE May 27
   Pre-writing points for both assignments: 50
   
   
4. Paper #1: Begin by carefully reading all the information posted to the list serve. Using these resources and your other research into peer review, write a brief essay dealing with the following questions. Your paper will probably be about 4-5 pages long. See MLA Formatting Guidelines for requirements about spacing, fonts, titles, etc.
   • What problem does peer review attempt to solve?
   • When did peer review develop? Provide a brief history of its various types?
   • Who is the audience for a peer-reviewed article?
   • What is the relation between the writer of a peer-reviewed article, the article's audience, and the reviewers?
   • What strikes you as odd/new/surprising/unworkable/whatever about the peer review process? Note that this final bullet asks for you to identify something problematic about peer review. You will describe this perplexing problem without attempting to take "sides" or to "solve" it.
     
   DUE: May 30
   Points: 50
   

1. Peer Review: an overview
   
   
2. Science: an example of the peer review process
   
   
3. The Content and Internal Context of a Scientific Claim
   
   
4. Social Contexts for a Scientific Claim
   
   
5. Subverting the Processes of Peer Review
   
   
6. The Power and Limitation of Peer Review
   

1. FLITE Databases
   
   
2. scholar.google.com
   

1. Tools, links, etc.

1. Writing Skills
   
   
2. Critical Thinking Skills

1. Instructor Email hugh@culik.com
   
   
2. Peer Assistance [list serve]