Instructions for Week 1 of Epi Course

Introducing our personal, intellectual, professional interests

See worksheet linked to week 1 the syllabus

Reading activity for Week 1

Case study: Gene-Childhood Maltreatment-Adult anti-social behavior

Caspi, A., J. McClay, et al. (2002). "Role of Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in Maltreated Children." Science 297(5582): 851-854.

Stokstad, E. (2002). "Violent Effects of Abuse Tied to Gene." Science 297: 752.

Radford, T. (2002). "Scientists identify gene link to violence." The Guardian (London).

These articles each describe the same research but are intended for different audiences. (If you find interesting additional articles related to this case, post annotated references on the wikipage for week 1.) Read each of them once. Make notes on what you learned, questions the articles raised for you, and where you skimmed/skipped because you did not understand/appreciate the technical detail. In other words, the purpose of reading these articles now is not to critically understand the research article right away, but to get us thinking and talking about how we read technical articles with or without guidance from more accessible accounts.

In class we will break into three groups, each group discussing one of the articles, deciding what you know from the article and what evidence there is to support the conclusion. Each group will then present its article to the whole class so that we can see the progression of the translation of research for the general audience. Generally there is a series of incremental changes in the meaning of the conclusion of the research article, resulting when the journalists attempts to make the article more understandable and more appealing. We will discuss the translation in this case and the implications of activity for our reading of articles in the rest of this course.

This activity is adapted from “Student exercise in science communication,” by Jinnie M. Garrett, posted at http://www.stv.umb.edu/orsseo.html

Question activity for Week 1

The idea is to focus on identifying questions that arise for you from first reading of the course primer. Bring these to class 1. After class share additional questions by emailing them to epicourse@googlegroups.com. In order to practice using a wiki, try also to add them to second half of the wikipage for week 1. But if you have trouble don't spend time; instead, wait and we'll do peer-coaching during class.

To sign up and get started see first two paragraphs of general instructions.