Critical reading and academic writing

Understanding and forming an accurate opinion on academic articles is a crucial skill in research. Similarly important is the ability to convincingly

present and discuss one’s conclusions both in a spoken and written form.

In this course students develop their critical analysis skills through a variety of exercises, article readings, debates and writing tasks. They also

deepen their knowledge of current cognitive neuroscience through exposure to a variety of topics and methodologies.

The students should become sensitive to what is required to conduct well-motivated, methodologically sound and reproducible science. Still, the skills developed in this course are important for success in non- academic careers as well as academic ones.

In light of the current ‘replication crisis’ in social and life sciences there is more pressure than ever on scientists to hone their research skills, including critical analysis and an eye for good and bad research practices. These should then be continuously applied to the evaluation of published research by others as well as one’s own. This course aims to meet this demand.

In this course students practice deep reading of scientific articles, form good habits and an eye for crucial methodological details. They learn to avoid typical pitfalls in various types of research methodologies (e.g., case study, correlational, experimental, both behavioural and neuroimaging).

They then learn to convincingly present and discuss their opinions both in a spoken and written form: in class debates and by writing article reviews

and a discursive essay. This is particularly useful for preparing future dissertations, presentations and scientific publications.

Students also become familiar with a variety of current topics in cognitive neuroscience as most articles are selected from the recent literature.

Helpful books:

Girden, E. R. (2011). Evaluating research articles from start to finish. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Julian Meltzoff (1998). Critical thinking about research psychology and related fields. Washington, DC American Psychological Association

Example class topics (which will be annually updated):

1) Introduction: what is deep reading? 10 questions you should answer reading an academic paper.

2) Mock paper analysis - Article 7 from Meltzoff (1998).

3) Case Study analysis Corazzol M., Lio G., Lefevre A., Deiana G., Tell L., André-Obadia N., Bourdillon P., Guenot M., Desmurget M., Luauté J., Sirigu A. (2017). Restoring consciousness with vagus nerve stimulation.

Current Biology 27: R979–R1001.

4) Writing practice. Paragraphs.

Correlations & introduction to ‘voodoo correlations in neuroscience’ Grill-Spector, K, Sayers, R., and Ress, D., High-resolution imaging

reveals highly selective nonface clusters in the fusiform face area, Nature Neuroscience. 9, 1177–1185 (2006).

5) Correlations 2: Class debate 1: "The paper by Vul et al. , despite its shortcomings, has done a service to the fMRI community". Discuss.

Vul E, Harris C, Winkielman P, Pashler H (2009) Puzzling high correlations in fMRI studies of emotion, personality, and social cognition. Perspect Psychol Sci 4:274 –290.

6) How to write a good essay? Critical analysis of examples. Material

selection and organization. Writing practice and resources.

Rowena Murray “page 98 exercise”.

7) Sensitivity & Specificity: Emotra Study

Thorell, L. H., Wolfersdorf, M., Straub, R., Steyer, J., Hodgkinson, S., Kaschka, W. P., et al. (2013). Electrodermal hyporeactivity as a

trait marker for suicidal propensity in uni-and

8) Inferring causality.

Mock paper – Article 10 from Meltzoff (1998).

9) Analysing the analysis (1): Targetted memory retrieval

Hu X., Antony J. W., Creery J. D., Vargas I. M., Bodenhausen G. V., Paller K. A. (2015). Unlearning implicit social biases during

sleep. Science 348, 1013–1015. 10.1126/science.aaa384

10) More writing practice! Comparing example essays. Also: how to interpret null results? Introduction to Bayes factor.

Dienes, Z. & Mclatchie, N. (2018) Psychon Bull Rev 25: 207.

11) Class debate 2: "Machines could one day have the same consciousness humans do." - reading tbc

By the end of the course the students should:

1) be able to critically evaluate an academic article (K_W01, K_W07, K_U01)

2) be able to critically evaluate state of the art research on a current topic in cognitive neuroscience (K_W01, K_W02, K_W06, K_W08, K_K02)

3) be able to gain a deep understanding of a chosen article (K_W07, K_W08)

4) be able to clearly express their opinions, both orally and in writing (K_U06, K_U08, K_U09)

5) be able to constructively discuss their own and other’s opinions

6) be able to write an article review (K_U06, K_U09)

7) be able to write a discursive, academic essay (K_U06, K_U08, K_U09)

8) have raised their confidence in approaching and analysing academic literature (K_K01, K_K02)

The final grade is composed of:

2 x article review: 40%

1 x essay: 50%

In class participation: 10%

Attendance is a necessary condition to pass the course. Three absencesare allowed. Any additional one requires a note from a doctor or an exceptional personal circumstance. No more than 5 absences are permitted.

Students must respect the principles of academic integrity. Cheating and plagiarism (including copying work from other students, internet or other

sources) are serious violations that are punishable and instructors are required to report all cases to the administration.