WkS+paper-example

I haven’t written a workshop paper, but from my fictional group discussion (see below), I would be thinking about setting it up as follows: > Outram, AK, Stear, NA, Bendrey,R, Olsen, S, Kasparov, A, Zaibert, V, Thorpe, N & Evershed, RP 2009 The earliest horse harnessing and milking. Science 323:1332-1335. I’d expect group members to correct sentences, move them around, add/delete and so on. As it says on wikipedia, be prepared for “ your writing to be edited mercilessly”.
 * Plan for workshop paper on horse** **evolution**
 * 1) A title
 * 2) Giving electronic link for media article (if there isn’t one see if you can upload a scan)
 * 3) Giving electronic link for journal article and writing it out in sci2010 referencing format
 * 1) Saying why this was of interest to media – lots of people like horses?
 * 2) Brief summary of the scientific paper
 * 3) Indicate how points were presented in media article. Suggest that media article was probably based heavily on a conversation with the first author which would have made the writing much easier (or on a press release)
 * 4) Media article was a pretty comprehensive summary in very few words

From Sunday to Tuesday, comments added at different times by group members M1 Where will we look for an article - M2 I’ve just looked the Age on line. It doesn’t have a science section,so I looked under technology. Looks like there is nothing recent (its amazing what is classed as technology). M3 Could try Reuters? M4 have just tried ‘The Australian’. It's better than the Age. Has a ‘Science & nature’ section. Has lots of things. I’m interested in domestication (did my PhD on it) so how about we pursue the story on ‘Horses tamed 5500 years ago'? – [] M1 OK. Have checked, didn’t know people ever milked horses, and says the work was published in the journal Science. Can we find that original article? M2 &M3 ok M2 Have just logged on to Monash library. Went to databases and from box at side of popular databases picked ‘web of knowledge’ because its one I am familiar with. Searched for outram* as the author and Science* as the journal. No luck. Tried horse in topic* and science* in journal. Hmm, too many journals with science in name. Try just science and limit to year to date (assume published this year, but the Australian may have been sitting on story for a while). Nothing Try latest 5 years, nothing that looks right. Give up and try another topic? M1 Article may be accepted for publication but not yet published so not yet in databases like web of knowledge. I am looking at the libraries list of electronic journals and see if I can get into the Science website. Ok got into Science and searched for ‘Outram’. Article published on 6 March (database a bit slow!). I’ll see if I can save and upload the pdf. Or you can try [] and see if you can get in. M2. Got it, looks sort of OK (pretty obscure in places, what does “skeletal element abundances lacking differential transport patterns associated with large quarries” mean?) Will need to use wikipedia to understand parts. I’ve got a bit of time now and I have limited access to the internet so how about I read the original and write a summary of what I think it says, then you guys can correct based on your reading and draft the actual workshop paper?? I’ll make sure I log in again and comment on friday M1, 3 &4 OK. Will check again tomorrow

Sometime later (around midnight Tuesday?) M2 My summary of Science paper Horses (Equus caballus) seem to have spread with mankinds ability to use bronze, particular types of warfare, and other aspects of Indo-European culture. Because it is possible that this correlation is causative (ie horses made these cultural developments possible), it would be interesting to know where horses were first tamed and used. Foot bones excavated from sites in north/central Kazakhstan reveal that a population of horses existed in the Botai region (not sure that it is a region – it is a culture. may be both) about ....years (when was it?) ago with foot bones more similar in structure to those of domesticated horses than of wild horses. In the same study scientists found that bones in the mouths of horses that are known to be damaged by the bits of bridles, were damaged in the Botai horses, and fats that are most probably from the milk of horses could be isolated from ancient pottery of the Botai. Botai is some distance (the other side of the caspian sea) from Egypt/Palestine where agriculture is thought to have first orginated (the ‘fertile cresent’), which suggests that horses were domesticated from wild animals in Kazakhstan rather than being brought in from elsewhere, but there may not be only one place in which horses were domesticated, just as there is not one origin for all forms of agriculture. I’ve just re-read the article in ‘The Australian’ and I think it’s a pretty good summary. What do you think? Can you guys check the dates and were those ‘mouth bones’ I referred to really teeth as it says in the news article?

Wednesday – comments added at different times by the group members M3 OK, will do. What do we need for the paper? M1 There are some ideas in the unit guide. We should say its quite good (if you agree). They do actually mention the 3 lines of evidence which is good (provided its correct – that bones/teeth question). And dates – are they right? Seems to me that the writer also benefitted from getting a plain english summary of the paper direct from the horses mouth (sorry!) – seems to have spoken to the lead author. M4 My reservations are about the accuracy of identifying the mares milk, and I’m not sure I’m convinced by the bit stuff. Would horses with leather bits show similar damage to those with metal ones – I’ll have to read again and check. M3 OK but I think you are quibbling with the science and not with whether or not the newspaper accurately summarises the original which is what we are supposed to be doing here. Have a look at my checking and editing tomorrow. Then if you all log-in and do some editing we should be ready to put on blackboard the next day. Final thing supposed to be ~250 words. M4. Think you are right about the quibbling but we need to have some content to prove we really read the original

......... etc etc Posted Mar 9, 2009 10:56 am - [|[delete]]