Resource of the Week #123: An Annotated Journal Article

Hello again. Analyzing good articles can help researchers write better articles themselves. So can reading analyses of good journal articles. Our current Resource of the Week is such an analysis.

This analysis consists of an article with comments written on it. In other words, it is an annotated journal article. The comments are by graduate student Michelle Yeoman, who also has contributed other work to AuthorAID.

The article that is annotated reports research on bees. It appeared in the journal PLOS ONE.

For at least 2 reasons, this article is well suited to use as an example. First, it is well structured and otherwise well written overall. It illustrates many principles of writing an effective scientific paper.

Second, the article is not highly technical. Thus, researchers in many fields can use the annotated version without much difficulty.

The article includes a note saying that the article “may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.” Thus, we could prepare and provide this annotated version without seeking permission.

We hope that many researchers will find this annotated article useful in refining their writing skills. Thank you, Michelle!

Until the next post—

Barbara