Gen-chang Hsu
Nov 3 · 1 min read

Nov 2, 2019

Day 86 Paper critique

Recently we had an Ecology assignment asking us to read a paper carefully, think comprehensively what has been done in the study, and review critically the statements made and the conclusions drawn by the authors.

Our assigned paper is concerned with the dynamics of the invasive purple loosestrife and the native aquatic species cattail over a three-year period, and how various wildlife species interact with these two plant species. The paper was pretty short, only seven pages with single-column format. It was also quite old though, published in 1984. The study goals were simple and straightforward, and there were no fancy and complicated analyses (probably because the paper was old), so it was not difficult to read through the article and understand the contents. Because I have to write a paper review on it, I read the paper almost sentence by sentence and contemplated it as if I was a reviewer trying to pick as many holes as possible.

Honestly, I haven’t really examined a paper in such detail for long. It was fun to do so, but if only I don’t have to do the assignment!

Gen-chang Hsu

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A Life Science major having broad interests in ecology and environmental issues. Loves outdoor activities, traveling, and exploring.