Read and discuss a manuscript

Learning goals

After reading and discussing this manuscript, you should be able to describe Chinese supplements, and how the contents discovered by DNA sequencing matched the contents on the label.

Read and discuss a manuscript

I have students read and discuss a manuscript that used DNA sequencing to determine the contents of dietary supplements.

The manuscript I use is the one that inspired this project (Coghlan et al, 2012).

Since my course is online and asynchronous, I can't have a Zoom discussion. Instead, I upload the article in Perusall.com. They add their discussion to the article in Perusall. My colleague uses Perusall even in a face to face class. Students comment on the article in Perusall prior to the face to face discussion.

I tell students:

You should carefully read the manuscript, write questions or comments on the manuscript, and respond to other people's comments and questions.

Reading this paper will help you to write your own paper on your data. You may want to cite this paper. You may want to model your paper after this one. Also, notice how their methods are written. Notice how the results and discussion are written.

Don't worry about trying to understand all the details of their methods. You won't, and that's fine. They're a bit different from ours and very technical. Just know that they sequenced the contents of some supplements. They used primers that could amplify plants and animals, whereas we just used plant primers.