Aims

In this module, students will develop their skills to review and critique source material. It is increasingly important for current graduates to evaluate data and information with respect to accuracy and relevance. Within this module, different areas of specialisation within Chemistry will be explored that will highlight current research in fundamental and applied chemistry. Learning to communicate scientific information in a variety of formats (executive summary, presentation, review article) is key to bridging the gap between the scientific experiment and the contextualisation of findings within the wider community.

Students will develop competency in literature searching, learn to read, reproduce and evaluate the content of research papers, and practice oral presentations on a research topic. The production of a review article in a standard format aims at training scientific writing skills, as well as critical evaluation of source material.

Outline Of Syllabus

Introduction
Scientific ethics
Types of literature and understanding journal articles
Referencing and citations
How to prepare an academic profile
Scientific databases (Library)
SciFinder (Library)
Reaxys (Library)
Endnote revision (Library)
Preparing ChemDraw schemes and other visual material
Career profiles and presentation skills
Job applications, further study and skills workshop (Careers service)
Time management for CHY3011
How to write a literature review
Feedback session

Scheduled meetings with individual supervisors are arranged by the students to obtain feedback on their progress on the literature project.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

A series of workshops will develop subject specific and key skills. Feedback sessions will be used following the return of marked set exercises. Students will be assigned a supervisor and meetings scheduled throughout the project.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The Chemical Communications exercise will probe understanding of a recent paper and related chemistry.

The presentation will develop scientific communication skills. The target audience will be semi-informed scientists and the scientific content will need to be adapted to a less specialised audience.

The project plan will test the ability to plan and structure a review.

The final review report will assess understanding of the subject area and the ability to present this in a coherent, structured way following a given format (the RSC Chem.Soc Tutorial Review format).

Students registered on the BSc/MChem Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry programmes will be allocated a project in the Medicinal Chemistry area.

An alternative assessment will be set for any Semester 1 Study Abroad student taking this module, who will not be in Newcastle during the January assessment period.