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Scientific Writing and Presentation Protein
BIO 2440 Introductory Cell Biology
Scientific Writing and Presentation Protein
Proteins have many different functions in the cell and there are many unique protein structures.
This lab assignment involves writing a paper about a particular protein. This paper will include information about the structure and function of the selected protein. After your paper is written, an oral powerpoint presentation about your protein will also be prepared and submitted to YouTube.
A. Each student will be assigned a different protein by the TA. Everyone in the lab will have a different protein.
B. Now search the scientific literature for information concerning the structure and function of your protein. You must locate scientific journal articles, read the articles, and cite them properly within your paper. Each citation should be included in a Literature Cited section. The library search engines and Google Scholar may be useful. Books can be used. The internet can also be used, but use caution when using information from the internet – sometimes this information may not be correct/accurate.
You should locate and use at least 8 scientific articles/ books. Most information from scientific books and journals has been reviewed by the scientific community. At least 5 of the 8 (minimum) citations should be from scientific journal articles. Avoid obtaining information from web sites – this information may not have been reviewed by the scientific community.
C. Now it is time to write your paper. Your paper should include the following parts.
1. Introduction about proteins in general. This should include several functions of proteins. It should also include the four levels of protein structure. Illustrations can be included. If you have an illustration – include a Figure number and legend (caption) below the illustration. If an illustration is not your own, then the source must be cited. You should refer to all figures in the text and the figures should be numbered in order (Example Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc). (Your text book is a good resource for this section.)
2. General information about your selected protein. What is the function in the cell? In the organism? Is it structural? Is it an enzyme? Is it in all organisms? Is it in all cells? Illustrations may also be used to help explain the function. Cite appropriate information.
3. Information concerning primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure of your protein. What is the 3D structure? Include a ribbon model of your protein. Is the functioning protein composed of several subunits? If so, how do they fit together. Cite appropriate information. Include one or more figures and discuss your figure or figures. Discuss the ribbon model of your protein.
4. Genetic information about the DNA that codes for the protein. Have researchers sequenced the gene for this protein? Provide a small portion of the sequence of the gene for your protein. Are there any genetic diseases associated with your protein?
5. Conclusion
6. Literature cited.
In the Literature Cited section of your paper, the citation should be in the following format:
Authors (all listed), year, title of article, journal or book, publisher, volume and page number. This will allow another individual to locate this same article, if they are interested. Follow the style of the American Journal of Botany for preparing the Literature Cited.
You should locate and use at least 8 scientific articles/ books. Most information from scientific books and journals has been reviewed by the scientific community. Avoid obtaining information from web sites – this information may not have been reviewed by the scientific community. At least 5 of the 8 (minimum) citations should be from scientific journal articles.
General instructions:
*Information in the text should be cited with the author and the year in parentheses. For 3 or more authors – use the first author and et al (it should be in italics). For example: (Hudson et al., 2015). If have two authors, use both last names and year. For example: (Hudson and Jones, 2018).
*This assignment should have at least 3 ½ pages of written text (not including the illustrations, figure captions and Literature Cited).
*It should be double-spaced with one inch margins and 12 pt font, Times New Roman font, and pages numbered
*Avoid using contractions.
*Do not use more than 2 quotations in your paper. An electronic copy will be submitted to identify plagiarism.
*Illustrations need a figure number and legend (caption). Refer to scientific journal articles and your book for examples. Follow the style of the American Journal of Botany.
After your paper is written and you have edited it several times, but before you submit it, have someone at the Writing Center, in the Farrington building, review your final draft.
Plagiarism will result in a grade of zero (0) for this assignment. Paraphrase and cite information in the paper. Cite all illustrations.
Your paper will be checked for plagiarism with Safe Assign when you submit your protein paper to the appropriate site on Blackboard.
Submit an electronic copy to Dr. Hudson with an attachment in an e-mail. This copy will be printed and returned after grading (can be collected at my office or after an exam).
D. After your paper is written, now prepare a powerpoint presentation about your paper. Use figures and images from your paper. Use tables and summarize other information about your protein. Do not take entire sentences and/or paragraphs from your paper and use them in your presentation. Pretend that you are in front of the class and make a video of your presentation and submit it to YouTube.
Grading: Oral presentation video, submit to YouTube = 10 points
Final paper = 40 points
Dr. Hudson will read and grade all papers.
Management Quote
Bill Gates: “Tomorrow’s Leaders Will Be Those That Empower Others”
People operate in a world where they are overloaded at work and forget to focus on what matters most. The aim is always to stay focused to the goal, regardless of area of operation. Contemporary business culture is changing to acknowledge the role of a balanced life. New leadership techniques are exploring the importance of employee wellbeing (Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership n.p). According to the quote, “Tomorrow’s Leaders Will Be Those That Empower Others”, taking a good approach to leadership will meet the needs of employees while retaining shareholder goals in the long run (Wallace n.p.). The significance of this quote is to help leaders in empowering others. The leaders are there to listen and give people a chance to express themselves and solve problems. The ideal leader will bring togetherness, growth of employees, and a purpose to their business, while inspiring generations to become better leaders in the future.
The quote is inspiring to me in a number of ways. First, I desire to be a leader who empowers others to attain growth. As a contemporary leader, Bill Gates offers that there has to be a natural feeling and purpose to serve (Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership n.p). In this case, the needs of the employee come first. A servant leader always focuses on the growth of people or institutions and the societies they fit in. Secondly, the quote requires leaders to put others’ needs first, in order to create a following. Such a style empowers people, leading to development and high performance at the workplace and elsewhere. From the quote, empowering people could change the world so much. The quote also calls upon leaders to exercise equality, whereby a decent society is established. Wallace (n.p.) offers that a fair society, one that provides opportunities for people, is constructed. The empowerment of employees by the leaders will lead to institutions’ growth because leaders will have a purpose and direction. The quote seeks to establish a new leadership culture that will influence the next generation of leaders.
Works Cited
Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, n.d. What is Servant Leadership? – Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. [online] Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. Available at: <https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/> [Accessed 3 March 2021].
Wallace, Natasha. “Bill Gates: “Tomorrow’s Leaders Will Be Those That Empower Others”” Dec 19, 2019. Real Leaders. https://real-leaders.com/bill-gates-tomorrows-leaders-will-be-those-that-empower-others/
Theories in Effective Communication
Baylie Pierson
Brian Robertson
CAD 100B
24 April 2018
Theories in Effective Communication
Communication is the transfer of thoughts, information, ideas and emotions through gesture, symbols, signs, voice as well as expressions from one person to another (Schement). There exist two types of communication that include verbal and non-verbal communication. The verbal communication refers to the oral communication while the non-verbal communication. In the case of the verbal communication, the communication happens verbally, orally or through written words to pass the message to the opponent.
Verbal communication has two types that include the oral communication and the written communication. Oral communication usually happens through the word of mouth, conversations, and spoken words, and also any messages get shared or exchanged between one another through speech or the word of mouth such public speech, television, radio, news reading, telephone conversations. For the written communication, the conveyance of message is done through any written words or signs that refer to the language used in any medium such as handwritten, newspaper, typed, documents, books and letters.
Communication skills is one of the basic fields to which every individual should possess in order to communicate effectively, efficiently and ethically. Communication skills are required for every human being to obtain something from others. Individuals have been communicating for the last thousands of years, but the mode of communication, as well as the theories, have not changed much as compared to that time. Communication theory is a part of information theory which studies how information is conveyed between two groups of individuals (Woodward). Just like any other scientific study, the process of communication is simplified to include only two actors that are the sender and receiver. The actors transfer a single message between themselves and it travels through a medium. The communication process is more complex in practice but the basics are simplified in to make it simpler. Proper communication is necessary to attain a successful career and relationships.
The communication theory studies the verbal which is formal and verbal the informal types of communication. Most of the communication theories try to explain communication, but all are similar in that they contain similar elements. The communication elements include source or sender, message, signal, medium, context or noise, a received signal, receiver, received message and destination to which the message is intended (McQuail & Windahl). The sender needs to communicate the message to the receiver. After encoding the source to a signal, the sender sends it over the medium. During the time it takes the message to reach its destination, the signal is potentially distorted by the noise. The receiver picks up the received signal and decodes it and then gets the received message and passes it to the destination.
The source or the sender is one of the basic concepts of communication and information processing. The sources of the information are the objects to which encodes the message data and then transmit the information through the channels to one or more observers and thus the sender is defined as the person who provides the information to other people. The sender provides the information related to a particular subject or about a condition to which someone wants to be changed according to his specifications. In order to have a better communication, the sender must provide a relevant message that is simple and easy to understand. The sender should compose a message that is relevant to the topic under discussion so that he does not get out of the topic of communication. In an illustration, during the sending of a mail, the sender composes the message to be mailed making it simple and clear and using less complex wording to avoid confusing the receiver.
The message is the body or the content to which the sender composes and sends it to the receiver. The message can be formally written or informal, as well in the oral perspective the message is passed through the word of mouth according to the topic under discussion. The message in the mail example of a written form of communication according to the intention of the message. For formal delivery, the message should be short and brief and communicates the direct intention without any hidden intentions. Friendly messages are not made formal and one is not supposed to follow a certain format in addressing the receiver.
The communication theorists examine messages from a semiotic perspective that is the study of signs and symbols and how the meaning is achieved through them. For example, a speaker produces the meaning of the message through various criteria. In the first criteria, the object to which in this case the speaker has an inherent meaning. The second criterion would be his or her image, acting as a representation of the meaning of the object, this can be a well-dressed, professional and a successful person. The third criteria is the interpretation or derive meaning. If the object and image for this case the speech, are successful then the audience will leave having the full understanding of what the speaker meant.
Encoding refers to the process of assembling the message that is the information, ideas as well as the thoughts into a representative design with the objective of ensuring that the receiver can understand the message. Communication can only be established when it results in both the sender and the receiver getting to comprehend similar information. Individuals who are great communicators happen to be great encoders as they know how to present their messages in a way that their audience, the receivers can easily understand. They are as well able to identify the information that is superfluous, irrelevant or even accidentally offensive and are capable of eliminating them in advance through anticipation.
The channel is the fourth element of the communication process. An encoded message is conveyed through the source through a channel. There are numerous channel categories such as the verbal, non-verbal, personal and non-personal. A channel could be the paper on which the message could be written or the internet acting in the client-server model that is granting one to read the words. A good communicator is the one to whom understands the kind of channel to use under the different circumstances of delivering the message. It is unfortunate that there are no perfect channels as all the channels have both strengths and weaknesses and the suitability depend on the number of strengths and advantages that it possesses. For example, the smartphones are great and can be used to propose to someone, but then the marriage proposals are best done in person.
Decoding is the process of interpreting information in order to understand the message. It involves listening and reading directions carefully. Just like in encoding, the communication can only be successful when it results to both the sender and the receiver grasping and understanding the same message and information, and for this to happen, there should be no errors during the processing of the message. One of the best examples of decoding would be a student sitting in on a lecture on the differential equations, decoding is made possible if the student is capable of understanding the context of the message and therefore capable of solving the equations.
After a sender has composed a message and traced the best channel to which he can use to pass the message, the information finally reaches to its destination which is the receiver. A good communicator takes the receivers preconceptions and frames of reference into considerations in the form of how they will react to the message, where there is sharing of common ground, their sense of humor and their moral conduct and all these things will have an effect of how the receivers decodes the messages. The receiver as the intended destination of the message has to read and comprehend fully, digesting the information and relating it with the subject under discussion. Just like in decoding, the receiver must understand the message and be in the same context as the sender of the message. The reason as to why the receiver should understand the message is so that he can be able to plan for the feedback.
The feedback is the final element in the communication process and it is the response of the message to which is sent back to the sender via the same process, where in this case, the receiver becomes the sender. The source of the message is able to judge its success based on the kind of feedback that is received. Feedback is the most reckoning moment to which the sender of the message may receive any kind of response from their respondents.
The context to which the message is composed and sent refers to the environment in which the message is delivered. The context can easily make or break the effectiveness of the communication, this is simply because the environment dictates the formality of the message, and for example, an official communication cannot be carried out in a pub as the environment is completely out of context making it not acceptable.
The elements of communications can never work effectively if the sender and the receiver don’t possess the necessary communication skills. The communication skills are necessary in driving the message home as well as ensuring attention and appropriate feedback. There are three communication skills that are essential in the communication process and they include proper and active listening, body language and confidence during the reply of the feedback (Trenholm).
Active listening involves being keen and paying attention to the speaker in order to grasp whatever is being said. Lack of proper listening would have the implication of poor understanding and as well inadequate decision making leading to wrong feedback that is out of context. It is therefore advisable for a person to maintain an active listening session paying attention to every detail to ensure accuracy during feedback, and also recommendable that the receiver maintains an eye contact to infer what the sender is about to say.
Body language and confidence are also essential in the communication process. The sender have to maintain a specific code of seriousness depending on the message and the context of the message. Being shy or having the inability to maintain eye contact imply that there is no proper communication and that the intended message will not be delivered as intended. Confidence is also required when replying to a message, this is to show the sender that the recipient is conversant with the answer being provided and thus there are minimal chances of errors.
Communication is, therefore, an important aspect in the passing of messages from the sender to the receiver and for an effective communication to take place both the sender and the receiver should have the same understanding of the message in order to have a proper response. Both the sender and the receiver need to make sure they get to understand the environment, maintain the codes of communications in the specific field as well as demonstrate the skills of active listening in terms of verbal communication to facilitate persuasion and proper feedback.
References
McQuail, Denis, and Sven Windahl. Communication models for the study of mass communications. Routledge, 2015.
Schement, Jorge Reina. “Communication and Information.” Between Communication and Information (2017).
Trenholm, Sarah. Thinking through communication: An introduction to the study of human communication. Routledge, 2017.
Woodward, Philip M. Probability and Information Theory, with Applications to Radar: International Series of Monographs on Electronics and Instrumentation. Vol. 3. Elsevier, 2014.