All right welcome to our first introductory lecture on general zoology journals, journals zoology. This is bio212 for southern virginia university. I’m dr samuel hurt and um i’m gonna be your instructor in this course so these video lectures are meant to be short introductions into uh topics which we will be talking about in lecture. The study of zoology journals, journals zoology. As you see here. We’ve got some bears here. In the back. A mama bear and three cubs one of them is covered up by the title of course and generally. That’s what you think of when you think of zoology journals, journals zoology. You’re studying animals. You’re going out living with the bears and studying their behavior. And that’s great and definitely that is zoology journals, journals zoology. That is studying animals in their habitat. But you’ll learn in this class that zoology journals, journals zoology is much more than just these big charismatic megafauna. Nice big word for you guys to um think about but animals are both big and small and everywhere in between and follow a very diverse um group of organisms and so we’re gonna study all the different aspects of zoology journals, journals zoology including these big things but also the small and uh otherwise seemingly unimportant invisible things that we also call animals so a little bit about me. I’m not going to spend too much about on this but i have a doctorate in ecology which i earned at auburn university in alabama. I also got my masters of science there. I earned my undergraduate degree at brigham young university. I’ve been teaching in a number of different places since graduate school so i taught at auburn university. As an instructor i’ve taught at small community colleges i’ve taught of different liberal arts institutions including pacific university in oregon and have been teaching at southern virginia university for the past five years and really enjoy the environment here and the liberal arts education. Which i’m part of research zoology journals, journals zoology-wise i’ve done a number of research zoology journals, journals zoology projects as a graduate student but also i’m continuing to do some smaller research zoology journals, journals zoology projects in the rockbridge county and other areas in virginia including stuff on salamanders and mice and would like to expand that more and we’ll probably have opportunities within this class to do some uh some of that research zoology journals, journals zoology as well so that’s me that’s uh those are my credentials.
Why i’m qualified to teach this class so let’s talk about. What is zoology journals, journals zoology. Zoo is the prefix as a derivative from greek or latin word for animals and ology is the study of so it is just as you. We have discussed before the study of animals. It involves much more like i said than just going out and hanging out with bears if that were possible but fundamentals of biology. Um and in fact it’s in considered a sub-discipline of zoology journals, journals zoology. Sorry a biology sense. Animals are living things. We’ll also discuss. You know genetics taxonomy systematics evolution ecology and other important parts of biology. As we discuss zoology journals, journals zoology we will dabble in other things as well including chemical chemistry and physics. How animals move is and use you know principles which are found in chemistry and physics is is a sub discipline called biophysics we also biochemistry which you look at more the chemical reactions in living things and what makes them alive. What makes them survive how they get energy and and other such things. So all of this is and many other sub disciplines are part of zoology journals, journals zoology. We have here on the right. A phylogeny. So this is understanding principles of evolution and genetics and systematics and lots of different sub-disciplines of biology went into making this hypothesis. Of how different phyla how different groups of animals are organized and related so going a step back further um of course. Zoology journals, journals zoology is a science and understanding what science is is going to be important for understanding how we interpret the information. We receive which we would call zoology journals, journals zoology. So my kind of working definition of science is that it’s the formulation and or discrediting of objective explanations for the observations and phenomena of the physical and biological universe right so within that definition.
We’re looking at how things work in the universe and animals. You know how they work um what are the principles that guide their life would then fall under. This definition here are more dictionary definitions of science but most of them involved looking at a process so a branch of knowledge or study dealing with body effects of truth or systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws okay and and so we are going to use a scientific process and understanding and animals as well so elements of science that we need first we have to um deal with observations and one of the fundamental things about observations. Is that the things we observe are things that are actually happening. So it’s kind of a funny thing to think about but because it’s something we just take for granted so when we see hear smell perceive anything use instruments to measure things things like that. We are making an assumption. That what we’re doing is is real. It’s something that’s actually happening. And that the observations we make are consistent right. They’re based on natural and physical laws that have always been around and will continue to work in the same way every single time otherwise if it’s not if those things are inconsistent then we can’t really trust anything that we perceive we’re also going to use logic to understand things and two forms of logic include deductive and inductive reasoning so deductive reasoning is taking general principles and applying that to specific results. So based on this information which i have gathered. I can then say all right. Well i think x y and z is going to happen. Making predictions inductive reasoning is then gathering observations and using them to show patterns which form laws and theories so the law of gravity newton’s laws of motion. He took all this information and took mathematics and noticed that they followed consistent patterns and created those laws um which hold true until you get into you know equals mc squared anyway.
So we’re going to use logic we’re going to use deductive and inductive reasoning. We are also going to try and understand that different variables are at play when we observe different things and if we can tease out those very variables we can tease out their influence on an observation or an experiment in order to do that we need something to compare it to so we will use control something where we have a known outcome that we can use for comparison and then when we have variables and controls we can. We can do a test experiment where we do two parallel tests with our control and our changed variable to conclude what is the effect of that variable all right and then we’ll use statistics to determine how much of an effect and how significant that effect will be so. I’ve got this plant here. Um there are lots of different things going into variables going into how this plant grows sunlight water nutrients soil airflow. All these things are important if i want to assess the effect of let’s say nutrients in the soil. I could say alright. Well if i put fertilizer in this and don’t put fertilizer in the other i compare them side by side and i can look at the effect of nutrients the effect of fertilizers as i. Then measure the growth. What i essentially did there was. I used the scientific method and you will see different ways in which the scientific method is presented so this figure on the right is from a biology textbook. It has a lot more detail than these five or six steps that i’m going to show you from the zoology journals, journals zoology textbook and there are arrows. Going up and down left and right kind of in different places really. The scientific method is a bit messy and it isn’t necessarily this perfectly. Linear step-by-step process in fact a lot of times. We’ve got to adjust our experiment or adjust our hypothesis because theoretically we may have one idea but in actuality we can’t set up our experiment in that way but regardless of the way that it it carries out we’ll generally follow these steps where we make observations and we ask questions about those observations and then make some sort of predictions with those and form a hypothesis and then we do our test much like in our plan earlier and form our conclusions and then we would want to publish or share those results with others so that they can build off of what we’ve done or we can add it to a body of evidence to create a theory or law all right so the scientific method is very important for understanding how animals behave the way they do.
What are the different variables influencing where they are in their ecosystem their effects and so on and so forth okay so when we um gather scientific evidence through studies there are a number of different ways in which these studies can do this one. Some studies don’t really even do an empirical test they are simply observational taking in information. So this guy. Taking the picture of the puffin. He’s not necessarily doing anything that is that is an experiment or testing different variables but he notices the posture and the area. And perhaps even how long this puffin is sitting in this in this position. Maybe there’s a nest under there with um eggs or or small chicks that it that this puffin is taking care of but in all in all there’s just observations going on here controlled laboratory experiments. That’s what we described before with our plant. You may also have rats. You know as i’ve got this picture down here below being subject to different behavioral or experimental conditions and then we could determine based on those different conditions. What our outcomes or results would be. We can have correlational studies where we don’t necessarily have a cause and effect but we can look at how two variables are connected so for example this figure on the top left colon cancer incidence in women and per capita daily meat consumption. We notice that these two variables are connected.
Doesn’t necessarily mean that one causes the other but it appears that the more meat a individual or a country collectively eats the more time the more the higher the incidence of colon cancer. Those are a correlation. We have quasi-experimental studies um where we have conditions out in generally out in in nature in the field where we can look at two areas and we can do it kind of like an experiment although we aren’t controlling everything and so that’s why we say quasi or partly so let’s say a forest fire came through and we’re looking at this forest fire and we want to know how plants regrow after a forest fire and we’re going to compare that to another area that doesn’t have a forest fire running through it and so we we have a control. We have um experiment. We have changes in variables and we can compare those things but we don’t we can’t account for all the differences right so it’s not under a laboratory controlled environment and the last one is opportunistic and so that fire. I didn’t start the fire. Fire um the forest fire. Excuse me um but i’m taking advantage that it did happen. And i’m making a comparison so my quasi-experimental example was also an opportunistic. Study or on the bottom right. I might be interested in understanding plant growth after a lava field goes through and um and takes over an area. I’m going to take opera. Take the opportunity to study that. It’s not something that i can force or make happen. Um oftentimes you can have multiple different types. So you can have a correlational opportunistic study you can have an observational opportunistic study and so thinking about these definitions and then what exactly is are. The research zoology journals, journals zoologyers doing will help you understand which of these apply. Okay so scientific research zoology journals, journals zoology can follow one of two major categories one is doing the experimental method and generally scientists are trying to understand proximal causes or how something works so for example my salamander i want to know how it behaves under stressful conditions.
When given extra cortisol that’s what the chemical formula or chemical representation is to the left of that so i’m looking at how something works. And then the second type of research zoology journals, journals zoology would be the comparative method where scientists are looking to understand the origin of biological phenomena or the ultimate causes. So what makes um why do penguins have flippers and other birds have wings for flying all right and what are the influences that went into creating these different things. What are the ultimate causes. All right um and and often we’re just really looking at different scales. So i’m trying to understand under larger contracts the difference between flippers and wings in birds and that’s going to require a much broader information base than my experiment with the salamander. We’re just doing this. One little thing trying to understand its effect all right. Lastly we need to understand that when we are publishing information how it’s published and generally this is done through the peer-reviewed process or at least this is the most standard way in which we accept. Uh information to be done in the proper way so a primary source is an original piece of information that’s been published by the research zoology journals, journals zoologyers themselves and it has gone through peer review where it was submitted to a journal an editor that editor sent it to a bunch of different people and all those people then critiqued it and generally sent it back and then said these are the things you need to change or do better in order for this to be published and sometimes they’ll say your study is not good it was not done correctly and it is not going to be published in this journal so that is kind of like the the sentinel which is going to make sure that only good science makes it through to publication doesn’t always work that way but that’s the the the safeguard mechanism once it’s published it generally has these different parts an abstract is a summary of the main findings it’ll have an introduction giving background information and previous research zoology journals, journals zoology which will be relevant and important to the the current study it’ll have materials a method so what did we do in this study how did we carry out what are the different things that we used um what are the organisms that we tested on what was our question.
What was the statistics we use all of that. And then what are the actual results. And what do those results mean in the discussion. And then i’ll have figures and tables which will help us to understand those results as well. Secondary sources then are compilations of primary sources such as your textbook so the textbooks takes all this information uh from primary sources and summarizes it into a you know readable format and information. That’s all related to each other so your zoology journals, journals zoology textbook has a summary of primary sources and what they um contribute to the study of zoology journals, journals zoology in different chapters and subheadings and so on um and so textbooks will need to be updated as the science uh is updated as well which is why you have different editions of textbooks and um the most recent edition is going to be the most accurate towards the current science. Okay so that’s it as an introduction to zoology journals, journals zoology. We’re going to use these principles. We’re going to use the scientific method we’re going to assess scientific papers and how well they did their experiments and it’s going to be lots of fun.
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