CBLG143 Biology I: Critical Analysis of Scientific Paper Assignment

This assignment presents a detailed critical analysis of a scientific paper titled "Anthocyanin accumulation in the illuminated surface of maize leaves enhances protection from photo-inhibitory risks at low temperature, without further limitation to photosynthesis". The analysis covers various sections of the paper, including the abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion. The student answers a series of questions related to each section, demonstrating an understanding of the paper's structure, content, and research methodology. Key aspects examined include the research question, experimental design, data analysis techniques, and the authors' conclusions. The assignment highlights the importance of literature review, citation practices, and the interpretation of scientific findings, providing valuable insights into scientific writing and research processes.

Running head: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC PAPER
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC PAPER
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Background
Q1. As the article is available in the electronic database the article needed to be searched with
proper keywords and if the citation is provided then the article can be found in proper database
as well. So, if the citation is provided then the search strategy and search skill would be
developed for the proper search conduct. Hence, the reason for the citation providence and not
the article physically would help in the development of the search skills and strategic search
skills such as keyword search, Boolean operator, inclusion and exclusion criteria identification,
PRISMA for literature search (Zhang et al., 2016).
Q2. If the article would be posted to D2L then the access of the article would not provide actual
electronic source that is the web link. This would affect or breach the Copy Right Act and the
regulation implemented for the cause of the safety of the article and Ryerson Library site.
Q3. Plagiarism is a phenomenon that is used for the unethical practice of using an author’s
original idea or figure speech and stating that as own work without any permission (Helgesson &
Eriksson, 2015). This practice is highly unethical and considered as a criminal offense as well.
Possible penalties for plagiarism would be certain amount of monetary fine based on the
severity of the situation and also imprisonment for certain amount of time (Yadav, Rawal &
Baxi, 2016). Moreover, in case of students VISA could be cancelled and further permission for
study VISA would not be provided as well. The student can also be blacklisted in University.
Abstract
Q1. An abstract is a concise summary of the article which helps the reader to obtain the
overview, purpose and significance of the article without going through the entire paper.
Q2. Abstract contains the main finding data of the result which depicts the purpose and
conclusion of the article.

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Q3. The research question is “in suboptimal temperature if anthocyanin accumulated in the
illuminated leaf surface and shades the chloroplasts then the risk of the photo inhibition and
photosynthesis rate is reduced”.
Q4. Most important data of this experiment is ΔF/Fm of HOPI in white light is higher than the red
light and ΔF/Fm of W22 in both the light sources.
Q5. No, abstract is the section where the authors briefly describe their own work. Hence, the
citation of other authors is not required in this section.
Q6. An ideal is approximately 150 to 200 words long.
Introduction
Q1. Literature review is required for the knowledge gathering about the topic and the
background of the study for the better assessment of the subject. The purpose of the literature
review also knows the results of the studies conducted on the topic and what were not covered in
the previous studies.
Q2. The contradictory statements about anthocyanin were. “anthocyanin accumulation location
has not been confirmed in the plants”, “accumulation of anthocyanin inhibits photosynthesis by
shading chlorophyll b”, “in flavonoid Arabidopsis mutants anthocyanin provide very low amount
of protection against photo-inhibition and photo-oxidation” and “role of anthocyanin has to be
investigated more” (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Q3. The specific research question is- how anthocyanin accumulation in maize leaves can reduce
the risk of photo-inhibition at low temperature and enhance photo-protection without affecting
photosynthesis (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Q4. Statistical data, experimental hypothesis and the conclusions made by other authors should
be cited properly. However, the general statements would not need any citation.

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Q5. The last sentence should be cited as it has a statement about the recent works and the
conclusion of those works. Moreover, other sentences have been taken from the “Saunders et al.
2015”. Thus these would not require other citations as already cited.
Q6. The citation would be like (Anderson 1995)
Q7. The citation would be like (Babani and Lichtenthaler 1996)
Q8. The citation would be like (Sarijeva, Knapp and Pearcy 2006)
Q9. Yes, the authors followed the proper citation process of the CSE method and cited three
different articles as the statement is common in all the articles.
Q10. Citation of the following sentence would be as follows:
Remote sensing at leaf to landscape scales of crop physiology as affected by environmental
stresses has a great potential for timely crop stress assessment and management (Afanasyev et al.
2001; Daughtry et al. 2000; Filella et al. 1995; Zarco-Tejada et al. 2000a, 2000b).
Method
Q1. The material and method section is providing the description of the experiment and research
methods along with the materials used in the process of the research or the experiment. This
description would be helpful in the process of the validation of the research process. The method
section includes the methodology, theoretical framework, sample and sample size, geographical
description that is the location of the experiment, description of the steps of the experiment and
also the materials and the standards followed for the experiment (Bartoli et al., 2016).
Q2. The presentation of the material and method section is descriptive and sometimes the lists of
the materials are found in this section. However, the descriptive analysis of the processes are the
mandate characteristic of the material and method section of the scientific paper. On this context
it can be stated that the process of the material and method section development in a scientific

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paper is different from the lab manuals as in a lab manual the details of the material list an
overview of the method would be presented (Haig, 2018).
In the scientific paper the method section would be developed with past tense as the
section describes the processes have been done by the researchers and hoe they did that.
Q3. Yes, it is possible to replicate a scientific experiment of familiar subject or topic based on a
previous paper. If the proper description of the methodology is provided in the paper then the
process can be done by following the steps. However, there are some barriers as of the
geographical and specific material usage. Moreover, if the experiment would be exactly the same
then it can be marked as plagiarized idea which is ethically and legally breaching the copyright
act. Thus these should be considered for replication of the process.
Q4. No, generally the material and method section is not comprised with any result of the
experiment and the results are described in separate result section of the papers.
Q5. No, literature review is also provided in separate section of literature review in the article.
However, the methodology and the theoretical framework would be discussed with proper
literature support for the development of the idea of the methodology and providing relevant
evidence for the validation of the methodology.
Q6. The factor of the using “as reported by Gould et al” and “as described by Thayer &
Bjorkman” would be needed for the development of the evidence for the process of the
Anthocyanin localization and Xanthophyll analysis process respectively. Moreover, these
literatures are used for the idea development about the above mentioned processes as well.
Q7. As a reader, I would be searching the literature for the detailed knowledge about the
processes. Hence, the literature support would be helpful for the validation of the description. On

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this context it can be stated that the literature provided would help the reader to understand the
process.
Q8. HOPI and W22 are two genotypes of maize that is these are the mutants of the maize plant.
PPFD is the abbreviation of photosynthetic photon flux density which is a measuring tool for the
production of photosynthetic products and accumulation of the pigments. SOD is the
abbreviation of superoxide dismutase, which is a chemical compound develop dependent on the
Xanthophyll and the activity of SOD is one of the most important factors for the measurement
and the experiment (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Result
Q1. Result section is developed based on the experiment findings and the validation of the
experiment is completed depending on the results of the experiment. Moreover, the result section
describes the findings of the experiments and depending on this section the discussion and the
conclusion can be developed of the paper. However, the data would be provided in this section
and the interpretation of the data would be done in the discussion section (Hoefler & Belli,
2015).
Q2. Example- “Chlorophylls, carotenoids, anthocyanins, and flavonoids were quantified in
leaves of HOPI and W22 (Table 1), grown at 800 μmol m−2 s−1 and 25 °C for 2 weeks and then
exposed for 2 d to 18 °C, to enhance anthocyanin synthesis and accumulation in vacuoles of the
illuminated leaf surface” (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Q3. The authors used image and open symbol and closed symbol plot graph for the data
representation, example- Figure 1 and Figure 4 respectively (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci,
2002).

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Q4. No, it is not sufficient to present data in tabular form or figures. Hence, it can be stated that
the requirement of the descriptive paragraph accompanying the figures or tables should be
provided for better assessment of the results.
Q5. No, the methodological statements are not mentioned in the result section of a scientific
paper generally.
Q6 a) p≤0.05 is the indication of the statistical significance of the data collected for the
experiment as in the field of the statistics the smaller p value is indicating the strong or relevant
evidence for the alternate hypothesis and it can reject the null hypothesis of the experiment
(Benjamin et al., 2018).
b) Student–Newman–Keuls test is the method used by the authors for the statistical analysis in
the experiment and the article (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
c) According to the Table 1 data the leaf absorption of HOPI and W22 genotypes the containing
antocyanin is the significant data (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Q7. The graph shows significant difference between the data and it can be determined by the
marking of the graph and also the closed symbols for red light and open symbols for the white
light.
Discussion
Q1. The discussion section is comprised of the analysis of the result finding and the relevance of
the data found. Thus, this section is included for the analysis of the data.
Q2. No, there is no need of methodological statement in the discussion section generally.
Q3. Other studies are discussed in the discussion section for supporting the data findings and the
analysis as well. On this context it can be stated that the evidence and the relevance of the data
should be cited.

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Q4. The different result finding by the authors stated in the following sentence: “Our results
demonstrate that the role of anthocyanins, at least in maize leaves, is integrated with the role of
other protection mechanisms, reducing the need for antioxidants and for non-radiative heat
dissipation when leaves of HOPI and W22 were exposed at 5 °C to increased white and red
irradiances. Under these conditions, lower SOD activity and lower zeaxanthin + 0·5
antheraxanthin contents were found in the red leaves compared with the green leaves. However,
these differences were no longer measurable when the light absorption by anthocyanins was
circumvented using red illumination (Fig. 4B & C). This indicates that anthocyanins might
enhance the protective capacity of leaves against photoinhibitory damage. In fact, a 50%
reduction in Fv/Fm occurred at a white irradiance that was much higher in HOPI than in W22”
(Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Q5. Different genotypes of maize can be able to accumulate anthocyanin in higher amount in the
illuminated surface and thus those can have adaptive response to the harmful conditions of low
temperature and high light. Hence, the authors concluded that the process highlighted that the
risk reduction and high amount of anthocyanin accumulation provides advantage of the proper
photosynthesis to the plants naturally occurring in the higher altitude. The experimental results
have shown by the Fv/Fm equation (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Q6. The authors stated that the naturally occurring plants with rich anthocyanin content in the
higher altitudes provide the advantage of photo inhibition against the high light and provides
proper photosynthesis (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
References
Q1. Reference section lists out the evidences that is the scientific papers or books have been
considered for taking the data for the knowledge development for the topic.

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Q2. According to CSE referencing the Name-date style is proper for the referencing. Hence, the
order of the information is as follows: B) authours, E) date C) article title, A) journal title, D)
volume number, and F) page numbers.
Q3. Yes, it is arranged alphabetically in the reference list.
Q4. Generally the alphabetical orders of the author names are considered for the listing of the
references in the reference list. Hence, the author name starts with A will be in the first position,
B in second position and so on. Yes, the authors followed this pattern as well.
Overall
Q1. This author helped in the process of the knowledge development about the anthocyanin
accumulation in the illuminated leaf surface and also the effects of the accumulation as well.
This article also helped in the knowledge development about the style and the rules of the
development about the scientific paper development (Pietrini, Iannelli & Massacci, 2002).
Q2. Yes, this article helped in obtaining the knowledge about the sections of the scientific papers
and also the contents of each section. Thus, it helped in the process of the development of the
knowledge about the process of the development of a scientific paper.

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References
Bartoli, A., De Lorenzo, A., Medvet, E., & Tarlao, F. (2016, August). Your paper has been
accepted, rejected, or whatever: Automatic generation of scientific paper reviews. In
International Conference on Availability, Reliability, and Security (pp. 19-28). Springer,
Cham.
Benjamin, D. J., Berger, J. O., Johannesson, M., Nosek, B. A., Wagenmakers, E. J., Berk, R., ...
& Cesarini, D. (2018). Redefine statistical significance. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(1),
6.
Haig, B. D. (2018). An abductive theory of scientific method. In Method Matters in Psychology
(pp. 35-64). Springer, Cham.
Helgesson, G., & Eriksson, S. (2015). Plagiarism in research. Medicine, Health Care and
Philosophy, 18(1), 91-101.
Hoefler, T., & Belli, R. (2015, November). Scientific benchmarking of parallel computing
systems: twelve ways to tell the masses when reporting performance results. In
Proceedings of the international conference for high performance computing,
networking, storage and analysis (p. 73). ACM.
Pietrini, F., Iannelli, M. A., &Massacci, A. (2002). Anthocyanin accumulation in the illuminated
surface of maize leaves enhances protection from photo‐inhibitory risks at low
temperature, without further limitation to photosynthesis. Plant, Cell & Environment,
25(10), 1251-1259.
Yadav, S., Rawal, G., & Baxi, M. (2016). Plagiarism-A serious scientific misconduct. Int J
Health Sci Res, 6(2), 364-366.

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Zhang, C., Zhang, Y., Zhang, W., & Lin, X. (2016). Inverted linear quadtree: Efficient top k
spatial keyword search. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 28(7),
1706-1721.