Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Identify the shared characteristics of the natural sciencesSummarize the steps of the scientific methodCompare inductive reasoning with deductive reasoningDescribe the goals of basic science and applied science

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Identify the shared characteristics of the natural sciencesSummarize the steps of the scientific methodCompare inductive reasoning with deductive reasoningDescribe the goals of basic science and applied science

This course is the scientific communications portion of course 7.02, Experimental Biology and Communication. Students develop their skills as writers of scientific research, skills that also contribute to the learning of the 7.02 course materials. Through in class and out of class writing exercises, students explore the genre of the research article and its components while developing an understanding of the materials covered in the 7.02 laboratory.

Students get to practice their receptive skills with a fingerspelling quiz. Students should be reading fingerspelling at a mid-fast speed. Students are also practicing receptive/expressive descriptions of places/images/etc.

This freshman course explores the scientific publication cycle, primary vs. secondary sources, and online and in-print bibliographic databases; how to search, find, evaluate, and cite information; indexing and abstracting; using special resources (e.g. patents) and “grey literature” (e.g. technical reports and conference proceedings); conducting Web searches; and constructing literature reviews.

This course provides broad exposure to research in biophysics and physical biology, with emphasis on the critical evaluation of scientific literature. Weekly meetings include in-depth discussion of scientific literature led by various MIT faculty on active research topics. Each session also includes a brief discussion of non-research topics including effective presentation skills, writing papers and fellowship proposals, choosing scientific and technical research topics, time management, and scientific ethics.