Writing a "News and Views" Review Article.

As the major assignment for Advanced Topics in Biochemistry and Cell Biology (BCH3ATB), you will
write a short review article on a topic related to Organelle Biosynthesis or Apoptosis. These topics
will make up a significant component of the lecture content this semester. Attending and studying
this lecture material will aid in the composition of your review article and the deep reading required
to compose your review article will benefit your exam preparation on these topics.

Your review article will be written in the style of Nature's "News and Views". These articles are
intended for the interested non-specialist to inform them of new scientific advances. They aim to
provide a summary of a paper and an assessment of how it fits into the context of its field.
Therefore, a single paper forms the foundation for a News and Views article. The main findings of
the paper form the "News" but the "Views" are its importance and the implications of its findings.
These "Views" need to be supported using other papers.

Please have a look at some recent News and Views articles (download the PDF versions) to see the
general format and structure:

http://www.nature.com/nature/archive/category.html?code=archive_news_views&year=2015&month=07

You need to find an original research paper conforming to the following guidelines. There are some
suggested articles provided to you on LMS.

 It must be an original research paper (not a review).

 Published in 2016-2020.

 The journal it is published in must be from the following list; Nature (and journals within the
Nature Publishing Group), Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS),
Cell (and Cell Press Journals), EMBO Journal, EMBO Reports, Journal of Cell Biology, Journal
of Cell Science. If you choose an article from outside this list of journals, please provide
additional justification explaining your choice.

 The paper should not have already had a Commentary or News and Views article published
about its findings. You will need to do a search to confirm this - use PubMed. When you are
looking at abstracts you will notice that Commentary/News and Views articles are often
linked under the heading "Comment in" (see below). If this is the case you definitely must
find another article.
  The paper should fit under at least one of the following research topics:

Cell Cycle and Mitosis

Mitochondrial Dynamics (Fission, Fusion and/or Distribution)
Mitochondrial Protein Import
Mitophagy
Formation of the Apoptosome
Regulation of the Mitochondrial Apoptotic Pathway

(Notice, that just above the title in the News and Views articles is some highlighted text
(strapline) that denotes the general subject of the paper. The topic you choose from the list
above will be the subject of your review).

After you have chosen the paper on which you are basing your news and view article you will need
to alert your lecturer of the paper you have chosen.

After approval is given, begin work on your article.

Even though the focus of a "News and Views" article is a single paper, the proportion of the article
that is simply a summary of the paper is really quite small - only a couple of paragraphs. The bulk of
your article should be devoted to explaining the background, the context and the importance of the
results reported. Nevertheless, the article should focus on the contents of the paper – and not
simply be a general review of the topic. This balancing act will require some thought and careful
writing!

Target your article to someone with a working knowledge of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular
Biology but who is not a specialist in the particular topic you have chosen (so someone a bit similar
to yourself). A typical "News and Views" article:

 Starts by providing a brief summary of necessary background information, which a non-

specialist reader would not be likely to know.
 Provides information which is not essential to the contents of the paper, but which helps to
set the results in context.
 Explains the basis for some conclusions reached by the authors of the paper.
  Provides an independent discussion of the questions raised by the results and their possible
implications. Ideally, you will draw your own conclusions, not simply summarise those of the
paper.

Follow the following format when writing your article (please see the template provided)

 Articles should be no longer than 1000 words.

 Titles should contain no punctuation marks or abbreviations.

 News and Views articles also carry a 'strapline' of one or two words to define the general
subject area of the article, and a sentence to summarize the message of the article in simple
language.

 The 'News' should be mentioned in a succinct opening paragraph to attract the attention of
those who are not experts in the field. This paragraph should explicitly refer to the paper
under discussion and touch on the significance of the new work.

 Articles should not read like textbooks - assume your reader has general
biochemical/scientific background but avoid specialized terminology.

 You will be restricted to using one figure, used to explain the new model or the background
science to the new result. This must be an original figure that you design and not a simple
cut and paste of an existing figure! The figure should be appropriately labelled and include a
detailed caption.

 References must be between 8 and 12, given superscript numbers and cited sequentially in
the text, as per Nature style. References need to be listed at the end of the article in the
usual Nature style but without the titles of citations.

Your final article is due see LMS. Both submission and feedback will be done electronically through
Turnitin on the LMS.