Final Paper Instructions

Biol108. Final Pa.per Instructions Your final pa.per should consist of several sections.  Follow the guidelines below for each section.  Also make sure to look at the rubric (find it below) before beginning to write and to edit your paper once you are done with the first draft.
1. Introduction The introduction should contain the following information, presented in this order.

Topic

State your topic, or describe your narrowed subject area.

Rationale

Please explain why you wanted to do this research in this subsection.

Additional information

Add any other related introductory material. 

2. Statement of Purpose

In this section, please present the questions your paper will answer, and an overview of the organization of the paper.

3. Basic Description

Describe your topic in some detail. Your report should include references to facts you learned in your research. Organize your points in clear, distinct sections that describe things You can divide this section into subsections corresponding to logical categories, each subsection addressing a different aspect of your topic.  What is important is that the section as a whole be logically organized and easy to follow.

Important. You must cite a source for every major fact or statement in this section. This section should not contain your personal opinions about these facts or statements; those will come later in the paper.

4. Discussion

In this section, apply the insights you learned from the class to the topic of this paper. You will also demonstrate your have learned the terminology and concepts that apply to your topic.  Consider the application carefully. Give your opinions, and support them with facts. Remember, your opinion may not be “right” or “wrong”, but it certainly will be “justified” or “unjustified”!

Please use your best judgment about what to include; you won’t be able to include everything, so please do not try.

Style, Grammar, and Spelling

Grammar and spelling count for part of your grade.  You can find some basic stylistic and grammatical information here: www.umass.edu/writingcenter/resources-writing-and-research.

Format and Submission

The paper should be 5 To 6 pages of text, excluding the references.  Please, use a 10 point font and single space the text.  Although they are not required, you can include images and figures as long as they attributed and referenced. However, they will not count toward the total page count.

Please submit as a Word or Keynote file.

Plagiarism and Quotations

Plagiarism will not be tolerated.  The online submission system will check for copied text from all the type of sources you can use for this paper.  You can submit your paper multiple times if your SafeAssign originality report indicates problems.  Make sure to write in your own words.  Quotes should be used only when the exact wording of the author is important.  In most cases that is not true, and you should paraphrase other author’s writing and give them credit.

References

Please refer to the instructions for your outline for information about how many and what types of references to use in the paper.

You will be using the scientific “name year” style of citations.  In text citations are presented parenthetically.  At the “name year” tab at this website you’ll find detailed guidelines for different sources of information: http://www.scientificstyleandformat.org/Tools/SSF-Citation-Quick-Guide.html.

Grading

The grading rubric is posted as a pdf below this assignment.  Most of the weight of the paper will be given to your ability to carefully organize information about and critically discuss the topic you cover.  I’ll have it posted tomorrow morning as part of this assignment link.