BIOL 3356 Environmental Systems– Biological Aspects

BIOL 3356 Environmental Systems– Biological Aspects
Guidelines for the term paper:
For 3356, you should write a paper that reviews current scientific concepts on your chosen topic. You should show how certain key findings have led to current understanding. Explain the important observations and other evidence supporting the ideas you present. You should do this by finding, analyzing, and synthesizing the information found in the scientific literature.
Length: Papers must be at least the equivalent of 10 typed, double-spaced pages (12 point font, 1 inch margins). This length excludes illustrations and the reference list. Printed or typewritten papers are required.
You should cite references in a standard format for scientific papers. In the text, cite a reference by giving the authors’ name(s) and date of publication in parentheses. For a work with a single author, the citation in the text would appear as (Freedman 1995). For a work with two authors, both authors would list in this fashion (Jones and Reese 1998). For a work with three or more authors, only the first author’s name is given and the latin abbreviation et al., is used, in this fashion (Saunders et al. 1991). When several citations are listed in the same set of parentheses, they are given in chronological order, in this fashion (Roose et al. 1982, Saunders et al. 1991, Freedman 1995, Jones and Reese 1998). At the end of the paper, list references alphabetically using the following formats.
For a journal article:
Saunders, D.A., R.J. Hobbs, and C.R. Margules. 1991. Biological consequences of ecosystem fragmentation: A
review. Biological Conservation 5: 18-32.
For a book: nd Freedman, B. 1995. Environmental Ecology, 2
ed. Academic Press, New York.
For a chapter in a book with many authors:
Roose, M., T.M. Roberts, and A.D Bradshaw. 1982. Evolution of resistance to gaseous air pollutants. In: Unsworth,
M.H., and D.P. Ormrod, eds., Effects of Gaseous Air Pollution in Agriculture and Horticulture. Butterworth, London.
Do not rely solely on secondary references such as course textbooks. As a guide, your paper should cite at least 5 primary references from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, i.e. research articles published in journals, in addition to secondary references that you cite. Be careful also about “gray literature”, which consists of various technical reports published by government agencies, non-governmental agencies, engineering and consulting firms, or other organizations. There are two problems with such documents: (1) some are difficult to obtain, making it hard for readers to verify your sources; and (2) such documents may or may not be peer-reviewed to ensure accuracy and thoroughness. Citing a few such sources that seem to be reliable is acceptable provided that most of what you report is documented by peer-reviewed scientific literature. But your paper should not rely heavily on gray literature.
The Internet is not necessarily a reliable source of scientific information. Personal web pages and wikis are not reviewed for accuracy and thoroughness, and are perhaps especially likely to contain errors or represent biased viewpoints. Reliable information is found in the journals and books at the UTA library and other university libraries. Many of these are now available electronically from UTA computers.
You may use tables and figures to help make points. Such illustrations should not be added just for “decoration”. Each figure or table should provide the reader with important, relevant information, and the text of the paper should refer specifically to this information and put it into context.
You should write in your own words. If you use any quotations, graphs, or other material that was created by another person, you must state clearly that it is taken from another source and give a proper reference. To do otherwise is plagiarism, and is subject to disciplinary proceedings under university policy.
A book by McMillan (Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences) provides many useful hints on writing papers. It is available at the Science and Engineering Library.
Pay particular attention to these points to get a good grade.
Explain relevant concepts clearly. Make the big picture clear in your introduction and conclusions. Use relevant concepts to explain the scientific basis of your topic. Make your explanation of concepts logical, well organized, and clear. The use of headings and subheadings can often help you accomplish this.
Review key observations and evidence. Choose evidence wisely: give enough to convince the reader, but make sure all of it is relevant. Use primary and secondary literature appropriately. Don’t rely too heavily on secondary literature. Work that is unpublished or published only on the internet is usually unacceptable. All citations should refer to printed versions of a work.
Style and grammar. Write in your own words and try to be vivid and expressive. Do not follow another author’s writing so closely that you commit unintended plagiarism. Avoid minor errors in grammar and spelling (use of spell checkers, tutors, etc. is acceptable).
Stay focused on science in general and biology in particular. Many of you will write papers on topics of human relevance, and your papers may discuss policy, engineering and technical solutions, and so on. However, your papers should focus on natural processes and impacts and effects pertaining to natural ecosystems, as opposed to highly managed or engineered environments such as farms, forest plantations, or highly urbanized areas. You should also avoid a focus on human health. You should not engage in advocacy of a particular political, cultural, or ethical point of view. Nor should you focus on analyzing a particular policy, regulation, or procedure. Instead, you should discuss the scientific basis for understanding your topic, and the scientific basis for possible policies or solutions to problems. Although knowledge from many fields may be relevant to your topic (e.g. meteorology or geology) and should be presented when it is relevant, make sure that the focus of your paper is on biological processes.
Emphasize general principles. Good papers make the big picture clear, and support general conclusions and broad implications with evidence. In doing so, the details of the evidence are there only to serve the purpose of supporting the general principles. Learning what particular points are essential to relate, versus those that can be left out, is an important and difficult skill. In many cases, details of methodology from individual studies are not important to report (unless disagreement over accepted methodology leads to uncertainty in major conclusions). Also, relying on evidence from only a few experiments, or observations conducted in only a single locality or region is risky. How do you know the principles are general unless you examine and report a broad range of evidence? Good papers are more than just a case study.

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