Guidelines For the Genetics

Guidelines For the Genetics
1. Topic. Anything related to genetics is a good topic. Most students write about a genetic condition that someone in their family has. You can write about any kind of genetics: human, plant, horse, bacteria, whatever. Some people have a trait in their family that they want to investigate in order to find out whether it has a genetic basis, even if the answer is “no”, okay as long as the answer can be supported by the literature.

2. Length. The paper should be about three pages long, singlespaced. By singlespaced I mean the spacing in this write up. In Microsoft Word this is not “Normal”, it is “No Spacing” in the toolbar. In the end, I’m looking for quality not quantity.

3. Format of the paper. You are pretty free to write this however you wish, but there are a few guidelines you must follow.

a. Write in the third person. This is not a short story. It is a research paper.

b. The first paragraph is an introduction to the general topic. For example, if your paper is about fertility in female Down syndrome patients, the first paragraph would be a discussion about Down Syndrome in general. You might want to say a word about why you chose this topic.

c. The rest of the paper will consist of a summary of the three articles (you can certainly do more if you wish).

4. References. You will need at least 3 Journal references. You may also use other sources as you wish, but at least three must be from peer-reviewed journals. To be safe get these from www.pubmed.gov as we discussed in class.

a. The internet is a good place to go for basic information. But be sure you use a reasonably reliable source. Universities, hospitals and national foundations are usually pretty good. Some people cite all of the sites in sight.

b. Beware of on-line encyclopedias, whose information may not be up to date or verified.

c. DO NOT USE Wikipedia as a source. It is notoriously unreliable, although I must admit that it is certainly way better than it was a few years ago. The main reason I do not want you to use it is that it is too easy.

d. You must use at least 3 sources from a peer-reviewed scientific journal. See the section (8) below on Journals to find out more about that.

e. You must actually use the sources you cite. Just listing them at the end of the paper is not enough.

5. Style. You may use any standard style such as APA, MLA, Turabian, etc. or any other, or you can use no standard style at all.

6. Listing your references cited. If you don’t follow a standard style for your paper, here is what you need in your citations: Author(s). Date. Title of Article. Title of Journal. Volume, Number and pages. Even if your standard format does not include all of this information, you still need to include it.

For example:

Smith AC, BL Johnson and JY Jones. 2008. All about genetic stuff. International Journal of Genetic Stuff. 63(4): 132-145.

If your use a Pubmed abstract as a source (see section 8 Below), do this

Smith AC, BL Johnson and JY Jones. 2008. All about genetic stuff. International Journal of Genetic Stuff. 63(4): 132-145. (Pubmed Abstract)

If you cite a website you must do two things:

a. List the web site in your “References Cited” at the end of the paper. The URL by itself is not an adequate reference. I need as much of the above listed information as you can find.

b. Cut and paste the URL into an email that also includes your name and the title of your paper. It needs to be a hyperlink, which means I need to be able to click on it. I also need to be able to match your link to a reference on your paper.

7. Citing your references. Again, you may use any format you wish.You can list the references at the end of the paper, and just refer to the author in the paragraphs. You can even number the paragraphs and use the corresponding numbers in your list of sources if you wish.If you quote a source or use ideas or information from more than one article in a paragraph, you should cite the reference, so that it is clear where the information came fromIf you are quoting or directly referring to information from an article, you should cite the article. Again, use whatever format you wish. For example, one simple way to do this is:

It is clear from the literature on this topic that there is a lot of stuff in the world of research on genetic stuff (Smith).

If Smith wrote more than one article that you are citing:(Smith, 1999)

If Smith wrote more than one article in 1999 that you are citing:(Smith, 1999a)

8. Pubmed. Pubmed.gov is the primary sources you should use to find articles in peer-reviewed journals.When you get to Pubmed and complete your search, you will find that one of the things you can do is get an abstract for most of the sources you will find. An abstract is a summary of the article. In many cases the abstract will give you all the information you need. If it does, you can use it as your source. I just need to know that you used the abstract and not the actual article. See section 5 above to find out how to cite the abstract.

You might need the whole article to get the information that you need. Sometimes full text articles are available for free in Pubmed. An icon next to the title will give you that information. Others might be available in one or more of the databases in our library. For example Elsevier is a publishing company that publishes hundreds of journals and the complete text version of these is available through the Elsevier database in the library. You have no idea how lucky you are to have resources like this!

9. Plagiarism. Plagiarism is using someone else’s words or ideas as your own. Your paper needs to be in your own words. If you want to quote someone else, that’s fine, but you need to put quotation marks around the quote and cite it. If you want to use someone else’s ideas, that’s fine, but you have cite them. If you are not sure whether you need to cite a source, be safe and cite it. If you copy from another source without citing the source I will find out and you will get a “0” on the paper. And I will find out.

Also keep in mind that quotes can be used, but they cannot make up a substantial part of the paper. So, in other words, if you have a page worth of things in quotation marks, your paper had better be four pages long.

Because of a widespread increase in plagiarism I am requiring students to submit their papers in two ways. You must submit a hard copy and you must also place a copy in the dropbox on D2L. If you are submitting a preliminary draft you must submit the copy to D2L at the time you turn in the preliminary draft. The electronic copy makes it easier for me to cut and paste material into search engines to look for plagiarism. I’m sorry that it has come to this, but it has.

10. Schedule. See the schedule for deadlines. All these deadlines are absolute. You will lose points if you do not meet them.

a. There is a deadline for picking a topic. Write down the topic on a piece of paper with your name on it and give it to me by the deadline. I need this so I can let you know whether the topic you have chosen is too broad or too difficult. There will be a one point penalty per day for each day the topic is late.

b. Preliminary deadline. If you turn the paper in by this day, I will read through the paper, correct your mistakes and make comments, and you will not lose any points. Please note that this is not to be considered a “rough draft”. If it is not a finished copy you will not be eligible to turn the paper in that day. This deadline is absolute. If you turn the paper in one day later, or even after class that night, you will not be eligible for this “deal”.If you turn in your paper on or before the preliminary deadline, your final deadline to turn it in the revised copy will be the day of the final exam.

c. Regular deadline. This is the day that your paper is due if you did not turn in a copy by the preliminary deadline. This is your final version of the paper. I will correct it and you will get whatever points you get. You will lose three points for each day that your paper is late.

d. Final deadline. This is the deadline for people who turned in a paper by the preliminary deadline. This will be the day of the final exam. You will have until then to revise your paper and turn it in.

e. The day of the final exam is your last chance to turn in your paper, unless you qualify for a grade of “Incomplete”.

11. Grading. The paper is worth 100 lecture points.

12. Grading Rubric. You will be scored 10 points on the introduction, 10 points each (for a total of 30) for the inclusion and citation of three references, 5 points for the proper citation of these references, 10 points for length, 5 points for the reference list at the end and 40 points for discussion and coverage of the topic.

12. Schedule.

Monday, March 31 Deadline for submitting your topic. You will lose
11:59 PM one point per day for each day you are late. The topic must
be submitted in writing, in person or by email. Do not
proceed with the work until I have APPROVED your topic.
.
Monday, April 14 Preliminary deadline.

Monday, April 28 Regular deadline.

Wednesday, May 7 Final Exam. Final deadline. No paper will be accepted
after this date, unless you qualify for an incomplete.
Besides, if you don’t turn it in by this date you will already
have lost 21 points anyway.

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