* I need it with student level terminology * I need it to be plagiarism free * I need to know the topic before beginning to write the paper (max in 6 hours) * APA writing style

Survey of Life Project

Human Impacts on Populations and Communities

• Write a 10 – 15 double-spaced, typed research paper on the implications of how climatic, biogeographic and ecological conditions impact the life forms found in the major terrestrial or marine biomes, and predict the effects of interspecific interactions, disturbance and habitat area in a community. Include in your paper how humans have impacted your chosen population or community, either positively or negatively.

You should have an Introduction, a Body of the paper in which consists of the bulk of the discussion of your topic, and a Conclusions section. Citations for evidence of your claims and explanations should be used throughout the paper, which means you need a reference section in the back. You should have a minimum of 8 reputable references.

Survey of Life Project

Reference Section

You will need to include a minimum of 8 references OTHER than your textbook. Information simply copied from other sources will not count toward your points in the project. Make sure to cite your sources; plagiarized reports will be awarded zero points.

References: You may use books, journals, magazines, and any website ending in .edu, .gov, or.org. However, any info taken from a website must have an author. If no author is given, then it is an inappropriate source for a college paper. Information from sources with no author will not count toward your points in the project.

You may NOT use encyclopedia-type websites like Wikipedia, Britannica, Encarta, FactMonster, etc., nor videos or television shows even if they are documentaries.

Citations Use the following format for citations and references:

Book: Author. year. Title. Place of publication: Publisher. # of pages.

Example:

Treshow M. 1970. Environment and Plant Response. New York: McGraw-Hill. 250p

Magazine or journal article: Author, year. “Title of article”, Title of magazine or journal. Vol (#): Page range where article is found.

Example: Banks, J., Webb, M., Hickok L. 1993. “Programming of sexual phenotype in the homosporous fern Ceratopteris richardii.” Intern. J. Plant Sci. 154(4): 522-534.

Website: Author. (Year). Title. Retrieved Date from (website address).

Example: Meyer, A. S. (2000.). Memories of a time gone by. Retrieved February 6, 1996 from http://www.oldtimes.com/~meyers/memories.html

Your reference list should be put in alphabetical order by last name.

When citing the work in the text, you should put the author’s last name and the year of the publication in parentheses. Example: (Marshal, 1999). Do not use endnotes.

The grading rubric that is the last page of this handout should be the cover page for your report.

Your grade will reflect the amount of effort that you put into the report. A project that uses only minimal resources, such as class handouts and the textbook, will receive a minimal grade. The research paper is worth 100 points, so I am expecting a substantial effort from you.

Use the “Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences” book and follow these steps:

• Start with Chapter 5 (pg 104), “Writing a Review Paper”. This gives you a good description of the type of paper you are writing (either a ‘state of the art review’ or ‘historical review’), and background on working with literature.
• After choosing a topic, create an outline which helps you produce a rough plan on how you are going to organize your paper (see page 107). Continue reading the rest of this chapter to understand what type of information goes into each section (Intro, body or discussion, etc.) An Abstract is not necessary for this paper.
• Pay particular attention to the section on quoted material (pg. 113).
• Once you have your general outline, go back through it and fill it in with general statements about what kind of information about your topic you want to include in each of those sections. This will not only help you focus the content, but streamline your literature search as well.
• When you are ready to do a literature search, read Chapter 1. There is good info on using scientific databases to find books and articles. Some of these databases are available in our library. Go to the information desk there for help. They are very friendly. It is a good idea to get to know your librarian at the school you are attending. They have a lot of “tricks” that will assist you in finding great sources for your paper.
• Pay particular attention to “Using the Internet” (pg. 15). This helps you identify good websites. There is a lot of bad information on the web, as well as good, but it is not organized into “good info” and “bad info” for you. You have to learn how to identify it for yourself.
• Pg. 21 provides an excellent overview on how to read Scientific Papers. This will prevent confusion when reading those papers.
• Once you have a few resources, use the literature cited or reference section of those sources to find additional primary sources (pg. 15). Even though you may not use Wikipedia for this paper, you can use it to get background information, and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and look up the references provided for you there. Then you may use these original resources to get information for your paper.
• Now that you have a few resources, take good notes while you are reading them (pg. 23). This section gives good advice on how to take notes in your own words so you can avoid plagiarism. Also see the web sources provided to you on Blackboard about plagiarism, and what is common knowledge. This section also gives good advice on how to take good notes and keep them organized. As you take notes, you can start filling in more details on your outline.
• Other important sections: Chapter 6, Documenting the Paper: Citing Sources in the Text. This has a lot of useful advice with many different styles. Use the style I outlined above.

When you think you are about done, read Chapter 8, Preparing the Final Draft (pg. 172).

Preparing the Literature Cited Section (pg. 133). Again, this has a lot of useful advice with many different styles, but use the style I outlined above.

Pg. 141 has information on how to site from a website source.

The following will be taken into consideration during grade assessment:

Report Evaluation

Content is complete and accurate

Unity: contains a clearly stated Thesis in the introduction that fits the assignment

Coherence: essay is chunked into clear paragraphs with topic sentences; clear transitions before each new

paragraph; specific details fit under the idea stated in each paragraph topic sentence; paragraphs are ordered

effectively/logically

Text is in student’s own words. Limited and appropriate use of quotes if used.

Sources of information are clearly cited and referenced appropriately

Contains information from appropriate sources other than from textbook

Sentence skills: Grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence variety/structure (syntax), and word choice (diction) are

accurate. No unnecessary repetition or awkwardness.

Instructions from Survey of Life Research Paper guide followed