In general, students should feel free to focus on the aspects of the topic that they find interesting and learn more about these areas through work on the research paper.

Research Paper Guidelines and Grading Rubric

The research paper should reflect an understanding of both course content and advanced study of journal articles. This paper is an opportunity to build on the course content in a specific area.

Sickle Cell Paper: Students should demonstrate a command of basic genetics (based on course content) and connect this with new outcomes for children with sickle cell. Your second article may focus on genetic counselling or the agricultural practices that change the landscape in such a way that it increases the population of female anopheles mosquitos. This depends on your interests and the articles you select.

Lactase Persistence Paper: Students should demonstrate knowledge of gene-culture co-evolution (based on course content) and connect this with changes in diet. Your journal articles may focus on Paleolithic nutrition or allele frequency distribution based on a history of dairying, or an aspect of your choice but you must related it to the course content.

Chimpanzee Hunting Paper: Students should demonstrate knowledge of the pattern of food acquisition in chimpanzees and the significance of this to understanding the behavior of a common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans (integrate course content). Your journal articles may focus on tool use in non-human primates, tool use in species of the genus Homo, the role of meat consumption in the evolution of humans, or food and reciprocity.

Homo erectus and Brain Size Paper: Students should demonstrate knowledge of the anatomical changes that characterize Homo erectus (based on course content). Your journal articles may focus on the control of fire and associated consequences, a discussion of Richard Wrangham’s cooking hypothesis and the role in brain size, or the debate between Wrangham, Zink, and Lieberman (profiled in the Evolutionary Anthropology in the News article).

In general, students should feel free to focus on the aspects of the topic that they find interesting and learn more about these areas through work on the research paper. Areas of interest must be integrated with the course content.

Please be advised that the hyperlinks included below serve as additional resources to assist you.

Points	Required Elements
Style 0-8 points	APA citation format (in-text and references), grammar, evidence of proofreading, word choice, spell check, no contractions (HELP with academic writing)
Organization 0-7 points	Strong introductory paragraph, outline, sentence structure Strong thesis statement, strong topic sentences, cohesive paragraphs (HELP with academic writing)
Content 0-25 points	Strong integration of course content with information from peer-reviewed journal articles. See the descriptions of each research paper topic above for additional information regarding content.