ASSIGNMENT
DESCRIPTION, ECOLOGY (BIO 305) Writing a Primary Research Paper
TASK: Using data collected during your group
research project, write a primary research paper, with abstract, introduction,
methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, and literature cited sections.
AUDIENCE: The “audience” for your paper is a beginning
biology student who has taken General Biology I & II but has not yet taken
General Ecology (you, before you began this class). Any
information that you would not expect a typical beginning biology student to
know must be supported by a citation- it cannot be assumed to be “general
knowledge.” (If in doubt, it is probably best to provide a citation.)
PURPOSE: There are several purposes for this
assignment.
1. Interpret the data you collected, based
upon your knowledge of ecology.
2. Conduct a search of the primary
literature to find research articles related to your research.
3. Compare your data to that published in
the primary literature.
4. Write a primary research paper for your
data, with abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion,
acknowledgements, and literature cited sections.
FORMAT: A primary research paper explains why you did
the investigation, how you did it, what you found, and whether your findings
were significant and useful. This
information is explained in the following sections: 1) abstract, 2)
introduction, 3) methods, 4) results, 5) discussion, 6) acknowledgements, and
7) literature cited (you
need at least FIVE primary sources). The expected format is that explained in Hofmann
pages 87-110. Total length: 7-9 pages
(single spaced).
1. The
abstract, a summary of the paper, is written last. It summarizes important information from the
introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections. It should NOT contain the
exact same sentences as found in the body of your paper.
2. The
introduction contains a) a broad background of the general topic, b) justification
of the importance of the research (why did you address this question?), c)
background information to enable the reader to understand the more specific question
being investigated, and ends with d) a statement of research objectives/hypothesis
and prediction. The background should also provide the rationale for your hypothesis
and prediction. There should be at least 3 references, at least two to the primary
literature in your introduction.
3. Methods: This section details how you did your
investigation. No lists are acceptable –
everything must be written in full sentences and paragraphs. It is a report of what you did (not
directions to someone) and needs to be detailed enough so that someone could
repeat your experiment. It needs to include all materials, equipment, and
conditions of your experiment. Do not
include information that is NOT important to the outcome of the experiment
(e.g. labeling containers, who did what,…).
4.
Results: This section presents the
empirical results of your investigation.
Remember that you should not include your raw data – only summary values (there should be nothing
that you would have recorded directly into your lab notebook listed as data in
your paper). You must have at
least one figure summarizing your data. Graphs and tables must contain sufficient
information to stand alone, including units, labels for each axis, and a table
heading or figure caption. The most
significant data in the graphs and tables is summarized in the text. (Imagine that the figures are displayed on a
screen and that you are explaining them orally, using a pointer. Your written text should transcribe what you
would say orally.) Include the summary
statistics and key information for any statistical test you did (test
statistic, d.f., p value, significance, but do NOT mention critical test
statistic values or the null hypothesis). You must have at least one
inferential statistical test in your paper.
5. Discussion: This is the main part of the paper, the part
that will be read with the most care by other professionals. Here you a) provide a scientific explanation
for your data, b) compare your data to the broader scientific literature (to
data found by other researchers – you need at least 3 primary sources
to compare your results to). These
should not be all the same ones as used in the introduction. In this part, you should discuss similarities and differences with the other
research as well as whether your results matched theirs – this means you
have to summarize their study protocol and results!, c) evaluate flaws
in your research protocol, and d) make recommendations for future
research. Always start by discussing whether your data supported your
hypothesis!!
Some questions to ask yourself:
– Did
your investigation accomplish the purpose that you explained in your
introduction? Did it answer your
questions? The key to success in the
discussion section is to link your findings to the questions and problems
raised in the introduction.
– Are
your results useful? Why or why
not?
– Did
you discover information that you had not anticipated?
– Was
your research design appropriate? Did
your investigation raise new questions?
Are there implications from your results that need to be further
explored?
6. Acknowledgements: A brief section in which you thank those who
helped or provided equipment, supplies, access to field site, etc.
7. Literature Cited: Full citations in “author year”/CME style in Hofmann pgs
12-15 are given for all sources cited within the text of the paper. See https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/DocCSE_NameYear.html but ignore the italics in their
examples and end of checklist.
(Modified from Bean, J. C. 1996.
Engaging Ideas. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco)
RESOURCES:
1. Writing
in the Biological Sciences Biology textbook, Hofmann – Chapters 2 and 6
2. The Panzer paper and any other primary
research paper you use – they will almost all follow the proper format and use
language that is appropriate for a primary research paper
DUE
DATES:
1. Draft (25 pts.) Bring a completed draft copy of your paper to
your reviewer. This will be evaluated
using the checklist below. April 16th in class
2. Peer review (5 pts.) Complete the peer
review of your partner’s paper, and discuss your comments. Done in class.
2. Re-write. You can review your paper
with Dr. Frankel if you submit a re-write to him no later than noon on Thursday,
May 2nd and make an appointment.
3. Final version (50 pts.) Make improvements based on comments received.
DUE by 8 pm Thursday, May. 9th. (You can turn it in earlier than
that if you want)
EVALUATION
CRITERIA:
1.
Draft: The “evaluation criteria for draft” checklist
(p. 5-6 of this handout) contains 25 elements.
If each is included in your draft, you will receive the full 25
points. One point will be deducted for
each missing element.
2. Final version: For the final version, you will be evaluated
on how well you write the content of
each element. In addition, grammar,
structure, and style will account for 20% of the grade. The same elements from the draft will be used
to evaluate your re-write, but quality
of the work will be graded (not just presence or absence).
ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION:
1. Feel free to discuss your data with
your labmates or with anyone in the class.
However, when it comes time
to write, you must do the writing on your own.
Plagiarism is a very serious offense.
If even one sentence or long phrase is copied, whether the source is your
textbook, the internet, another student, or any other source, you are
committing plagiarism. (If a copied
sentence or phrase is in quotes, then it’s not plagiarism. However, quotations are rarely used in
scientific papers and are not to be used in your paper.) If you have questions about what constitutes
plagiarism- ask!
2. A certain way to avoid plagiarism is to
always write in your own words (paraphrase).
However, if you follow the original phrasing too closely, you won’t be
paraphrasing, but plagiarizing. Do not
copying the text from the document you are reading even if you plan to go back
later and re-write it in your own words.
Instead, paraphrase it when you
take notes rather than copying the
text directly from the article – that way you cannot possibly plagiarize it
later.
3. Points will be assigned for
participating in the peer review, if you do not have your draft you will lose
those points. Final papers submitted
after the deadline may receive a zero if the Instructor does not have time to
grade them before the grade submission deadline. At a minimum, they will be penalized 20% for each calendar day late – No Late Passes.
4. Please don’t hesitate to visit the
writing tutors or my office hours or to make an appointment outside office
hours to discuss your paper during any stage of the writing process, but make
sure to do so ahead of the due dates.
Students who seek feedback find the writing process to be easier and
produce a much better paper.
I have writing a draft that was not well accepted please review each document and let me
know if it doesnt make any sense
Here is the Budburst data.
Updated with “day of year” field that shows how many days from January 1 the observation was taken.
Your group needs to go through the data and look at the cities the trees are in. Pick what you are considering to be urban and which are suburban. Do not worry about trying to get an exact location for each tree – just put the locations into categories by city.
Focusing on genus: acer -maple family
trying to get 25 data points within a certain time frame.
then we want to focus on flowers and fruit stages and when they flowered during those times
Urban areas:
Chicago
Cicero
Naperville
Suburbs:
arlington heights
berwyn
buffalo grove
des plaines
elk grove
evanston
glenview
highland park
oak park
skokie
waukegan
wheaton
Narrowed down the data for suburban and urban areas to get data points
Middle flowerin
First leaf
Bar Graphs
Grabbed the Day of year column for each set of data (middle flowering and first leaf) and got the average
Average was graphed
Used the average data to get standard errors to put error bars on the graphs
Data analysis
T-tes assuming for unequivalence for both middle flowering and first leaf
middle flowering was not statistically significant
first leaf was statistically significant
When writing results for paper
Although observations are different for groups of data set we HAVE to say the t stat, df, and p-value
In the methods OR figure caption we can say we had different observations for each data set
