Guidlines for BIOS225 Research Papers

Each student is to develop two, short research papers, based on library and Internet research. For each paper, your research should focus on one of the six parts in the Lewis textbook. You are to pick a single chapter of each of the six parts as a subject for your research. In other words, you can not do more than one paper on chapters that belong to the same part of the textbook.

The six main themes stressed throughout the Ricki Lewis textbook are:

Part One:  Introduction (three chapters)

Part Two:  Transmission Genetics (five chapters)

Part Three:  DNA and Chromosomes (five chapters)

Part Four:  Population Genetics (three chapters)

Part Five:  Immunity and Cancer (two chapters)

Part Six:  Genetic Technology (four chapters)

You will focus on the material in your selected chapter as you do your Internet and library research for each paper.

Be sure to check out the suggested resources that are found on the External Links Page of the Bios225 course web site and on the web sites suggested on the back of each chapter in the Lewis textbook. Also check out the tips on researching for the paper, posted on BlackBoard.

The Outline for each of your two short research papers must contain the following:

1. Title: The actual title of the chapter you have chosen to focus on

2. Subtitle: The actual title of the research article or prose piece that you are going to

summarize.

3. The Body of the Paper

You are to type (double space; size 12 New Times Roman font) a four (or more) page summary and CRITIQUE of the interesting article that you discovered during your many hours of searching the Internet or library sources. The body should start with a brief introduction including why it was interesting to you. Rest of the body would beyour analysis/ summary and critique of the major points of the article or prose piece that you found so interesting.

4. Your concluding remarks including overall summary and take home message as well as critique, predictions and recommendations.

5. Do not include subtitles (e.g. Intorduction, body etc) in your paper.

6. Its highly recommended that you run your paper through the SafeAssign” function (direct submission) of BB9. Your paper should get a matching score of 10% or less before you send it to me. Matching score of >20% indicate too much ‘copying’ and you need to refine your paper using more of your own words.

7. Supporting materials: The Original Article. Although you can use additional articles as a source of information in your paper, you should choose and indicate only one article as your main original article.

With your four (or more) page summary of the research article, you are to attach a scan, PDF, MS word file of the article that your paper is all about. In case of internet articles you can provide a link to the article or web page you used as a source. You need to make sure that the link is active and working properly before you submit it.

In short, I want your summary of the article and the article, itself, to study and read.

Needless to say, you won’t get your 50 points for your 2 short research papers if you don’t follow all the guidelines listed above.

I will grade your papers according to the criteria mentioned above and the points will be divided between following the guidelines and the content. I will provide each of you with an assessment and grade for first paper before the due date of the next paper so you can improve.

An example: (This is only one of many possible examples.)

Let’s say that you have always been interested in human origins and evolution. So one of your short research papers would be entitled: Chapter 15 Human Origins and Evolution.

The subtitle of this research papers would be the title of the research article or prose piece that you found so interesting.

Then you are to mentally digest the content of the article that you wanted to write about. After you understood the content of the article, you are to write your ownfour (or more) page summary of what the article was all about.

If you pick another chapter, your research topics would be specific to that chapter.

Another example:

Let’s say that you have always been interested in matters of sex. The title for one of your two short research papers would be: Chapter 6 Matters of Sex. Then after studying this chapter in the Lewis text, you’d search the WEB (and the suggested sources found on the External Links Page of the Bios. 225 Course webSite) in an attempt to find interesting article related to the content of Chapter Six. Your short research paper could focus, for example, on sexual development, the traits inherited on the sex chromosomes, how the inactivation of one of the two X chromosomes in human females equalizes the sexes, and/or how gender affects human phenotypes etc. Your short research paper could be any logical development that is derived from the selected text chapter material.

Note: You should e-mail each of the short research papers + the supporting materials to me by the due date indicated in the class schedule. In other words, the completeresearch papers must be e-mailed (or in my hands) no later than the indicated due dates for each.