BIOL 168: Taxonomic Paper
This paper will involve reading two journal articles pertaining to plant systematic research, and summarizing the goals, methods, and findings presented in these papers in a 10 page, double-spaced paper of your own.
Specifically, we would like you to first choose one article, no more than 25-30 pages in length, that focuses on the taxonomy of a plant group that you are interested in. Choose an article from one of the following journals:
Systematic Botany
Madrono
Canadian Journal of Botany
Britonia
Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden
American Journal of Botany
In addition, choose a second paper that is either cited by this article, or that cites this article (if you choose this route, use Web of Science to find such an article). This should be a paper that focuses on the same taxonomic issue. Be sure that this reference article is available to you, either in the library here or through interlibrary loan within the next couple of weeks. You can also use Judd to choose your articles; there are many excellent references included in our text with each family (or even higher-order taxa) discussion.
Write one ten-page, double spaced paper (please be reasonable about font and margins – something not larger than Times New Roman 12 pt, and 1” margins), summarizing the generally problem that these articles focus on, what their angle is, what their approach / methods are, what they found, and what they interpret these findings to mean. Include such a summary for each of the two articles that you read, and feel free to include an analysis of your own based on a synthesis of the two articles.
Paper proposal due on April 21 (this should include citations for your two articles).
Draft due on May 10.
Final paper due on May 31.