Senior Thesis – Biology 497

Fall 2010

Instructor: Julie Korb

Office:2443 Berndt Hall

Office Hours: T 10:30-11:15 R 1:25-3:00 or by appt.

If you can’t make these hours, please get in touch with me so we can make other arrangements.

Contact Info.: phone: 382-6905

email:

Class Meetings: Tuesday12:40-1:30, EBH #7 or Biology Seminar Room

Note: We will meet for 1 hour each week; your other credits are designated as independent work time for data entry, analysis, summary, poster presentation, etc.

Required Materials:

a 3-ring binder or sturdy folder with pockets to turn in & store drafts of writing assignments (**I will not accept assignments unless they are turned in this folder, with all previous drafts included)

Course Objectives:

The purpose of this class is to continue the project you began in Bio 496: to design and carry to completion an independent research project related to your area of interest. The specific goals for this term are as follows:

1)Finish collecting data pertaining to your project. Field work must be completed very soon (by mid-September), if it isn’t already.

2)Analyze the data you have collected or are now collecting.

3)Write your final paper, including the Introduction and Methods (which will in almost every case need to be revised from last semester), Results and Discussion sections.

4)Prepare a Poster that summarizes your research, and participate in a public Poster Session December 2ndfrom 5-7 pm in the Ballroom (set up at 4:30 pm).

Evaluation:

Class meetings are mandatory. All assignments will be given in class. Late assignments or drafts will receive a severe reduction in points. An assignment or draft that is ONE DAY LATE will be automatically reduced to 10% of the points possible.

Quality of research, as well as technical details will be the basis of grading on all assignments.

Class attendance - 50 pts per meeting

Additional assignments -50 pts each

Thesis -100 pts for drafts of each section

200 pts for final draft

Poster - 100 pts for draft version

200 pts for final version

100 pts for presence/professionalism at

poster session

Policies Related to Plagiarism:

It is absolutely essential for all writing in this course to be your own. Do not use direct quotes, copy from a website, or otherwise use information that you have not carefully paraphrased or rewritten in your own words. I will check sources if I suspect the writing is not your own and if I find that you have copied directly from a source, you will receive a grade of 0 on that particular assignment or draft.

Course Schedule-Fall 2010: (Note that the schedule is tentative, and may vary. You are responsible for keeping informed of any schedule changes announced in class.)

Week & Date

/ General Topic /

Assignment Due

Wk 1 - / Review schedule; update on research status, data entry
Wk 2 - / Data entry, revise Intro/Methods
Wk 3- / Data entry continued / Revision of Introduction & Methods
(100 pts)
Wk 4 - / Intro to Data Analysis
Wk 5 - / Data Analysis
Wk 6 - / Data Analysis
Wk 7 - / Data Analysis & Write Results
Wk 8 - / No Class-work on discussion andrevise Results/Tables/Figures / Tables & Graphs and other Figures (100 pts)
Wk 9 - / Poster presentation (How to make a quality poster presentation)
Wk 10 - / Work on poster presentations & write discussion / Results Written Section and Tables/Figures
(100 pts)
Wk 11 - / Poster review by peers / Draft Poster (100 pts)

Wk 12 -

/ No Class-make corrections to poster / Full Paper – Draft 1 (100 pts)

Thanksgiving Break!!

Wk 13-

/ 5-7 pm Public Poster Session / CUB Ballroom (100 pts)

12/3Thursday

/ Dr. Korb’s Office – turn in posters / Poster Due (200 pts)

Wk 14 -

/ No Class; turn in Thesis / Full Paper – Final Draft
(200 pts)