Course Philosophy and Objectives:
This is the capstone course for Life Science/Biology Majors where you are expected to use your accumulated college knowledge and skills to develop and present current information about a broad topic in science. You will show that you can use primary and secondary literature sources to develop a concise, logically written, and grammatically correct research paper. The format of your paper will follow a review article and the final version should be a minimum of 5000 words, excluding references.
Assignments:
The deadlines listed on myCMU must be met, but you can change the paper content as you progress through the semester. All work must be typed, and submitted through myCMU. Late assignments will be penalized 10% for emailing same day, 30% for up to 48 hours late. After that a zero will be recorded.
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Assignments
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Points Possible
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Due Date
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1
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Research current topics and choose a topic for the special problems investigation.
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10
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1stweek
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2
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Provide the working title of your paper.
Your title needs to be very descriptive so there is no doubt about what you will cover in your paper. Your title must be at least two lines long.
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10
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2ndweek
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3
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Literature list: Submit a bibliography of sources on your topic. Sources should be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
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30
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4thweek
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4
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Study published primary literature related to the topic and create an annotated bibliography.
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50
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6thweek
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5
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Read papers, choose best sources and organize information into an outline form.
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50
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8thweek
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5
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Incorporate comments and use outline to create a first draft of your research paper.
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100
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10thweek
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6
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Incorporate comments from the first draft and revise to create your final paper.
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200
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15thweek
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