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UVM WFB 232 - Grammar and report format

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Marsden – term paper and grammar guidelines p. 1General instructions for term papersWriting is correctly considered to be a reflection of your thinking process and your carefulness. You will be judged throughout your life and career on how well you are able to express yourself in writing, and how the writing is presented (i.e., grammar, spelling, format). (Incidentally, but of equal importance, you will be evaluated throughout life on your ability to follow instructions!) Do not underestimate the importance of good writing. You are blessed with access to computers - don’t underestimate this advantage, or under-utilize it. Word processorsgive you infinite flexibility to change your text, reformat, correct, and reorganize, in addition to giving you tools such as spell-checkers and thesauri - use them! You will be graded on presentation (grammar, spelling, format) as well as content and organization. Specifically:- I will take points off for spelling errors. Spell-checkers leave no excuse for this.- I will take points off for mistakes (such as the write word in the wrong plaice) that make it obvious that you have not proof-read your final copy. Lack of proof reading suggests that you do not value your work or my time.Items to watch out for (also see “Grammar tips” at the end):Capital letters. Don’t use them at random; if you capitalize words in a title, for example, capitalize all of them (except conjunctions and prepositions), do not just randomly capitalize a few. Use capitals for names such as James Bay (not James bay); but a series of lakes or rivers are “lakes Michigan and Ontario” or “the LaPlatte and Lamoille rivers”. In fisheries, common names of fish are NOT capitalized. Genus names are always capitalized, species names are not. Thus, yellow perch is Perca flavescens (note use of italics)Commas. Many people tend to write first, then scatter commas at random across the text to make it look good. If you are uncertain about where commas should be used, review a grammar book, seek assistance from the Writing Center, or read the paper out loud, pausing at the commas, and see if it sounds right.Consistency. If you italicize and indent one sub-heading, do it to all sub-headings at that level. Style. Be very careful with flowery or dramatic language. It sounds great in popular articles and magazines, but it’s very difficult to do well (it just looks easy). Better to stick with somewhat drier, factual information than lose your reader with metaphors.LengthScientific writing should be concise, precise, and to the point. Verbosity is unnecessary except in novels, and is nottolerated in scientific writing. Your papers should be approximately 5 pages, not including reference material. OrganizationThere are four parts to writing: (i) idea generation and synthesis, (ii) fermentation of ideas and restructuring of thoughts (outlining), (iii) getting words on paper (the rough draft), and (iv) fine tuning (proofing and editing). Organize your thoughts, concepts, and information before you begin to write. Don’t underestimate the value of outlines. Writing an outline, no matter how rough, can be invaluable both for arranging your ideas in a logical order, and for ensuring that you have not left any important points out. Use section and even subsection headings to set off portions of the text if you like - these can be of particular use to the reader (but don’t overdo them).FormatText should be in 12 pitch, and double-spaced (I must have room to scribble notes)Use 1” margins all aroundNumber the pages, and staple them together.Backup your files frequently. Do not keep your backup in the same physical place as the original.Marsden – term paper and grammar guidelines p. 2The general format for your paper should be as follows:Title: short, succinct, informative, and grammatically correct (though it need not be a complete sentence)Introduction: Include a statement of the issue or topic, some background (with literature citations) to demonstrate the importance of the topic, and the major objectives of the paper. This is the section which puts your reader in perspective about the topic, and (if you do it right, and don’t ramble) gets them interested in reading the rest of the paper.Body of text: The main thesis of your paper is presented here. Information from sources should be integrated and discussed. Try not to discuss papers one by one (“Smith said this. Jones said that. Borzoi said something else.”), but rather try to summarize across sources to draw important conclusions common to all the work in a particular area. After stating the general conclusions, you can point out differences of opinion, or alternative hypotheses, made by particular authors.Conclusions: In this section you should summarize the important findings of your literature review. You should concisely and succinctly present the salient features of your paper to the reader.Literature Cited: You should use at least 3 articles from the original literature (not including text-books, though you may want to draw information from these also). All the facts in the paper that cannot be classed as “common knowledge” should be supported by citations from the literature. When you cite a reference, list the author(s) and year of publication in parentheses at the end of the sentence (Smith 2001). If there are two authors, list them both (Smith and Jones 1999), but for more than two, use “et al.”, which means “and others” (Ferdinand et al. 2000). Only the articles that are actually cited in the paper should be included in the literature cited section. The World Wide Web is an acceptable source from which to find information, but use it in addition to the 3 articles from text sources. Journal articles:Danehy, R. J., N. H. Ringler, and J. E. Gannon. 1991. Influence of nearshore structure on growth and diets of yellow perch (Perca flavescens) and white perch (Morone americana) in Mexico Bay, Lake Ontario. J. Great Lakes Res. 17:183-193.Chapter in a book:Leach, J. H. 1993. Impacts of the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) on water quality and fish spawning reefs in western Lake Erie. In: T. F. Nalepa and D. Schloesser, eds. Zebra mussels: biology, impacts, and control. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL.Book:Strunk, W. Jr., and E. B. White. 1979. The Elements of Style. MacMillan Publishing Co, New York, NY.Web site:Provide the URL, and any title, author,


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