You MUST sign-up for and attend a library resources session (hyperlink removed) on the sign-up sheets outside of Dr. Cooley's office. This is the ONLY SCHEDULED meeting of the course. All other appointments will be scheduled individually with your W instructor.
Library resources sessions (hyperlink removed) will be held in the UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH CLASSROOM on Level 1, at the times listed.
The short paper is due on Thursday, Feb. 1. Be sure to carefully read the short paper assignment, and the information on citation format found with the course documents.
During the week of Feb. 5-9 you should meet with your W-instructor to go over the grading of the first draft of your short paper assignment. Note that the revision of the short paper is due the following week.
During the week of March 12-16 you should meet with your W-instructor to discuss the outline and thesis of your term paper.
The UConn writing center (hyperlink removed) is available to provide additional help at all stages in the writing and revising process. They provide individual tutors to work with you (it's free), and the past experience of EEB 245W students has been very positive.
All W students must sign up for and attend one session on library resources during the 2nd week of classes. Sign-up sheets will be posted outside of Dr. Cooley's office. Failure to attend one of these sessions will result in being dropped from the W class.
The goals of this course are to help you learn to present your ideas and arguments in clear, well-organized prose and to introduce you to library research in biology. Because it is a science course, some of what you learn about writing will apply principally to scientific writing, but your efforts in this course will translate into enhanced skills in all your writing tasks in the future.
There are several assignments in this course, each broken down into several components. The first is a short paper summarizing and critiquing a paper from the primary literature (see Short Paper Assignment). This is intended as a warm-up exercise, a way to get you reading and thinking critically about a particular topic. The major assignment is a term paper on some subject that interests you in evolutionary biology. This is a review paper in which you will address a well-defined question of broad evolutionary significance using data from the primary literature. It is important that you devote time and thought to your choice of topic so that you enjoy the research that goes into this paper (see Term Paper Assignment).
Click the links below for:
Course information |
Short Paper Assignment |
Term Paper |
Writing information |
| Grading | Short paper assignment | Term paper assignment | Writing tips (link removed) |
| Schedule and deadlines | Examples of papers that are acceptable as the basis for the short paper assignment (link removed) | Sample term paper topics (link removed) | Citation information (link removed) |
| General information | Tips for getting started (link removed) | Discussion of primary literature versus other kinds of literature (link removed) |