Term Paper

The purpose of this assignment is to provide an opportunity for you to see how some of the ideas that we have been discussing in class are applied in the real world. As citizens, we are continually exposed to problems or issues that have conservation or environmental components or consequences. Some of these are global, or national in scope, such as the greenhouse effect or loss of tropical rain forests; while are others are regional or local, such as the quality of drinking water, the loss of wetlands or the location of a new shopping mall.

Your assignment is to find one such local issue that concerns you as a citizen, and find out what is being done about it by the relevant political authorities and other public organizations. This task has several parts. First you must decide on an issue. You must do sufficient background reading so that you are able to discuss the relevant scientific principles, as well as the political implications that are involved with similar situations. You must find out who the relevant political authorities and other public organizations are, and how to contact them. Then you must interview some of the people involved. Finally, after you gathered all of the pertinent information, you must write a coherent account of the issue and what is being done. That is, you must discuss the specific issue, in the context of its scientific background, as well as how similar issues have been dealt with in other instances.

As an example, if you are concerned with your neighborhood swamp being drained to put up that new mall, the relevant political authorities probably include the town conservation commission and state agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection. Interested public organizations might include the Audubon society, and various neighborhood groups. The significant scientific issues would include water quality and watershed management, habitat destruction, rare or endangered species, etc.

The paper, itself, should be no more than 10 pages, typed, double-spaced. It should include the appropriate references, using the format described in this handout. English grammar and style are also important in the writing of the paper.

I encourage you to turn in one or more drafts of the paper. I will happily make comments and corrections. The drafts will not be graded.
 
 

FORMAT FOR LITERATURE CITATIONS
How to cite references in the text: The simplest method of citing references is the (Author, date) method. For any statement of fact or idea taken from something you read, give the author's last name and the year of publication in parentheses at the end of sentence. For example: The mtDNA of vertebrates is maternally inherited (Brown, 1983). Sometimes it sounds better if the author's name is part of the sentence, i.e.: Avise and Lansman (1983) discuss the basic techniques for using restriction enzymes to estimate mtDNA sequence variation in populations.

You cite the interviews as "personal communication," and give the date of the interview as well as identify the person in terms of the relevance for the topic. For example: Sewage pollution in the Charles river is much better now than it was 50 years ago (J. Blow, sanitation engineer, MWRA, personal communication, 4 July, 2001).

How to format the Literature Cited section: At the end of the paper, list alphabetically by author each article or book you cited in the paper. Do not list things that you read but did not cite.

Format:

1. Article from periodical:

Author(s). Year. Title of article. Title of periodical. Volume: number:pages.

For example:

Kessler, L. G. and J. C. Avise. 1985. A comparative description of mitochondrial DNA differentiation in selected avian and other vertebrate genera. Mol. Biol. Evol. 2:109-126.

2. Book:Author(s). Year. Title. Publisher, city, state, (nation).

For example:

Maniatis, T., F. E. Fritsch and J. Sambrook. 1982. Molecular cloning: a laboratory manual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, New York.

3. Article from book with chapters by different authors:

Author(s). Year. Title of article, pages. In: Title of book. Editor(s). Publisher, city, state, (nation).

For example:

Brown, W. M. 1983. Evolution of animal mitochondrial DNAs, p. 62-88. In: Evolution of genes and proteins. M. Nei and R. K. Koehn (eds.). Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, Massachusetts.

4.  Web site

Author (if no author is listed, use the name of the organization hosting the website). Year (if no year is given, use date unknown). Title. Complete URL. Date visited.

For example:

Cohen, R. A and J. Curtis. 1998. Agricultural Solutions: Improving Water Quality in California Through Water Conservation and Pesticide Reduction. http://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/ragsosum.asp. Visited 17 January, 2001.

5. Personal communications do not go into the literature cited section. They are not published.

For other, more confusing types of references, please see me.
 
 

Grading Scheme for Term Paper
I.  Form
A.  Basic grammar and spelling                   5
B.  Format for citations                               5
C.  Appropriate use of literature                10
D.  Structure of paper                               10
II.  Content
A.  Background information                        5
B.  Interview(s)                                         10
C.  Place local example in wider context      5
Total                                                         50