ROSARY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

COURSE OBJECTIVES

The cooperative seminar courses in biology are organized by faculty from the liberal arts schools that are part of the consortium called the Associated Colleges of the Chicago Area (ACCA), of which Dominican is a member. The seminars meet at selected central locations in the Chicago area.

The objective of these seminar courses is to allow presentation of courses in advanced topics that could not be offered by any of the individual schools. The speakers are professionals who are actively engaged in work related to the subject of their lectures. This series of lectures will give you experience in the type of seminar course that is very common in post-graduate study. Your ability to listen to and learn from a variety of speakers lecturing on specialized topics will improve as you attend this course.

A seminar course of this type cannot thoroughly cover a topic. Instead, it will introduce you to some important topics in the field and show you some of applications of research in these areas. The lectures will give you fundamental information on particular topics and will serve to guide your reading if you want to study further in an area. You should take notes during these lectures, as you would in a college class, to help you remember the information in the lecture and to improve your ability to take notes from this type of lecture.

Speakers who are from local universities have been asked to bring information about their school's graduate programs. You are encouraged to ask any speaker about the type of advanced training needed to work in a particular area or about its career prospects.

TEXTBOOK AND COURSE OUTLINE: Recommended texts, if any, vary with the particular topic of the seminar course and will be on the course outline, on a separate handout sheet.

ATTENDANCE: You are expected to attend all the lectures scheduled; absences will cause you to receive a lower grade.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

ONE CREDIT HOUR: attendance at all lectures and any supplementary assignments made by the instructor, including participation in any summary discussions, etc.

THREE CREDIT HOURS:

A. attendance and any supplementary assignments or summary discussion sessions, as above.

B. a brief (1-2 typed pages) summary of the major topics presented in each lecture.

C. a review paper of at least 8 typed pages of text (not including references) on a topic related to the course (Speakers have been asked to provide lists of suggested readings.). This paper is to be written from a minimum of 6 different reference sources, no more than two of which can be from the popular press. Reference citations should be in the form used in scientific review literature, as in the examples given below. The paper is due at the end of the semester.

You may use electronic databases or web sites to obtain background information, but sources of scientific information cited in the reference list of your paper must be from refereed scientific literature. These citations generally would not include a web site, because most web sites are not controlled in any way, but could include an online refereed scientific journal. Refereed literature has been read by other experts in the same field, to see that appropriate methods and controls have been used and that conclusions are reasonable and unbiased by prejudice or desire for financial gain. Please see the instructor or a librarian if you would like advice about any reference source.

ACADEMIC HONESTY AND INTEGRITY

As a community of scholars, students and faculty work together toward the fulfillment of personal and professional potential. The seminar courses give each student considerable independence and responsibility. Within this framework, academic dishonesty and plagiarism are contrary to the spirit and trust inherent in the seminar course program and are not acceptable behavior. Students are therefore expected to avoid any form of academic dishonesty. Violations of this policy may result in disciplinary action.

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING A REVIEW PAPER

A paper that summarizes a subject and is based on information that has already been published in a number of places is a "review paper." The library research papers you have done for other classes are review papers. In scientific review papers, both actual research reports (primary sources) and other review papers or books (secondary sources) are used as the sources for the paper. Because the author of the review is using other sources of information, not reporting new research results, EACH FACT MUST be CITED (even if it is from the author's own previous work). The notation of a source of information, which is often called "a reference," is more correctly named a "citation."

The citation gives the identity and location in the literature of the reference source. If several related pieces of information from one source are used in succession, one reference citation can be used at the beginning or end of the paragraph, assuming a different source of information was not also used in the same paragraph. If you find several sources of the same information, you may want to cite all of them. This gives the reader alternate sources of information or indicates that several different laboratories have agreed about one result.

When you read papers on scientific topics, you will find that they are relatively short (5-15 pages), but NOT easy to read. To get an introduction to your topic, you may want first to get information on a web site or read a textbook chapter or short summary in the popular press or Scientific American..

As you write your review paper on a technical subject, try to use a style you would prefer to read yourself. You would want the paper to be clear and understandable, and you would value clarity over a very technical-sounding style. You would, however, like to learn the specialized terms of the subject and would appreciate definitions. Finally, you would like a clear reference list, in case you needed to look up some of the citations.

There are many forms of reference citation used. The form taught in English classes is a standard method used in the humanities, where a paper is often commentary on one or a few books. Also in writing in the humanities, exact quotes often are needed, for which a page location is important. However, in scientific writing, exact quotes are almost never used, many research reports and even review articles are short, and a really complicated review paper may have hundreds of reference citations.

Therefore, one of the commonest forms of reference citations used in science (and in the research literature of the social sciences) is to state in the text of your paper only the last name(s) of the author (or authors) and the year of publication (instead of a page location) for the paper being cited. The paper then has an alphabetical (usually) list of references at the end of the text which has the full citations for each reference source. Footnotes at the bottom of each page are usually not used. Remember, whatever form is used, consistency is essential. Also note that scientific literature does not use web sites in citations. If you use online journals, they are cited in the same manner as print journals.

The paragraph below describes fictitious research by familiar personalities and is given as an example of use of citations and a form for a reference list.

SAMPLE PARAGRAPH, WITH CITATIONS, AS MIGHT BE FOUND IN A REVIEW PAPER: (Notes in italics explain techniques for writing citations.)

Grimm and Attila (1995) found that 25.0% of the infected mice were not helped by the experimental treatment, 50.0% of them were, and the fourth mouse got away. After using much larger groups of test mice and an improved form of treatment, the test substance was found effective in 90.3% of the test animals, relative to untreated controls (Grimm, et al., 1996). Unpublished experiments from another laboratory had similar results. (Tracy, R., personal communication.) However, Snoopy and coworkers (1996) challenged Grimm’s methods of testing and use of statistical analyses. Several other groups have since confirmed Snoopy's results (Brown, 1996; Peppermint-Patty, 1997; Gaylord and Broom-Hilda, 1997a, 1997b)

REFERENCES: (a sample reference list that would be at the end of this review paper)

Brown, C. (1996) Superior response of mouse pox-infected mice to acetylsalicylic acid treatment. Applied Murine Medicinal Chemistry, 271, 151-158. (A standard form for a citation of an article in a research journal.)

Gaylord, B., and Broom-Hilda, W. (1997a) Compound X vs. conventional mouse pox therapy. Journal of Murine Virology, 88, 775-783. (Note above and in the next reference that when exactly the same author(s) have written two publications in the same year, even if the papers are in different types of publications, the year followed by "a," "b," etc., is used.)

Gaylord, B., and Broom-Hilda, W. (1997b) Mouse pox therapies. in Experimental Therapies, Dilbert, E., ed., Bell Curve House, Dogbertsville, New Iceland, 237-243.(Note above the citation form for a chapter in a book.. Also note the use of the year and "b" for a second publication by the same authors in the same year.)

Grimm, C., and Attila, H. (1995) Use of Compound X to treat mouse pox. Journal of Unique Therapies, 374, 115-119.

Grimm, C., Goose, M., and Attila, H. (1996) Response of a mouse colony to mouse pox therapy with Compound X, Applied Medicinal Chemistry, 269, 378-386. (Note above and in the text that if there are more than two authors, you can use "et al." in the text citation but you must name all authors in the reference list, even if there are ten or more.)

Peppermint-Patty, P. (1997) Response of cultured mouse leukocytes to various mouse pox therapies. Journal of Experimental Pharmacognosy, 56, 998-1011.

Snoopy, B., Brown, C., and Catbert, H. R. (1996) Response of large numbers of mouse pox-infected mice to Compound X or to acetylsalicylic acid. Journal of Murine Virology, 87, 224-231. (Note in the text that you use "and coworkers" when you refer to a group of three or more people in the text instead of the "et al." used in a citation.)

(Note that the personal communication from R. Tracy is not listed in the reference list. Information from a web site with no published source would be treated as a personal communication and also not listed with the references.

This syllabus is to be used for reference purposes only; consult your instructor for any changes or updates!