1. Unbreakable Rules
2. Basic Format
3. Using Sources
4. Citing Sources
5. Plagiarism
6. Grammar and Such
7. Particulars for Science Papers
8. Suggested Topics
You should read and follow all of the requirements and suggestions below, and of course you'll be graded accordingly. But some requirements are so important that I won't even grade the paper if you don't meet them: I'll hand it back and count off points for lateness until you submit a revised version.
Here's the list; you can read the details in the sections below.
(Sorry to start out on a negative note, but past experience tells me that it's necessary. Just read and follow the instructions below and you'll be fine!)
The paper should be at least twenty pages, not including title page, references, figures, and tables. This isn't particularly long, given that there are several of you and that you're trying to explain something complex in some detail. Write at a level such that an intelligent classmate could learn about your chosen topic by reading your paper. As with any expository writing, the trick is to remember that you've researched the topic and now know much more than your reader, so you must consciously put yourself in the reader's shoes and force yourself to include any missing logical/factual links. That takes effort -- and space.
The paper must be word processed with double spacing and one-inch margins. You must use 10-point font, and it should be a proportionally spaced font such as Times New Roman.
Decide well in advance what the font will be and what word processing program you'll all use! Groups that don't do this and try to come together at the last minute often come to grief, especially if anyone is using the dreaded Microsoft Works package. You can get either the Corel WordPerfect or the Microsoft Office suite at the bookstore, money extremely well spent given the use you'll get out of it.
The paper must be stapled at the upper left corner. You may include a title page if you wish, but you may not enclose the paper in a store-bought cover, as that merely adds to bulk without improving content.
As is discussed more fully later, you must turn in photocopies of your sources along with your paper. . . .
Students hate trying to learn from unillustrated textbooks -- so why do so many students turn in unillustrated papers? Figures (diagrams, photographs, etc.) can greatly clarify your text while also adding visual interest; it's unlikely that you can explain yourself properly without using any. It is not acceptable to include figures that are not directly referenced in your paper. All figures must be numbered and must have captions (usually just below them): "Figure 5. X-ray image of a woman's hand (Jones 2001). Note the wedding ring."
Numbers should be always be organized in tables rather than listed in the text itself. Sometimes tables are useful even when numbers aren't involved, since their tidy row-column format makes it easy for the reader to digest the information. Tables don't have captions; instead, you must give the number and a title at the top of each table: "Table 2. Fuel Cell Varieties."
Note that figure captions and table entries are the only places where scientists (and science students) are allowed to skimp on grammar -- typically by using incomplete sentences to save space, as in the sample caption given above.
Try to imagine reading a book or magazine where all the figures and tables are piled at the back, so that you're forced to flip back and forth as you read. Sound fun? No? Then don't do it in your paper. The best thing to do is to leave space in the text so that each figure or table shows up on the same page as the text where it's first mentioned -- or, at worst, on the following page. If you find this too daunting, however, I'll accept it if you print the figure or table as a page of its own and insert it following the page where it's first mentioned.
Just as we break text into paragraphs, we also break a large paper into large sections with bold (or italicized or underlined) headings, and probably also into midsized subsections with smaller subheadings. For example, Lauren might contribute a seven-page section on the LIGO gravitational wave detector, broken up into three subsections: basic physics of its operation, construction details, and future prospects. These headings and subheadings are helpful signposts for the reader: "Get ready for a new topic!"
An obvious but really, really important tip: Make frequent backups of your own contribution and of the merged group paper. Yes, I've had people lose most of their work just before finishing everything on the due date. Oh, and don't make the backup on the same disk (hard disk, CD, etc.) as the original copy; yes, I've had students make that mistake, too.
You should strive for a diverse reference list. To that end, I have established the following minimum requirements for this paper (and for your poster and oral presentations as well):
When you turn in your paper, you must also turn in hardcopy/photocopies of all of your sources, with the sections you have used clearly marked. (For books, just copy the relevant pages.) Make sure that each source is labeled so that I can identify it. Why am I requiring this? Read the section on plagiarism below. . . .
The Internet is a great place to get a light overview of some topic, or to find late-breaking news on something you already understand. It's often not a good place, however, for gaining that understanding in the first place -- that is, for learning the physics behind your topic. Books, on the other hand, are excellent places for finding a general-yet-not-superficial introduction to your topic. As for periodical articles, they will often give you details on some small aspect of your topic, which is a great way to liven up your paper. All of the above is generalization, of course, but it's a useful guide.
When I arrived at UMF in 1995 I had to push students, sometimes kicking and screaming, to use some Internet sources; today, by contrast, I find many students who want to use only the Internet. The Web, being unedited, is the most dangerous source of information that you can use. Just as Hollywood puts out much more schlock than quality cinema, there's much more questionable and out-and-out foolish stuff on the Net than there is useful information. (Note that a perspective can be useful and well-informed without necessarily being right!) There are self-inflated cranks who can "prove" that relativity is false, confused wannabe mystics who mangle quantum mechanics, and so on. Books and periodicals make use of reporters, editors, and outside reviewers who (ideally) know something about the subject at hand and hence can correct errors and biases and winnow out nonsense. Yes it's convenient to use online sources, but unless you apply proper judgment (the technical term is "information literacy") that convenience is worse than useless, like an all-you-can-eat restaurant where the food tastes terrible.
But just as Hollywood does put out some high-quality product, the Internet can be a valuable information source for the cautious researcher. For each Web source, ask yourself if you should trust it; if you're not sure, ask someone else (or me). Always find out what person or organization has produced a given page, by clicking to the home page, by doing "View ... Page Source" or "View ... Page Info," or even by removing one piece at a time from the end of the URL until you reach some high-level page with pertinent information. A mere name won't suffice: Is this a chemistry professor or is it Joe Blow? Is it a government research lab or a political activist organization?
If it's a ".edu" page, does that make it reliable? Perhaps not if it's produced by a sixth-grade class. OK, what if it's "www.harvard.edu"? Not necessarily, if it's a student's page and the student is more enthusiastic than knowledgeable about the subject at hand. If it's a ".com" site then should it be dismissed as marketing hype? No, some corporate sites provide excellent technical information, although you must (as always) apply a bit of skepticism to any claims that might be linked to their profit margins. (In that case check other sources to see if other viewpoints exist.) There's no easy rule to follow: judgment, even-handed skepticism, is needed.
You'll want some sources (such as How Stuff Works) that are fairly easy reading, so that you get an overview of the topic and understand what is going on. But you should challenge yourself and enrich your paper by trying something harder and more specialized as well, although these needn't be professional-level references. (Even Scientific American articles can be rather daunting on a first reading. . . .)
You may not include a source in your reference list unless you have cited it in your paper.
Direct quotes are highly appropriate in small doses, in cases where the author's exact wording is especially interesting or helpful. It follows that you should never use them to give matter-of-fact information: "Convection is a form of heat transfer." It also follows that frequent use of direct quotes leaves the impression that you're trying to fill up space, or (even worse) that you haven't understood your sources well enough to put their ideas into your own words. The latter sin is a form of plagiarism. Quoted passages should support your explanations, not replace them.
Quotes that take up more than four lines of text should be formatted as left-indented, single-spaced block quotations. Here you should be especially careful not to include unnecessary material if you don't want the reader to think you're trying to fill up space (yes, it happens); use an ellipsis mark (. . . or . . . .) if necessary.
Honest scholars must acknowledge all sources from which they have obtained information. There's no one accepted citation format in professional journals, or in professional science journals, or even in professional physics journals. For this paper, you will use APA format; see any English composition textbook or style manual (or the preceding hyperlink) for details.
Within the body of the paper, include an in-text citation each time you use a piece of information; in APA format this is a parenthetical (author, date) citation, not a footnote or endnote. (Sometimes only the date is within the parentheses, while other times a page number is included as well; see one of the APA sources mentioned above for details.) An example: "The ability to control spacetime curvature has important applications for achieving world domination (Barsinister 2005)." A second example: "This theory has been challenged by Smith and Smythe (1998, p. 452), who argue that the absence of water on Venus renders it unlikely that whales could have evolved there."
If a figure or table is taken directly from, or is adapted from, one of your sources, then say so in the caption or title (and do not say so in the text itself).
In-text citations tell an interested reader where to look within the References, the required list of detailed bibliographic information placed at the end of the paper. (You've called this the "Works Cited" list if you've written any papers in MLA format.) There are many rules for listing the many possible kinds of sources.
The paper must have one alphabetized reference list, not one for each partner, and not one for each source format (books vs. periodicals vs. Internet).
Internet sources now have established citation formats; click on that link (or this one -- and still more links are listed here) for examples.
Note that in-text citations of specific Web pages do not include the address (URL): they are (author, date) citations just as for any other sources. (Exception: A reference to an entire Web site does indeed use the URL.) You'll also need to substitute paragraph numbers for page numbers in these citations.
You are responsible for correctly listing all URLs so that I can check them. This means getting the spelling exactly right. Remember that URLs are case-sensitive, so you must pay attention to upper- vs. lower-case. Also be careful if you are copying a URL from a printout you made; if the URL was too long for the page header, part of it might have been replaced with ". . ." -- in which case you'll have to find it again online and get the full URL.
Helpful hint: If you find yourself citing just one source, the same source, for paragraph after paragraph, you're writing an eighth-grade book summary rather than a college paper. (People writing about the history of their topic seem to be particularly prone to this serious error: they find one good source and overuse it to the point of plagiarism.) Use diverse sources, synthesize what you've learned, put it on paper in coherent form, and cite frequently.
Why an entire section devoted to this one little topic? So that I can deliver a sermon on honesty? No, it's because many students (including A students) accidentally plagiarize their sources, because they don't know what plagiarism is! It's entirely possible to include a rearranged version of an author's writing -- complete with a citation -- and still be guilty of plagiarism.
Except for direct quotes, your discussion of a source should read as if you wrote it without having that source right in front of you. Read and reread your books and articles, but then talk about them using your own words. The best way to do that is to put your sources out of sight when you write.
THIS TOPIC IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT! It's covered in all English composition books, but in addition, UMF has an online plagiarism tutorial. You are strongly urged to work diligently through this tutorial so that you don't needlessly do something dumb and earn yourself an F or worse. The tutorial also discusses the proper ways to quote, paraphrase, summarize, and cite sources, all the more reason to check it out.
A common example of a bad mistake is to take a significant chunk of your paper, say a two-page stretch, all from the same source. (As mentioned earlier, students writing about the history of their topic seem particularly prone to this error.) If you're using the same periodical article (for example) to write paragraph after consecutive paragraph, it's psychologically almost inevitable that your writing is going to look a lot like the writing in the article. That is, you're essentially shoveling text from the periodical to your PC and then exchanging some synonyms. That probably worked on your eighth-grade reports but in college we call it plagiarism. Use multiple sources in order to get multiple perspectives, in order to synthesize rather than merely parrot, and in order to avoid the plagiarism charges that result from parroting.
A second awful mistake that I see all too often is to omit the in-text citations discussed earlier, or to use them only after direct quotes. Wrong. That's a very serious omission that sets you up for plagiarism charges. You must acknowledge where you got each piece of information in your paper (not just the direct quotes!), and merely having a References list at the end of the paper doesn't accomplish this.
There's nothing wrong with using many sources and citing them extensively; there's a lot wrong with passing off someone else's work as your own insight. When in doubt, cite, so you're not stealing someone else's information. Even when citing, write your own prose, so you're not stealing someone else's wording (except via an occasional direct quote). Plagiarism is like shoplifting: You might get away with it if you're clever, but would you really want to if you have any shred of self-respect?
I take this issue extremely seriously. If you plagiarize, you probably will be caught. Your paper grade will be substantially reduced for a minor case; you'll fail the course and find yourself dealing with the UMF Conduct Officer for anything more serious. A number of past students have tried "more serious" and have learned that I wasn't bluffing, so don't mess up.
If you don't have a freshman comp book or style manual handy, try Purdue's extensive online writing lab for writing rules, tips, and so on.
Do you want to convince your readers that you're lazy and that you take no interest in the quality of your work? The best way to accomplish this is to misspell words. (The second best way is to use sentence fragments.) Between spell checkers and dictionaries, there's simply no excuse for misspellings.
People often switch "its" and "it's," or "their" and "they're," but it's actually quite simple to use contractions properly. Each time you come to a contraction or to a homonym (sound-alike) of a contraction, ask yourself whether the expanded version makes sense. You wouldn't say, "Go to you are room," so "Go to you're room" is nonsense. Similarly, "Its going to rain" is incorrect, since the alternative "It is going to rain" works well.
Only proper nouns are routinely capitalized, so don't write that "Light Interference is important in Physics."
Don't start your paper by giving the dictionary definition of your topic; this is the oldest, most pathetic writing ploy imaginable.
In general, all papers -- not just essays for humanities classes -- must be in proper English, and you will be graded accordingly. You don't have to be brilliant to write well; you only have to take the time to think about what you're doing, to proofread your work, and to revise it a few times. Letting a friend read a draft is a great idea.
Particulars for Science Papers
You should write at a level such that (a) you understand everything you've written, and (b) another student in the class could read the paper and understand what you've written. If you use terminology which we've not seen in class and which you don't define in your paper, then you're guilty of mindlessly copying from your source: plagiarism. Either find out what it means (and then define it in your paper), or else leave it out. You probably won't run into this problem if you use a few nontechnical sources.
Be careful about using old sources. How old is old? It depends. If you're writing about the basics of wave interference, worked out 200 years ago, then almost any book will do. But for advances in organic lasers, anything much more than ten years old is probably useless. (Note that information on astronomy has a particularly short shelf-life.) Recent references never hurt, are often essential, and always make for a far more interesting paper.
If your sources list quantities in (yecchh) English units, you must convert to metric. (I'll waive this requirement for photocopied figures.) Pay attention to precision: for example, "88°F" becomes "31°C," even though your calculator claims that it's "31.11°C."
Scientific theories (ideas) are certainly important and interesting, but keep in mind that it's equally important and interesting to know why a theory is or isn't viable. That is, after stating that "Jones (1998) finds that the Moon is made of green Velveeta," tell me about the experiments or observations that have led Jones to this conclusion: equipment, procedure, etc. Science isn't a list of answers: it's a way of asking questions.
In choosing and fine-tuning your topic, remember that it's more interesting and informative to go into more depth on a narrower topic than it is to give a shallow survey of a broad topic. After all, your course is a fairly broad survey, and this project is your chance to do something different.
As you research and write, ask yourself how you're going to grab and hold the reader's attention. For example, it may happen that some groups in the class work on similar topics: How are you going to make your paper stand out so that the reader/grader isn't yawning as he plods through twenty pages of basics yet again? (Recent sources are a big help here.)
Special relativity:
General relativity:
Quantum mechanics:
Perhaps the most obvious possible topic for an Einstein paper is black holes, but perhaps no topic is more difficult to grasp once you get past the very basics. In the past I've not had good luck with introductory students writing coherent papers about black holes, so unless you're a strong student who's willing to work hard, steer away from this subject.