What factors led to the evolutionary divergence of ravens and crows?

Annotated Bibliography

First draft DUE Wednesday Feb 21 @ 8am

Peer Review DUE Sunday Feb 25^th @ Midnight

March 7-9 Ad Hoc Peer Review Meetings with Instructor

Final draft DUE Friday March 16^th @ Midnight

As part of assessing the outcomes for the General Education, Area B2 “Life Sciences” requirement, you will be creating an annotated bibliography on a taxon and/or biological question of your choice (related to one or more of the three major course topic areas: ecology, evolution or biodiversity). This assignment has several learning goals: (1) to learn more about one of the taxa we cover in the biodiversity section or one area of research we cover in lecture, (2) to find and evaluate different sources of scientific information (both peer-reviewed and popular) and the qualifications of the author/source, and (3) to become more familiar with scientific literature.

I.                   Choosing a taxon/topic

A.       Pick either a taxon (usually a genus or species) or a research question based on content from lecture or lab. For common organisms, you’ll find a lot of information at the species level. For lesser-known groups, you may focus on a higher taxonomic level such as genus or even phylum. Everyone must pick a different taxon or research question (i.e. students can pick different species of fungus with the Kingdom Fungi).

B.        Choose a taxon outside the Class Mammalia. I prefer you choose a group that you know very little about – most likely groups outside of Subphylum Vertebrata.

C.       After reading about the taxon, pick a question related to its biology to address .

II.                Researching your question

A.       Required sources: At minimum include four sources: (1) two peer-reviewed sources, (2) one popular source such as a web page, and (3) one non-peer-reviewed source with an established science editorial process (i.e. government websites, Scientific American, or an edited science book). At least one of the peer-reviewed sources must be a scientific investigation with a question, hypothesis/es, methods, results and discussion.

B.        The goal is to answer your question as best you can based on your research. This may require you to find quite a few journal articles to find the ones that best answer your question (i.e. the first ones you search for may not be the most relevant to your question).  

III.             How to structure your annotated bibliography/what to include

A.       Title your bibliography with your research question and your taxon name. Type your first name and last initial at the top of your paper. 

B.        Introductory paragraph: describe your organism and research question including (1) taxonomy at the level we cover in this course, and (2) a brief description of morphology and unique characteristics. Cite sources you use for this (which could be from Wikipedia, but note that Wikipedia does not always follow the taxonomy from class; please use the taxonomy from class). Include at least Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, and Class for all eukaryotes. For viruses or prions, follow the taxonomy that you can find for that “species” as best as you can. 

C.       Write a complete citation for each source using the Council of Science Editors (CSE) style (see McMillan text for lab or this page from University of Wisconsin at Madison: http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/DocCSE_NameYear.html).

D.       After each complete citation, please include a hyperlink to the source. Most online CSE citations include a “notes” section, which can include the durable link or DOI link. Follow instructions here http://library.csumb.edu/durable-links-articles for making durable links. (For popular web pages, you can just provide the web address.) Please make sure every link you insert in your annotated bibliography functions properly.

E.        For each source, state whether it is peer-reviewed or not.

F.        Expectations of what to include under each citation based on the type of source:

1.         Popular sources and sources with a scientific review process: after a complete citation: (1) summarize the article, (2) include key findings based on the underlying work of other scientists, (3) describe what you learned, and (4) describe if this source is credible and why. For instance, some popular sources like Wikipedia have some level of editing and review, but not a scientific review process.

2.         Peer-reviewed articles: scientific studies (primary literature) include the following information after a complete citation: (1) the author’s question(s) and hypotheses, (2) a brief description of the methods used to answer the question, (3) the key results which answer (or begin to answer) the author’s question, (4) the implication of the results (from the discussion section), (5) what you learned from reading the article and what you had to pursue/study outside of the article to be able to understand its content, and (6) identify the qualifications of the source and the authors and whether or not the source is credible and why.

3.         Peer-reviewed review articles (reviews of several different scientific studies) include the following after a citation: (1) summarize the key findings from the multiple scientific studies, (2) what you learned from reading the article (3) identify the qualifications of the source and the authors and whether or not the source is credible and why. Note: you are not required to have this type of article, but some of you will choose this type as best for answering your question.

G.       You might be wondering how to identify the qualifications of an author(s) or a websites (not just the webpage). Summarize the author’s experience in this field. You can find this by searching for other papers by that author of Googling that author (which doesn’t always work). If a web site is authored by a science writer who writes about many different areas, then include that this author might have less experience and knowledge about this topic. If it is a government agency, discuss the relevance of that agency to the field of study. .

H.       Finally, weave together each of your citations to tell a story of how each led you to the next one (or expanded your knowledge). At the end of your annotated bibliography, include one or more final paragraph(s) that ties the studies together, answers your original question (as best as you can), and points to further questions and areas of study related to your research question and/or focal organism.

IV.              Writing Expectations/Submitting Your Paper

A.       This is a formal writing assignment. Papers that do not meet a college-level will not pass. Please proof read your English – spelling, grammar, word usage, syntax, etc. 

B.        This assignment should be typed in 12-point font in MS Word. Name your file: “firstname.lastinitial.taxon.name.doc” (or .docx), where the taxon is either the common or scientific name of your organism (or possibly the disease that organism causes such as “Suzy.W.Lyme’s.disease.doc”). If you chose a biological question use the topic of that question (i.e. “SuzyW.climate.change.dinoflagellates.doc”). You will lose points an incorrect file name. If you use Pages on a Mac, save as a MS Word (“.doc” or “.docx”).

C.       Turn in your file to the “Turnitin” link on iLearn for the Annotated Bibliography assignment. You will have the option of reviewing the plagiarism score your paper received, and resubmitting your paper if need be. You do not need to have a plagiarism score of 0 (indeed it is almost impossible to have a score lower than about 3-5). You should have a plagiarism score in the “green” zone (a little bit into the yellow zone is often OK, but see next sentence). If Turnitin is flagging content that you included that should be cited identically (for instance, you’ve typed out “National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)” and Turnitin flags it as plagiarism, don’t worry about it. You should spell out acronyms such as that and it is not surprising that they are identical to a web resource. However if Turnitin flags a word-for-word sentence (or even a phrase) from a paper you cite in your annotated bibliography (or even worse, from another paper that you don’t cite!), then you should revise each of those sentences into your own words. Note also that if Turnitin shows significant word-for-word plagiarism (including from another classmates paper this semester or from previous semesters) you will almost certainly fail the paper. Note that it can take from 1-24 hours for Turnitin to generate a plagiarism report. Therefore if you want to have the option of reading your report and resubmitting your paper based on its findings, you’ll need to submit your first paper to Turnitin at least 2 days before the deadline on the syllabus. (The deadline on the syllabus is the final deadline regardless of whether you used the Turnitin features to help you revise your paper or not.)