Course Policy & General Expectations
Research Project
All students are expected to conduct independent research on a project of their choice. The research may include field work, lab work, museum work, or some combination of these. Library research will form a necessary part of each project but cannot form the entire basis of a project. Examples of previous projects will be available in the lab for you to look at.
Mammalogy is a “Writing Emphasis Course” at The University of Arizona. The written report for your independent research project must take the exact form of an article written for the Journal of Mammalogy and must contain the following sections: Title, Name, Address, Abstract, Key Words, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, and Literature Cited. One of the aims of this assignment is to introduce you to the scientific literature and give you practice in writing a scientific paper. The topic must be chosen in consultation with your TA. You will be required to conduct a review of the scientific literature before you begin your project. This is also a good way to get ideas for projects. Pubmed and Web of Science are excellent databases to use for searching the scientific literature.
A draft of the Introduction and Materials and Methods is due in lab no later than Oct. 5/6. We will not make equipment available for your project until the Introduction and Materials and Methods have been approved by your TA. Although this section of your paper is due Oct. 5/6, you are encouraged to submit it earlier so that you may begin work on your project. Activity of many small mammals in Arizona decreases substantially from September to November, so plan ahead! When you turn in the Materials and Methods, you will also be required to turn in the results of your literature search, including keywords used, citation output, and the abstracts and complete citations of at least ten relevant scientific papers that you have read as background. The final written report is due in class on December 7.