Dear ECOL 484/584 students:

I have been grading your project reports. It seems clear that a number of you:

· have not read the paper “Format for Ornithology Papers”

· have not read the Rubric for grading your project papers

· did not listen or not understand the two times that I discussed what I wanted in these papers

By the same token it is clear that some of you did read, and did listen, because a number of folks did things exactly right. This note is to try and help all of you understand the purpose of these projects.

PURPOSE:

The purpose of these projects IS NOT to have you do a “book report” type paper. You learned to do those in your grade school education, where you read one or two or more items and reported on each one in sequence. This looks something like “I read ‘A’ and it said da da da da. I read ‘B’ and it said la la la la.”

The purpose of these projects IS to ensure that, as individuals soon to graduate from college, you can read several items and synthesize them all into a coherent whole. This looks something like “I read ‘A’ and ‘B’ and ‘C’ and they had the following things in common: da da da da. They had two main differences, which were la la la la and fa fa fa fa. Overall, they agreed that the results indicated re re re re and that the next research should be about te te te te.”

MAIN PROBLEMS YOU ARE HAVING:

1. METHODS: Although we discussed this twice in class, some of you still did not understand what I expect in the Methods section. A few of you said something like “I went to the library and searched for…” Others of you did the book report style of “Paper ‘A’ had method X and paper ‘B’ had method Y and paper ‘C’ had method…” In other words you listed each paper one at a time and wrote about it.

What I expect is something such as “The papers that I read fell into three categories of methodologies. First, many of the papers concentrated on observational methods in the field. Second, 12 of the papers did experiments in the field, using artificial da da da da. Finally, six of the papers did variations of a laboratory experiment where they la la la la.” This may take several paragraphs, with each group of papers having a separate paragraph entailing the methods OF THE ENTIRE GROUP OF PAPERS SYNTHESIZED INTO A GENERAL METHOD.

2. RESULTS, DISCUSSION: For those of you who are having problems with the methods, this was the same issue. You did no original thought, nor synthesis of the papers, but rather a linear “book report” of each paper individually, either paraphrasing as you went along or simply copying sections of the paper word-for-word.

3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: There must be someone – a librarian, a major professor, a fellow student, who gave you some ideas about where to look, how to craft your idea. Thank them.

4. TABLES, FIGURES, APPENDICES: I expect at least one table. A good table would be one which synthesized something from your separate papers. For example, one of you made a table of the results from each of the papers, showing them as a comparison across all the papers of the methods used, and the success rate of each method. Most of the papers you read probably had a photo of the general type of site, the general type of experimental setup, or something similar. Use that. For example, one of you had two figures, one of a typical experimental exclosure and one of a typical shelter. You probably do not need appendices unless you did original research in which case I would want your original data as an appendix, or two.

5. FORMAT: Again, it seems apparent that some of you did not read any or all of the Format paper from the link on your class schedule. It talks about every page, in detail, including what goes where, what should be in ALL CAPS, or SMALL CAPS or Italics or indented or at the top of a page, etc. Please print this out and read it carefully, highlighting items so that you don’t forget.

Your grade on your rough draft is not your final grade. Take the rough draft back, read my comments carefully, and revise accordingly.

I am cancelling Article 5, and instead moving the due date for the final papers to May 1, Thursday. If they are not turned in AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS THEY WILL BE CONSIDERED LATE.

If they are turned in by 5 pm on May 1, there will be a 10% penalty. There will be an additional 10% penalty for every day thereafter – if turned in by 5 pm May 2 a 20% penalty; if turned in by 5 pm May 3 a 30% penalty, and so on.