Why assign Term Papers in Science Courses?

Typical college science courses require students to assimilate large amounts of factual information that is presented in formal lectures supplemented by a textbook. Evidence for learning usually comes from student performance on several hour examinations that cover segments of a course and a comprehensive final examination. Frequently these examinations emphasize recognition, recall, and application. They reward an ability to accurately remember subject matter, recognize patterns quickly, and come to a correct answer. Preparation by "cramming" is often a successful strategy. There are many other abilities that an undergraduate education should develop and reward that do not lend themselves to evaluation on an hour examination. For example, students in science courses rarely are required to demonstrate the ability to identify and locate needed information in a library or to assimilate, analyze, evaluate, integrate, organize, and communicate that information which they have gained by personal initiative. These abilities are very important to future employers and can be practiced and displayed in a term paper.

Selecting a Topic For Your Term Paper.

Many recipients of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine and Physiology and for Chemistry have been biochemists. By Friday, March 6, choose two recipients (not co-recipients) or other prominent biochemists as subjects for your term paper (See page 5). Try to select people that you find interesting. The combination you choose must be unique, i.e. no other student this year or in previous years has made the same choice. (A list of scientists selected as term paper subjects from previous years is in this reader.) Please get started early and clear your choices with me before proceeding. I welcome consultations at any stage of this project. Part of the week before March 9 will be devoted to locating critical information about your scientists from various resources in the library. A summary sheet listing vital information and identifying useful references (see page 6) will be due on Monday March 9. An outline or brief narrative of the theme of your term paper will be due Monday, April 13. Two copies of your term paper will be due on Monday, May 11. Late papers will be penalized a plus/minus grade for each period they are overdue. Please familiarize yourself with the meaning of plagiarism, why it cannot be tolerated, and the University's policy relating to acts of plagiarism. Please note, it is unethical to use your term paper for credit in another course this year or in the future.

Some Mechanics

This is a major substantive writing project that constitutes 25% of your grade, so you need to get started early, budget your time, and keep good notes. You should learn as much as you can about your subjects. This includes reading books, journal articles, obituaries, book reviews, and magazine commentaries. Once you have familiarized yourself with your subjects, consider interviewing them, if living, and/or interviewing people who know or knew your subjects. Then, based on your accumulated information, develop a theme, reflected in your title, that will give your term paper continuity and will allow you to integrate the lives, experiences, and accomplishments of your subjects in a coherent whole. A theme transcends the lives and accomplishments of your scientists. Your paper should be a scholarly work displaying analysis, synthesis, and integration of information from your perspective which means that it is your voice and not that of your sources that emanates from your pages. A well written term paper that simply reports documented information is unlikely to receive a grade higher than a "C." A sheet used for evaluating term papers is included on page 7 of this document. A particularly good term paper from the 1989 class won the Rosenberry Undergraduate Writing Award ($500) and others have received honorable mention ($100) in subsequent years.

Make the Most of Your Effort

This term paper assignment gives you the opportunity to identify career models in biochemistry, polish your writing skills, and challenge your ability to organize and present information in an interesting way.

1. Careers: By exploring the lives of two biochemists, you will get some idea of the education, experience, commitment, and personal traits that have been successful in biochemistry. You may also discover some of the hazards and difficulties of a career in science. In order that you get the most out of this assignment, you should select people that are interesting to you in some way. While the scientists may not be role models for you, they should, at least, have some fascination for you. Students in the past have selected for personal reasons scientists who were immigrants, women, handicapped, pacifists, black, foreign, specialists in certain topics, etc. Many of the authors of articles in your reader are or were prominent scientists that could be chosen.

2. Writing Experience: Clear, effective communication is one critical skill in science that needs to be cultivated and practiced. Most science students don't get enough writing experience. I expect the term paper to display your mastery of English composition. Clarity of purpose and thought need to be apparent. You may use the Writing Center for assistance.

3. Challenge: Because this is a major project, it requires good time-management skills, good organizational skills, and an ability to assimilate and restructure large amounts of information. I have deliberately designed the term paper topic for uniqueness. Probably no one has ever written on your topic before. This means that you must come up with a meaningful, coherent theme. A good place to start is to read about scientists in general, e. g. "The Making of a Scientist" by Anne Roe or "The Threat and the Glory - Reflections on Science and Scientists" by Peter Medawar. Some questions that might help you define a theme are:

Do your biochemists exemplify or contradict the quotations about science that are put on the board before each class?

When did each biochemist decide to become a biochemist? Was it an early or late decision?

Was their research in the area of their formal training?

Do contemporary issues in the conduct or philosophy of science relate to your scientists?

At what stage in their careers was their most important work done?

Did international recognition, such as a Nobel Prize, change their careers?

Did their discoveries constitute an example of Pasteur's dictum "Chance favors the prepared mind"?

What was the role of collaborators?

Who funded the research?

Were the scientists involved in controversy?

Were they eccentric, have any unusual philosophy of life, or have a physical handicap that may have promoted their career?

How important were their parents in their education?

Did they have troubled personal or family lives that influenced or were influenced by their scientific careers?

Papers should be typed double-spaced and be about 10 pages long. References (at least 10 primary sources, please note at least has a different meaning than no more than) should be cited in a format used in the biochemical literature. (Refer to the introductory material for each article in your course reader for examples.) While term papers usually emphasize writing, remember that effective communication includes visual communication. Thus, appropriate figures and diagrams are strongly encouraged. In addition to pursuing the biographical literature, you should read the principal papers on which the Nobel Prize or fame was based. Because Nobel Laureates are heroes in the scientific world, they are the object of a lot of attention and writing. There are a number of biographies and autobiographies of biochemists available. Some other books that may be of use to you are listed below. Because your classmates will want to refer to these as well, please use them in the library and when you are finished, carefully return them to their proper place in the stacks where others can find them.

The Who's Who of Nobel Prize Winners by Schlessinger and Schlessinger

Scientific Elite--Nobel Laureates in the United States by Harriet Zuckerman

The prefatory chapters for each volume of Annual Reviews of Biochemistry are short autobiographies of prominent biochemists. Annual Reviews, Inc. has selected notable chapters from several Annual Review series and collected them into The Excitement and Fascination of Science: Reflections by Eminent Scientists Vol. 1 (1965), Vol. 2 (1978), Vol. 3 Parts 1 & 2 (1990).

Founders of Nutrition Science: Biographical Articles from the Journal of Nutrition Vol. 1 & 2 (1992) edited by Darby and Jukes

Reflections in Biochemistry--In Honor of Severo Ochoa has many short but frequently biographical chapters by Nobelists and other famous biochemists.

Development of Biochemical Concepts from Ancient to Modern by Henry Leicester

Comprehensive Biochemistry Vol. 32, A History of Biochemistry

Molecules and Life--Historical Essays on the Interplay of Chemistry and Biology by Joseph Fruton

A Skeptical Biochemist by Joseph Fruton

Chemistry of Life--Eight Lectures on the History of Biochemistry by Joseph Needham

Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology, edited by Cairns, Stent and Watson

The Path to the Double Helix by Eric Olby

The Eighth Day of Creation--The Makers of the Revolution in Biology by H. F. Judson

Invisible Frontiers. The Race to Synthesize a Human Gene by Stephen S. Hall

In addition, short biographies of the Nobel Prize winners are published in Nature and Science each year. Science also publishes the Nobel lectures. Articles with more human interest can often be found in The New York Times, Time magazine, and Newsweek. Book reviews are often another source of useful information. The media center in Morris Library has videotapes and movies that relate to several prominent biochemists, e.g. Watson, Crick, and Pauling. I would be happy to suggest the names of other well-known biochemists or help identify biochemists with particular backgrounds to match your interests.

Request for Term Paper Topics, Spring 1998

Before selecting the two scientists who will be the subjects of your term paper, please read carefully the description of the term paper assignment. Note that your subjects cannot be co-recipients of the Nobel Prize nor can the particular pair have been selected this year or previously in this course. Also note that you will have to develop a unifying theme that integrates the information you gather on the two scientists. Because each student needs to have a different combination of scientists and because choices will be honored on a first-come-first-serve basis, your choices will be more limited if you wait until the Friday March 6th deadline to hand in this form.

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Your Name__________________________

Primary Choices: 1_______________________________________ 2_______________________________________

Alternates: 3_____________________________________ 4_______________________________________

Your first choices will be honored unless they have already been taken by another student.

In the space below write a few sentences about why you selected your primary choices and whether you have a theme in mind in choosing them.

Please turn this form in on or before Friday 7 March 1997.

Location of Term Paper Resources

Due on or before 9 March 1998

Your Name_______________________

Scientist 1 __________________________ Scientist 2 ________________________________

1. Date of birth (and death, if appropriate)

___________________________________ __________________________________________

2. Current business address (if living) or last place of employment (if deceased).

___________________________________ ______________________________________

___________________________________ ______________________________________

___________________________________ ______________________________________

___________________________________ ______________________________________

3. Published biography or autobiography (If you find no books, locate a book chapter, journal article, obituary, or other source of biographical information.)

Author___________________________ Author __________________________

Title ____________________________ Title ____________________________

________________________________ _________________________________

Publisher _________________________ Publisher _________________________

Date of Publication _________________ Date of Publication _________________

Call No. In Library _________________ Call No. In Library _________________

4. Use Science Citation Index to determine which research article by each of your scientists was cited most in the 1990's. Find both articles, photocopy the first page of each, and staple them to this sheet. In the space below, provide a reference citation for each article in one of the standard formats used in biochemical journals.

5. Describe any problems you anticipate that you may encounter in obtaining the information you will need to write your term paper. (Do not leave this blank.)

CHEM-342 Term Paper Check List

The following is a list of questions that I use when evaluating term papers. Not all may be relevant to your particular paper. Most importantly, your paper should focus on a major theme which is evident throughout your paper and provides continuity. Information on your two scientists should illuminate that theme rather than the reverse. A theme should be the glue that holds your paper together. It is like a clothes line on which you attach appropriate information. Outstanding term papers go beyond reporting what others have said and display original work in the form of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Have you defined a theme in the introduction?

Does the title reflect the theme?

Is the theme thoughtful or thought provoking?

Is the theme developed using specific illuminating examples?

Does the text integrate the lives of the two scientists smoothly?

Are the scientists and the theme of particular interest to you? (Does it show?)

Does the paper exhibit an appreciation of scientific accomplishments and discovery?

Did you read significant, representative papers by the scientists?

Are major topics analyzed critically rather than superficially?

Are major topics identified with separate headings?

Is the paper well written?

Have you proof read the paper?

Are the illustrations appropriate and effective with titles and legends?

If not original, have you given the sources of the illustrations?

Is credit given for quoted material?

Is the literature review thorough in relation to available sources? (10 good references)

Have you relied too much on secondary sources?

Did you consult a variety of sources, e.g. books, journals, interviews, reviews, obituaries? Have you used one of the standard scientific referencing systems used?

If living, did you interview either or both of the scientists? (Documentation needed)

In absence of a direct interview, was a former associate interviewed?

Was the paper handed in on time?