Students enrolled in Animal Behavior BIOL 5243 (Graduate Credit) must write a term paper.
PAPERS ARE DUE Nov. 20, 2008 AND MUST BE TYPED AND DOUBLE SPACED.
Tentative Schedule:
Date Goal
Sept. 7-11 Meet to discuss potential topics
Oct. 1 Deadline for selecting a topic
Oct. 22 Initial reference list due (you must have at least 18 of your references by this date.)
Nov. 3 Detailed outline due; to be corrected and revised if necessary
Nov. 19 Final draft of paper due
Length: No set limit, but aim for 10-15 pages, not including references.
References: You must have at least 25 references. No more than 5 of these can be text books. All other references must come from the primary literature (= journal articles). You can not use as references such things as encyclopedias, hobbyist journals (e.g. aquarium magazines; cat owner magazines, etc.), articles from popular publications, such as Time, Newsweek, etc., or non-refereed websites (such as Wikipedia)
The following will be of use in finding references:
Web of Science
Science Citation Index
Biological Abstracts
Psychological Abstracts
The following journals are available through our library and will be of use:
Animal Behaviour
Behaviour
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Behavioral Ecology
Ecology
Ethology
Insectes Sociaux
Oecologia
American Naturalist
Evolution
Science
Nature
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
American Scientist
Scientific American
Journal of Mammology
Journal of Zoology
Canadian Journal of Zoology
Condor
Advances in the Study of Behavior
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics
Annual Review of Entomology
Topics: Any topic in animal behavior is acceptable, but I will encourage you to select one that will allow you to examine competing hypotheses. It is not acceptable to write simply a descriptive paper (i.e. you cannot write simply about the behavior of horses). The successful topic will be one that will allow you to examine two or more competing hypotheses, evaluate the existing empirical studies on that topic, and then conclude which of the hypotheses is best supported by the existing data.
Skim through your texts and recent issues of the journals listed above (especially Animal Behavior, Behaviour, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology and Advances in the Study of Behavior) to get ideas for a term paper. Once you have selected one or two potential topics, sign up for a conference with me, during which we will agree on a topic for your paper. I will help you find references and help adjust your topic so that you have a good chance of writing a good paper.
Note: You must have an approved topic or else your paper will not be graded. Once you and I have agreed on a topic you must write on that topic. You can change topics, but you must confer with me about it first.
POTENTIAL TERM PAPER TOPICS
Carnivore social behavior
HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CITE ARTICLES
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Articles must be listed in alphabetical order by the authors' last names, as shown below:
1. For an article (in the bibliography, the full last name and first initial of every author of the paper must be listed):
a. Single-author paper:
Nieh, J. 1998. The honey bee shaking signal: function and design of a modulatory communication signal. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.
42: 23-36.
b. Two-author paper:
Visscher, P.K. and R. Dukas. 1997. Survivorship of foraging honey bees. Insectes Sociaux 44: 1-5.
c. Three or more authors:
Schneider, S.S., P. K. Visscher, and S. Camazine. 1998. Vibration signals in honey bee swarms. Ethology 105: 26-32.
2. For a chapter in a book in which each chapter is written by different authors:
Markl, H. 1983. Vibrational communication. In: Neuroethology and Behavioral Physiology: Roots and Growing Points (Huber, F.
and Markl, H., eds.) Springer-Verlag, New York, New York. pp. 332-353.
3. For a book:
Alcock, J. 1987. Animal Behavior. Sinauer Assc, Inc. Sunderland, Mass. pp. 1-596.
CITATIONS IN TEXT: ALL articles cited in the text of your paper MUST be listed in the bibliography. ALL articles listed in the bibliography must be cited AT LEAST ONCE in the text of your paper. If you have an article in your bibliography that you do not cite, then you should remove it from the bibliography.
1. The tasks that a honey bee worker performs depends upon age, with in-hive tasks being performed early in life and foraging tasks performed in the latter half of life (Seeley, 1985).
2. The effects of juvenile hormone on division of labor in honey bees have been investigated by Robinson and Huang (1987), who found that ......
3. Temperate climate and tropical honey bees differ with respect to nest site choice, swarming pattern, foraging behavior, and the allocation of nest space to brood production and food storage (Winston, et al., 1987).
**Note: When citing a paper written by 1 or 2 authors, include all authors names in the citation; i.e. (Seeley, 1985); (Robinson and Huang, 1987). When citing a paper written by 3 or more authors, use only the first author's name and then the "et al." convention; i.e. (Winston, et al., 1987). The et al. convention is used only for citations within the text of the paper. It is not be used in the bibliography, where the last names and initials of ALL authors must be listed in the order they occur in the article.
GRADING OF TERM PAPERS
Your term paper will worth a total of 200 pts., broken down as follows:
I. Writing Style and Grammar (40 pts): incomplete sentences, run-on sentences,verb tense, subject-verb agreement, spelling,
proper use of topic sentences, etc.
II. References (40 pts): Number used, recency, quality of journals, how much effort was made to survey the available literature, each
reference in bibliography cited in text at least once, each citation in text in bibliography, proper citation technique.
III. Organization of Paper Around a Series of Questions or Hypotheses (40 pts.): (as opposed to simply presenting a list of examples)
IV. Relevancy of Examples Used and the Sufficiency to which They are Explained (40 pts):
V. Synthesis and Conclusions (40 pts.): What overall trends or conclusions were extracted from the data, or what hypotheses
presented were best supported?