human impacts on organism biodiversity. organism assigned: snowshoe hare
ESSAY INFORMATION Due Date: Monday, March 14, 11:55 pm Theme: Human impacts on organism biodiversity Length: total 3 pages, double-spaced, font style: Arial, font size: 12 o Approx. 1 page: Information about your assigned organism (classification, facts, habitat, etc.) o Approx. 1 page: How have humans impacted the organism? (current situation, alive, extinct, causes, etc.) Minimum 4 in-text citations (from 4 peer reviewed sources) Reference section containing the 4 peer reviewed sources (from journal articles, not Wikipedia!) Upload to Moodle as PDF file! Read 'Essay Guidelines’ below for important information (References’ style, Grading rubric, etc.) ESSAY GUIDELINES AVOIDING PLAGIARISM! Plagiarism is a form of cheating in which a writer either deliberately or inadvertently passes off as his or her work the words or ideas of another person (see section 3.8 Academic Integrity Policy, StFX Academic Calendar). Plagiarism is a serious offense in the academic world!!! Plagiarism can be avoided by learning how to properly paraphrase, summarize and cite. Paraphrasing and Summarizing What are the differences among paraphrasing and summarizing? These three ways of incorporating other writers' work into your own writing differ according to the closeness of your writing to the source writing. https://www2.mystfx.ca/sites/mystfx.ca.registrars-office/files/2020_2021AcademicCal_Jan19_.pdf PARAPHRASING Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must always be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly. A paraphrase is... Your own rendition of essential information and ideas previously expressed by someone else, but presented by you in a new form. One legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source. A more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea. Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because... It is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage. The mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original. SUMMARIZING Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is always necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. In science, a summary is a brief account that gives the main points of a piece of writing. It omits minor details that do not affect communication of the main points. The summary must be in the summarizer’s own words and should not include interpretation of the original work. A summary is significantly shorter than the original and takes a broad overview of the source material. To reiterate: all paraphrased ideas and summarized ideas must always be attributed to their original source, usually through citing a reference to the source. QUOTING, GRAPHS, FIGURES & TABLES Do not include quotes, graphs, figures and tables in your essay! ANATOMY OF A SCIENTIFIC ESSAY It is great to have many ideas to write about, but it is also important to organize those ideas in a logical way that your reader can understand. Without an effective organization, your essay can become confusing, and your main idea can get lost on the reader. Taking a few minutes to outline your essay before you begin writing will help you organize your ideas and group them effectively throughout your essay. The Importance of an Outline The first step in writing an essay is to create an outline. An outline is a general plan of the material that is to be presented in an essay. The outline shows the order of the various topics, the importance of each, and the relationship between the various parts. It will also immediately help create the paragraph topic sentences, since each idea in the outline should have a corresponding paragraph. A paragraph is a collection of related sentences dealing with one topic. Paragraphs in scientific writing build ideas about the topic that lead to a conclusion. A well-constructed paragraph consists of a topic sentence, supporting sentences and a concluding sentence. Topic sentence Expresses the main topic of a paragraph Is the first sentence of a paragraph Is the most general sentence in a paragraph Supporting sentences Develop, explain and support aspects of the main topic of the paragraph Contain facts, examples and details Collectively explain why the conclusion of the paragraph is true Build the support of the conclusion step-by-step, using linking words or phrases e.g. first, furthermore, however, therefore etc. Concluding sentence Is the last sentence of the paragraph States the conclusion supported by the arguments and information in the earlier sentences Can also be used to prepare the reader for the following paragraph Example paragraph (with numbered sentences) 1. A collection of fossil animals discovered off the coast of Florida suggests that the deep-sea animals found today may have evolved earlier than previously thought, having survived several periods of mass extinction. 2. Previously, researchers believed that the present-day deep-sea animals, including sea urchins, sea stars, sea cucumbers, evolved in the relatively recent past, after at least two periods of mass extinction caused by changes in their oceanic environment. 3. Similar to how mammals proliferated after the extinction of the dinosaurs, the spiny-skinned deep-sea taxa were thought to have diversified after earlier species went extinct after changes in currents, temperature, and oxygen levels. 4. However, the new fossils predate the oldest records of the present-day fauna. 5. This evidence shows that the deep-sea animals have lived in deep waters for much longer than previously thought. 6. The fact that the fossil groups appear to have survived several drastic changes in oceanic climates also suggests that deep-sea biodiversity may be more resilient than shallow-water life forms, and therefore more resistant to extinction events than initially thought. Topic sentence= 1 Supporting sentences= 2, 3, 4, 5 Concluding sentence= 6 The Importance of Linking Words Linking words create the flow of logic and transition from one sentence to the next, e.g. previously, similar to, however, this, due to the fact. Essay Introduction The introduction should be one paragraph. It should introduce the topic and main idea and preview the rest of your essay. The introduction will also include your thesis statement. Body The body is generally made up of many paragraphs. Each paragraph supports and develops (adds detail to) your main idea. To guide your reader, each body paragraph should begin with a clear topic sentence. Conclusion The conclusion is one paragraph. It summarizes the body paragraphs and concludes the essay. CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD WRITING What follows is a brief list of qualities that make your writing strong*. 1. Focus: A well-focused essay deals with one main topic and does not stray from it. Though you may write an essay of many paragraphs with many different arguments and pieces of evidence, everything in the essay should ultimately focus on your main idea. 2. Development: An essay is well developed when every claim you make is supported by evidence of some kind. Depending on the kind of essay you are writing, this evidence might be examples from personal experience, details, facts, statistics, reasons, or other arguments. A well-developed essay does not claim anything to be true without offering evidence to show why or how it is true. In science, this means using scholarly scientific work as evidence to develop logical support for the ideas you present. 3. Organization: Strong essays are well organized into paragraphs. Each paragraph focuses on a single idea and displays a logical strategy for conveying its information. This one idea is conveyed in a single topic sentence, followed by further supporting statements. Each paragraph should be unified by intelligent use of transitions and key words. Similarly, a good writer uses transitions to link paragraphs into an organized sequence, primarily through the effective use of concluding sentences of paragraphs. The result is a sequence of paragraphs that is logical and serves to support the essay’s main idea. 4. Grammar & Spelling: Strong essays display correct sentence grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and spelling. 5. Citations and References: In-text citations and their corresponding references are critical in scientific writing because they indicate the source of ideas. In this way, the entire set of evidence that leads to an idea in one piece of writing can be traced back to the original experiments that gave evidence in support of that idea. Citations and references are also important for giving credit wherever another writer’s words or ideas are used (avoiding plagiarism!). In order to make citations and references easily traceable, they have strict formatting rules to ensure all the key information is included. See ‘Example Essay’ below demonstrating in-text citations and reference list. *See Grading Rubric below ESSAY SUBMISSION: 3 pages (including Reference section) Double-spaced, font style: Arial, font size: 12 Approx. 1 page: Information about your assigned organism (classification, facts, habitat, etc.) Approx. 1 page: How have humans impacted the organism? (current situation, alive, extinct, causes, etc.) Minimum 4 in-text citations (from 4 peer reviewed sources) Reference section containing the 4 peer reviewed sources (from journal articles, not Wikipedia!) Upload an electronic PDF file into Moodle using the ‘Essay Submission’, by the deadline. Late essays will receive a 20% deduction per day. Critical: your file must be in PDF format only!!! Other formats