WRITING NATURE: 
DISCOURSES OF ECOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT:

A solid draft of your complete research paper (that is, a complete pass, with a beginning, middle, and end), making its way toward meeting the following requirements:

• between 12 and 15 pages, double-spaced in a reasonably sized font, not including endnotes or bibliography pages;
• with parenthetical citations or endnotes(endnotes in Chicago documentation style only) and a bibliography, in correct form;
• including at least 10 sources of works cited (in other words, all sources listed in the bibliography should be cited specifically within the text of the paper);
• utilizing in a meaningful way that actively promotes information and analysis in your paper at least two multimedia sources (photos, drawings, other artwork, facsimiles of archival material, film/video, audio, web sites for other than text, graphs, maps, etc.).

Of course, your final draft will be assessed with the expectation of substantial improvement over the draft. But make the draft as complete an effort as possible.

To see examples of oustanding PWR research papers from various calsses, please check out the Boothe Prize Winners for 2000-2001.

DUE:

On Thursday, March 6 in class. Peer review conferences (that is, a conferenece including you, me, and your peer review partner) to discuss drafts will be held on Friday, March 7 and Saturday, March 8.

Please bring two copies of your draft to class on 3/6 -- one for me and one for your peer review partner.

FOR PERSPECTIVE:

Include the revision of your research paper in your writing portfolio, which is due on Monday of exam week, March 17, at my office, by 3 p,m.

THE GENERAL IDEA/THE SPECIFIC POINT:

If you wish, you may add the additional category of "Works Consulted" following "Works Cited," but you are not required to. "Works Consulted" would include books, articles, and other sources that are of direct relevance to your research and that you actively consulted but did not use specifically in your paper.

You do not need to include annotations in your finished bibliography.

As a guideline, no more than two-thirds of your sources should be secondary, and no more than one-third primary (as in primary texts and/or interviews and surveys that you yourself have conducted). As you know, I have actively encouraged you to develop sources that are "alternatives" to the usual secondary source material that most first-year students are accustomed to working with; these may fall under the category of either primary or secondary sources, depending upon the kinds of sources they are and/or how you have used them in your research.

If you anticipate a substantially different distribution of sources than what is outlined here, please check with me so that we can confirm that ,given your topic, you have achieved an appropriate balance of source material.

Of course, you should continue to question the appropriateness, reliability, and credibility of your sources and to strive for a good balance and variety in your use of secondary material.