Term Paper Guidelines
A final Term Paper, a review paper of the Nobel Prize laureate of the panel that you co-organize,
will serve as the final exam of this course. The final term paper will constitute 30%, i.e., 30 points
(pts), of your final grade, which are composed of:
1 pt for the proper length of the paper (between 3,000-6,000 words, no less or more)
2 pts for general rules (see below)
3 pts for references and citations
24 pts for the text of the paper (refer to the end of the guidelines for detailed point
division/distribution)
You should first collect data from any trustable sources you can find, for example, officially
published books, peer-reviewed journal articles, and trustable internet resources, and in particular,
the “main references” of our course (refer to the syllabus.)
Once you have collected enough data, you should complete your own analysis and interpretation
of the data, and follow this writing guideline to independently finish your paper (that is, each
student will write his/her own paper.)
The term paper can be submitted through BlackBoard as an assignment (checked by SafeAssign)
at any time before the deadline – the end of official Final Exam time for our course (Refer to the
syllabus). No submission after the deadline will be accepted at any occasion.
General Rules (2 pts):
[Note: The current “Term Paper Guidelines” and the “Term Paper Writing Template” are
composed following these General Rules. Please download the “Term Paper Writing Template” and
write your paper directly on the template without changing any format.]
American English should be used to write the term paper while non-English words or phrases (e.g.,
vise versa) can be embedded in necessary places. The writing should be free of grammatical or spelling
errors.
Metric units (SI-International System of Units) must be used throughout the paper. Convert English
units to metric or use both.
Font must be in 12-point, Times New Roman.
Single spaced all through the paper, including title, all chapters, and figure and table captions, if
necessary.
Necessary figure(s) and table(s) can be included and all of them must be referred to in the text, in
the order of appearance. For example:
Groves of native dawn redwood trees were shown in Figure 1.
Table 1 shows the data of samplings of native dawn redwood trees.
Under each figure and table there should be a caption/legend. Figure and table caption/legend
numbers are formatted in CAPITAL letters, BOLD, followed by an em-dash. Unless the figure was
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created by yourself, the source of the figure should be cited clearly at the end of the figure
caption/legend. Example:
FIGURE 1— Reconstructed Arctic ecosystem during the early Paleogene
global warming period (From Leng and Yang, 2009, Cover figure)
FIGURE 2— Position of Metasequoia (indicated by an arrow) in the phylogenetic tree of the
family Cupressaceae [From “http://www.conifers.org/cu/Cupressaceae.php” (retrieved 01
September 2016), with the arrow added by the current author]
Reference and Citation Formatting (3 pts):
Every reference from which you obtained data/information both for the text and for
figure(s)/table(s) should be cited in both text and the reference list.
As SafeAssign will be used to check the similarity of your term paper with the Institutional and
Global References Database, to avoid increasing the “similarity” of the report of SafeAssign on your
term paper, the reference list (the “References”) of your paper should be submitted in a separate word
file. Please use the “Term Paper Writing Template-References” which can be downloaded from
BlackBoard to fill in your reference list.
We will use the “name-year” citation style of “Council of Science Editors. Style Manual
Committee. 2014. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers.
8th edition. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. 722p”, which can be found from:
http://www.scientificstyleandformat.org/Tools/SSF-Citation-Quick-Guide.html]:
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Click “SCIENTIFIC STYLE AND FORMAT CITATION QUICK GUIDE” at the left column
and click “NAME-YEAR” under “Scientific Style and Format Citation Quick Guide”
Organization of Paper:
Please organize your paper according to the following sequence:
Title of paper—The full name of your Nobel Prize laureate, capitalized the first letter only,
centered, and bold, followed by the scientist’s birth (and death if passed away) year(s) in parenthesis.
For example:
Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866 – 1945)
Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 1933
Short Biography
(This heading — “Short Biography” —should be centered, with sentence caps, and in bold, as
shown above.)
This session constitutes 4 pts. It should include at least: Date and place of birth of the scientist,
date and place of death of the scientist (if passed away), family (particularly family members who
influenced the scientist remarkably) of the scientist, education background (under graduate to graduate
should be at least included) of the scientist, major career experience of the scientist, and a list of
outstanding awards/honors the scientist received.
Major Scientific Achievements and Impacts
This session constitutes 15 pts. You should summarize the major scientific achievements of the
scientist, and discuss on the major impacts of the scientist’s work, particularly the impacts on
biological sciences. Don’t provide a list of awards/honors the scientist received (which should be
included in the “Short Biography” session.)
One or more separate paragraph(s) focusing on the Nobel Prize winning research (behavior) of the
scientist and its scientific (biological) background should be written specifically.
My Reflection and Others
This session constitutes 4 pts, containing your personal reflection after doing research and
co-organizing a panel on your scientist. Any other comments or remarks can be also included in this
session.
References
A complete list of all references you cite in the text should be compiled, following the
above-mentioned format. (Note: This part should be written in a separate word file.)
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Distribution of the 30 pts:
1 pt for the proper length of the paper (3,000-6,000 words)
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2 pts for general rules
3 pts for references and citations
24 pts for the text of the paper, which are further divided as:
i) 1 pt for overall format
ii) 4 pts for “Short Biography” session
iii) 15 pts for “Major Scientific Achievements and Impacts” session
Final pts of ii + iii are scaled down by the following SafeAssign Similarity Percentage:
0-20% = x 100%;
21-30% = x 90%;
31-40% = x 80%;
41-50% = x 70%;
51-60% = x 60%;
61-70% = x 50%;
71-80% = x 40%;
81-90% = x 30%;
91-100% = x 20%
iv) 4 pts for “My Reflection and Others”