The paper is graded according to the following criteria:

Choice of Topic

1. Choose a topic that is -- as nearly as possible -- a 50/50 mixture of physical and biological science. Papers that lean heavily to one side or the other will not receive the best grades. You should learn a fair amount of both physics and biology in writing the paper.
2. Focus your topic. The best papers identify an interesting and important question and then attempt to answer it. The worst papers attempt to summarize an entire field that employs thousands of scientists.
3. Please explore a topic that is new to you. It is not OK to resubmit or rewrite a document that you wrote or submitted for a previous class, or to write on a subject that closely overlaps something you are already doing for a separate research project.

1. Regardless of your prior experience, I highly recommend that you examine the Style Manual of the American Institute of Physics, for some pointers on writing literate scientific English. It gives some good advice on how to present your material in an organized fashion. It also gives advice on the use of footnotes, references, numbers, equations, and symbols.
2. The paper should be written at a level that most of the PHZ4710 class would be able to understand. Keep in mind that about half of your fellow students are physics majors and about half are not. You are aiming to educate a broad, scientically-inclined but non-expert, audience of your peers.
3. Please prepare a written outline, and try to write a well-organized and structured paper.
4. Avoid technical jargon and boring details. Define properly any terminology that your peers probably won't understand. If you describe a study that was performed on mice in zero gravity, don't discuss what the mice were fed ... unless that turns out to be really important.
5. Choose good sources. Please seek out reference materials that are appropriate for and available to scientific readers. I define this to mean materials that are available in the UF libraries. If a source does not appear in the UF online catalog, I consider it to be a weak source. Peer-reviewed scientific journals are the best sources. Corporate websites and (heaven forbid) anonymous homemade websites are usually NOT good sources, except perhaps for very general introductory material.

1. Length: the paper will be at least 2500 words, not including references, figure captions, etc. Please try not to exceed this length by more than 10-20% at most. All standard word-processing software allows you to count the words in your paper.
2. Referencing: Please attach a detailed list of sources that gives proper credit to others. You should explicitly cite all sources, and you should identify specific material (good ideas, figures, images, numerical results, etc.) that come from specific sources. Heavy borrowing (with or without editing or rephrasing) of chunks of text from another source is never acceptable, even if credit is given. Again, the AIP Style Manual is your guide on how to give proper credit to others.
3. Spelling, grammar, etc. Use a spell checker and also proofread carefully. Spell checkers make certain mistakes which only human proofreading can detect.
4. Neatness. The text must be typed or computer printed, of course. Figures should be printed or computer-generated, not hand-drawn.
5. Adherence to deadlines. Late drafts and papers will suffer in grading.

sjh 1/28/2002