Hello students!  First, a couple reminders:

1. If you choose to revise your proposal for a higher grade, please submit the revised version by 11:59 pm this Friday, Dec. 9.
2. Group research papers are also due by 11:59 pm this Friday Dec. 9

And a few announcements:

1. Submissions to Deliberations are due May 10, 2012, but we encourage all Fall Writing 20 students to submit now while the class is still fresh in your mind!  The submission instructions can be found here:  Deliberations2012_Call for Papers
2. I’ll send you a summary of your grades before I submit grades to the registrar just to ensure that my records are consistent with yours.  The summary will look something like this:  Wr20_Fall11_samplegrade
3. I thought an interesting way to reflect on the course would be to revisit your “introduction” blog posts.  I’ve compiled “what I hope to learn” excerpts from these posts (including mine!):  Wr20_Fall11_stuffwehopedtolearn .  How did we do?  A semester is a short amount of time, but I hope we all made some progress toward our learning goals!

Please download this handout on “Textual Recycling,” prepared by Prof. Cary Moskovitz:  Textual recycling_guide.  Don’t worry about the highlighting and footnote instructions on page 2.  I would simply like to use this for a brief discussion on text recycling in the sciences!

Also, SW10 is an anonymous peer review of another student group’s research paper.  Here is the prompt (it’s the same as SW6 but with revised dates): Wr20_Fall11_SW10_anon_peereview Please complete this by Monday, Dec. 5.

Please download this handout for today’s class:  Wr20_Fall11_scientific_article_tips

Hopefully this will be a useful resource for MP3!

Also, it was requested that I post an example of a manuscript properly formatted for submission to a journal (but ignore the numbering in the summary):  FWB_revision2_30Jun2010.  Compare this to how the paper appeared when published:  Cooke&Hill 2010

The plan for Monday’s class is to discuss some useful tips and pitfalls to avoid when writing a scientific article (an e-handout will be ready by Monday).  Because this list of tips is rather lengthy and can be overwhelming, I thought we could focus on these guidelines section by section and incorporate some in class writing along the way (e.g., discuss strategies for the intro, then spend 15 minutes drafting/ revising the intro, then move on to the methods, etc.).  We may also go over data analysis and interpretation and some other miscellaneous issues that were brought to my attention during meetings with some of you yesterday.  So, please bring your laptops and outlines or drafts!

The plan for Wednesday’s class is a seminar workshop.  I’d like each group to select one section that they would like feedback on and that is reasonably complete (I realize for most groups this will probably be the intro or methods!).  Please e-mail me your selected section an hour before class, and again, bring your laptops.

A random announcement for any groups using Sen slope estimaton:  I’ve posted on Blackboard in the MP3 readings folder a paper by Kahru et al. (2011) that used Sen slope in their analysis.  The last paragraph of the Methods section explains the technique rather well; it also cites the original source by Sen (1968).

To help you identify writing strategies and think about the writing process for your group research paper, we’ll spend the class period closely reading and analyzing the following article: Sunday et al. 2011_adaptation.  No need to read it before class!  I’ll have a few hard copies available in case people prefer that format.

Please download the following Powerpoint files according to your class section:

Sec. 12 (8:30):  proposal_writing_process_sec12

Sec. 13 (1:15):  proposal_writing_process_sec13

Sec. 14 (8:30):  proposal_writing_process_sec12

Here is the assignment prompt for MP3:  Wr20_Fall11_MP3.  This file explains the objectives and guidelines for both the proposal and group research paper.  Additionally, groups interested in a social science project should download this handout:  Wr20_Fall11_socialMP3 and groups interested in the natural sciences should download this handout:  Wr20_Fall11_naturalMP3.  Finally, there are two folders in the “Readings” folder on Blackboard that contain relevant papers for each type of group.

Please read these two sample proposals before class on Wednesday:  proposalexample1 and proposalexample2.  Also, stay tuned for the MP3 assignment prompt.  I’ll post it sometime on Tuesday, and we’ll go over it in class on Wednesday.

Happy Halloween!  What better way to celebrate the holiday than by catching scary typos and other errors in our MP2 papers?  We’ll spend most of Monday’s class peer editing our near-finished drafts, so please bring your laptop or two printed copies.  Also, please download this handout Wr20_Fall11_revising_editing and use it as a checklist while you continue to revise and edit.  As a reminder, the final draft of MP2 is due Monday Oct. 31 before 11:59 pm.

Also, I am still working out the MP3 timeline, so consider what’s currently posted on the schedule as tentative.  I’ll have the MP3 assignment prompt and schedule ready soon!

You can receive 2 extra credit points for attending the Deliberations symposium on Friday and an additional 2 extra credit points for completing the following assignment:  Wr20_Fall11_Deliberations_EC.  These points will be added to the SW portion of your grade.

I will be speaking at the symposium and will be sitting in the front row, so I may not be able to survey the crowd and find you.  It may be best to catch me right before or after the symposium so I’ll know you were there!