Dr. Brian Lenzmeier’s paper writing tips,
citing 
literature and
plagiarism
How to be successful when preparing your paper
1. Follow
assignment guidelines. Each assignment will have very specific
instructions as to the paper format and material that needs to be
presented. Pay close attention to the expectations for your assignment,
because the assignment guidelines will be used as the basis for grading your
paper.
2. Choose
a topic that interests you and is controversial.
3. Carefully
evaluate your sources, especially when using
internet sources. Keep in mind the following when choosing your
sources:
- Textbooks are excellent resources for fundamental
concepts. The information presented is typically a good synthesis of
what we know about specific topics based on the results of peer-reviewed
research experiments. The information is also at least 2 years old,
so you may need to check for more up-to-date information in journals or
on-line.
- Peer-reviewed journal
review articles are typically an excellent way
to familiarize yourself with a new field of research. They might do
an excellent job describing experimental results (sometimes better than
the authors in the primary research articles), but are not considered
primary sources of scientific information because they do not contain data
from new experiments.
- Peer-reviewed
research journal articles provide a
primary source for scientific information. They contain experiments
that were carried out by scientists to test hypotheses as well as a venue for
scientists to interpret their data and to propose models and new
hypotheses. To ensure the journal article is peer-reviewed, visit
the journal's home page and look for information regarding the review
process. Journal articles found in the PubMed database and journals linked in the "Student
Resources" section of Dr. Lenzmeier's home page are peer-reviewed.
- Web sites must be evaluated very carefully. Before using a
web page as a source you should know who maintains the web page and the
purpose of that web page. Additionally, you should consider
addressing the validity of your internet source within the text of your
paper. For example, you might want to mention the source of your
information is from a scientist with a Ph.D. or M.D. in the field of
interest or that your information comes from a private foundation with
educational goals, such as the American Cancer Society or American Society
for Microbiology. If the qualifications of your source are not
readily available, then you should make mention of this in the text of
your paper. If you do not address the validity of your internet
sources within the text of your paper then you should be prepared to
defend your choices.
4. Do
the research and use multiple sources!
Excessive use of one source means you have not carefully researched your topic
and may be presenting only one side of the story. Many topics in the
scientific community are controversial and have not been resolved conclusively
by experimentation. Presenting only one side of the story makes you prone
to criticism and leaves you open to presenting material that might have already
been refuted by one or more other scientists.
5. Proof-read
your paper multiple times before submission.
Read your paper out loud before submitting it--many problems with writing
clarity and grammar can be detected by listening to what you have
written. Have a friend or room-mate read your paper for clarity and
grammar--this often helps as well.
When to reference sources within your paper
What you need to reference: You will need to reference information that was not
generated by yourself within the text of your paper. Whenever you state a
fact or somebody else's opinion, even if you have re-worded or re-written that
information, you need to cite the source of that fact or opinion immediately
after it appears in the paper.
- For example, if
you say something in your paper like "DNA is double-stranded and
alpha-helical in structure" you need to document where you found that
information. Was it your course textbook? Was it a web
page? This should be cited at the end of the sentence that contains
the fact or opinion and will done using a format determined by your
assignment (see "how to reference" section below).
What to do when you have several sentences in
a row from the same source: If several sentences
in a row came from the same source, then you may cite that source after all of
the information has been presented. Keep in mind that if you end a
paragraph and begin a new paragraph using the same source for information, then
you need to cite the source at the end of the first paragraph (before you move
on to the new paragraph) and again at the end of the information in the next
paragraph..
How to handle direct quotes: Whenever you directly quote a source, you need to place
that quote in quotation marks and cite the references for that quote
immediately after the passage. Try to avoid using long passages that are
direct quotes. If lengthy quotes (more than three lines) are necessary,
the quotation should be single-spaced and offset from the rest of the paper.
Matching things up with the bibliography: Your references within the paper should easily match up
with your bibliography at the end of your paper.
How to reference sources within and at the end
of your paper
Citing as you go: Each paper will
have information cited within the text immediately after that information has
been presented using the Council of Biology Editors’ (CBE) citation-sequence system using a
super-scripted number3
or a number in parentheses (3).
This number corresponds to the appropriate work
cited in the bibliography at the end of the paper.
Formatting your bibliography: Students will utilize the Council
of Biology Editors’ (CBE) style. The sources in the bibliography should
be numbered and organized in the order in which the source appears in the text
of your paper. You may use the same source number within the text every
time you reference that source. The CBE bibliography formatting for print sources like journals and books is described nicely by the library
at
When
preparing formal papers in my Microbiology (BIOL240) and Cell Biology (BIOL305)
courses you will use the American Society of Microbiology guidelines for publications. Instructions can be found at the following
link: for the ASM journal Molecular and
Cellular Biology. This link is a pdf document that will
need to be down-loaded.
Plagiarism and consequences of plagiarism
Passing off
somebody else's work as your own is plagiarism and is
grounds for failure of the assignment. Serious or multiple cases might
result in expulsion from
Failure to abide
by the guidelines listed above regarding citation of sources is also considered
plagiarism because one is
presenting information generated by others as their own. Keep in mind
that information that is not correctly cited can be misinterpreted as plagiarism
because the reader of a paper must assume that any ideas or data that were not
documented were generated solely by the author of the paper. Therefore,
failure to appropriately cite the sources used to prepare your paper is also
grounds for failure of the assignment. Serious or multiple cases might
result in expulsion from
Ignorance of
proper citation methods is not an excuse for plagiarism. You will be presented with the above information
when your papers are assigned and this web page of paper writing tips is
available on my home page at http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/lenzmeier