Peer reviewed research project

Due dates:

Document due by email November 27

Reviews of your peers due by email December 4

Your revised document due by email December 11

Step I: Writing and designing the report (this was due Nov 27)

The purpose of this report is three-fold:

1. It will give you a chance to research something of personal interest, maybe something related to your field.

2. It introduces you to peer review, the system by which scientific papers are revised (or rejected).

3. It introduces you ever so slightly to “web publishing,” if you haven’t done that before.

Directions

1. Choose a topic on anything to do with the history of life. If could be not just science, but history, art, education, or any other field. It could be straight science – what really killed the dinosaurs? Or it could be: How have dinosaurs affected the history of moviemaking? What is the influence of paleontology on child development? How many misconceptions in dinosaur science are spread through advertisements? I ask only that you do not choose exactly the same topic you chose for the media projects.

2. Write a short report in which the text is 500-1000 words(about 1-2 single spaced pages) long and one to three non-copyrighted graphics(or get permission to use the graphic by writing to the author or publisher). It seems to be easiest for everyone to write a Microsoft Word document with the images embedded in the text.

New: It seems to be easiest and to work best to simply send a Word document [Old: Make your report into a Website document. If you know nothing about doing this, simply save your file as a Web or “html” document ina Word processor such as Word.] If you have graphics, insert the graphics directly into the paper before you do this. If you know more about Web page construction, do whatever suits you.

The audience for your project will be the lay public, more specifically your class peers (and me). Write at the level of the educated layperson, but you should assume the viewer knows little about the History ofLife (though of course your class peers know lots by now!).

3. Attach the document to an email and send it to rmr16@cornell.edu; in the subject line write “IC research project.” The deadline is November 27. If for some reason you absolutely can note-mail it to me, give me a diskette or zip disk. No printed copies.

Step 2: Reviewing your peers (you have between Nov 29 and Dec 4 to accomplish this)

4. You will find your own project number on the list of research projects. Firstly, please note you will likely find that your images did not make it into the current Web version; this is usually because I neglected to tell people that if they sent a Web version that they would also need to send the images as separate files. I apologize for inconveniences this caused you. You may also find that other formatting you did was lost somewhere in the process. Please do not distress; the exercise and grade are focusing on what you wrote. You can find your paper in the list of papers from your class, by looking through the titles. I removed the names of authors from the papers, so the process would be anonymous. If after searching through the papers you can’t find a paper that you sent, please let me know.

If you wish to resubmit your paper with graphics, please send a Word file rather than an html file as I originally suggested.

5. In the list, the projects will be numbered, and you will be responsible for judging (anonymously) as best you can the 3 projects [not 5, as I originally suggested] with the numbers I have assigned you. Here is the plan for assignment: review the 3 projects directly after your own project in the list (if you name is at the bottom of the list, simply begin again at the top) on the day you look at the list.

6. Anonymously review the papers on 3 characteristics and write a short review for each paper. In addition to a verbal description, please give a numerical rating from 1=poor, 2=needs fair amount of improvement, 3=reasonable, 4=very good, 5=excellent.

Please do not consider graphics and formatting in your ratings, as there are many technical reasons that these varied among students, but feel free to comment verbally if you felt something about these characteristics were very positive.

Keep in mind that you are writing to the authors and also to me (the editor).

It is imperative that you give these reviews as neutrally as possibly, or the system doesn’t work; this very same issue is obviously critical in real life.

Now please go to a form that you can “cut and paste” into an email and use for your answers:

7. Send your responses to me at rmr16@cornell.edu, using a separate email for each paper. The subject line should read: “Review of project #”, in which #is the number of the paper. The deadline is Tuesday Dec 4.

8. I will check the responses, and make sure they seem reasonable. Reviews will be returned to the authors, unless I find them unreasonable (they may be too critical, unjustifyably good, or just lacking any insight). I will be the “editor;” I will help get reviews, but will not do the reviews myself.

In a real life situation, reviewers and the editor must decide if a paper is worth publishing, but I don’t think we need that kind of system now.

Step 3: Edit your paper; I will disseminate reviews after I receive them; probably you will have them by Dec 6, by email, after which you will have until Dec 11 to send a revised version

9. Authors then have 1 week to respond the suggestions of reviewers. Authors may disagree with reviewers and not make certain requested changes, but if so must respond to the editor with an explanation for not following the indications of reviewers.

I will look at the edits you made.

10. Attach the document to an email and send it to rmr16@cornell.edu; in the subject line write “IC research project # revision.” Please this time send as a Word document. The # should be the number assigned to your project. Authors should ever so briefly describe their major changes in the body of their emails. The deadline is Tuesday December 11.

Your grade will be based on 50% the quality of your initial report, 25% on the quality of your reviews, and 25% on the quality of your revisions.