Term Paper

Overview

Graduate students are required to write a term paper. Undergraduates may optionally write a term paper for extra credit.

Writing and submitting the term paper is a crucial part of the educational goals for the graduate version of this course. Thus, a graduate student who does not submit a term paper that represents a reasonable effort to write a good term paper will not receive a grade of A or B in the course, no matter how many other points he or she may have accumulated.

Each graduate student is responsible for writing his or her own term paper, i.e., it is not done by a team, and no student should allow another student to write parts of the paper for him or her.

If you are an undergraduate and are unsure whether you want to write a term paper for extra credit, consider submitting a term paper proposal. You are not obligated to continue working on a term paper if you change your mind after starting the process.

You may choose to write one of three types of term papers:

Critical review: a critical review of the peer-reviewed literature that addresses a specific hypothesis
Grant proposal: a proposal to do an experiment, stating the hypothesis to be tested, the background and significance of the proposed experiment, and the experimental methods and design
Wikipedia article: a carefully written essay on a current topic in neuroscience that can be posted on Wikipedia, and that does not currently exist on Wikipedia

Examples of excellent term papers written by previous students in the course are given below.

Students who complete term papers will have the opportunity to present their work to the class for extra credit at the end of the semester. Presentations will be scheduled during the last class session, and should last no more than 10 minutes. Term paper presentations are worth up to 3 extra credit points.

Term Paper Proposal, Benchmarks, and Deadlines

Before your choice of term paper topic can be approved, you must first submit a Term Paper Proposal. The proposal will allow the instructors to provide feedback as to whether the proposed topic is clear, focused and suitable.

After your Term Paper Proposal is approved, you will submit sections of your term paper at four different times. These are called Term Paper Benchmarks. Benchmarks are due well before the final deadline for the complete paper so that there is time for the instructors to provide feedback, which will improve the quality of your final paper.

Regardless of the type of term paper you choose, deadlines for term paper components are the same:

Term Paper Proposal: Thursday, October 19, 2017 by 5 PM
Benchmark I: Thursday, October 26, 2017 by 5 PM
Benchmark II: Thursday, November 2, 2017 by 5 PM
Benchmark III: Thursday, November 16, 2017 by 5 PM
Benchmark IV: Tuesday, November 28, 2017 by 5 PM
Final Term Paper: Thursday, December 7, 2017 by 5 PM

Details about what you should put into your Term Paper Proposal and each benchmark differ for each choice of term paper type (critical review, grant proposal, or Wikipedia article). These are given below.

For each deadline, you must complete two tasks:

Post your work on NeuroWiki
Submit a rubric survey

You will get no credit for filling out the rubric survey if you have not also posted your work on NeuroWiki. Similarly, you will not get credit for your submitted benchmark if the rubric is not filled out at the time you post your work on Neurowiki. The rubric helps you evaluate your submission on Neurowiki to ensure that it meets the standards for that part of the assignment, so both must be submitted at the same time.

All term paper assignments will be evaluated based on the version present at 5 PM on the day of the deadline. At 5 PM on the day the Final Term Paper is due, all term paper pages on NeuroWiki will be locked by the instructors, and authors will be unable to make further edits. We will evaluate the Final Term Papers based on what is present on NeuroWiki at that time.

Where do I post my work?

Links to the pages where you should save each component of your term paper are provided in your lab notebook. If you are writing a term paper, you must save each component of your term paper at these locations.

Where are the rubric surveys?

Rubrics will be used to evaluate each benchmark, including the term paper proposal and final paper. The purpose of the rubric surveys is to remind you of some of the important components the benchmark should contain before you finalize it. You should use the rubric as a guide when writing.

Rubrics differ for each type of term paper (critical review, grant proposal, or Wikipedia article).

Term Paper Proposal

For a grant proposal, the rubric is here.
For a critical review, the rubric is here.
For a Wikipedia article, the rubric is here.

Benchmark I

For a grant proposal, the rubric is here.
For a critical review, the rubric is here.
For a Wikipedia article, the rubric is here.

Benchmark II

For a grant proposal, the rubric is here.
For a critical review, the rubric is here.
For a Wikipedia article, the rubric is here.

Benchmark III

For a grant proposal, the rubric is here.
For a critical review, the rubric is here.
For a Wikipedia article, the rubric is here.

Benchmark IV

For a grant proposal, the rubric is here.
For a critical review, the rubric is here.
For a Wikipedia article, the rubric is here.

Final Term Paper

There is no rubric survey for the Final Term Paper. To evaluate your work, we will use a combination of the other rubrics.

Point Values

	Graduate Students	Undergraduate Students
Term Paper Proposal	1 point	0.5 points extra credit
Benchmark I	1 point	0.5 points extra credit
Benchmark II	1 point	0.5 points extra credit
Benchmark III	1 point	0.5 points extra credit
Benchmark IV	1 point	0.5 points extra credit
Final Term Paper	20 points	7.5 points extra credit
Term Paper Presentation	3 points extra credit	3 points extra credit

Details for Each Type of Paper

Grant Proposal

Follow these guidelines for each of the sections:

Term Paper Proposal:
- Provide one paragraph of background that concludes with a clear statement of the central hypothesis, highlighted in boldface.
- State (in one paragraph each) the two or three specific aims.
- List 5 or more relevant peer-reviewed references.

Benchmark I: Specific Aims:
- Provide brief background so that the central hypothesis is understandable.
- Clearly state the central hypothesis.
- Clearly state two or three Specific Aims.
- Briefly describe the expected outcome of the research.
- Limited to 1 page.

Benchmark II: Research Strategy, Significance:
- Describe the problem that needs to be solved, or the barrier to research progress that must be overcome.
- How will the research improve knowledge or clinical practice?
- What changes to the field will result if the research is successful?
- Limited to 2 pages.

Benchmark III: Research Strategy, Approach:
- Describe the overall strategy you will take to the problem.
- Describe the specific experiments to be done to accomplish each Specific Aim.
- Discuss potential problems that you may encounter as you pursue the research, and how you will solve them.
- Describe benchmarks for measuring progress, and a proposed timetable.
- Discuss potential risks or hazards of the research, and how you will reduce them.
- Present relevant preliminary data (either your own, or published by others, with suitable attribution)
- Limited to 8 pages.

Benchmark IV: Research Strategy, Innovation:
- How will the research shift the current research or clinical paradigms in the field?
- What novel concepts, methods or approaches are used?
- What improvements to research theory, concepts, or clinical practice will result from the proposed work?
- Limited to 2 pages.

Total Research Strategy limited to 12 pages.

Note that the page limit does not include the Bibliography; it is important to cite relevant references, and to format them uniformly.

Follow these National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines for each of the sections:

Instructions for grant proposals based on NIH PHS 398

Here are exemplary grants that were posted by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; note that here are copyrighted materials, but you may freely use them as examples to guide your own grant writing.

Critical Review

Follow these guidelines for each of the sections:

Term Paper Proposal:
- Provide one paragraph of background that concludes with a clear statement of the central hypothesis, highlighted in boldface.
- State (in one paragraph each) arguments for and against the hypothesis.
- List between 5 and 10 papers from the peer-reviewed literature that will be the focus of the critical review.

Benchmark I: Introduction:
- Provide a clear description of relevant background information to understand the central hypothesis;
- Provide a clear statement of the significance of the problem;
- Clearly state the central hypothesis to be analyzed in the critical review;
- Use between 1 and 2 pages.

Benchmark II: Analysis of Arguments for the Hypothesis:
- Clearly describe the data supporting the hypothesis;
- Focus in detail on a description and discussion of 3 to 4 substantive studies that support the hypothesis;
- Use between 3 to 4 pages.

Benchmark III: Analysis of Arguments Against the Hypothesis:
- Clearly describe the data contradicting the hypothesis;
- Focus in detail on a description and discussion of 3 to 4 substantive studies that contradict the hypothesis;
- Use between 3 to 4 pages.

Benchmark IV: Summary and Conclusions:
- Briefly summarize the evidence for and against the hypothesis;
- Clearly describe your own view of the likelihood that the hypothesis is true (i.e., take a stand);
- Describe in detail key experiments that should be done next to support or refute the hypothesis;
- Use between 1 and 2 pages.

The overall length of the critical review should be between 10 and 12 pages.

Here is an exemplary critical review, which provides evidence supporting and then potentially contradicting a particular hypothesis (the role of the amygdala in fear conditioning), and points out what needs to be done to resolve some of the contradictory issues. You will need to connect to VPN or use a wired CWRU connection to access the review.

Wikipedia Article

Follow these guidelines for each of the sections:

Term Paper Proposal
- State the topic of the article.
- Evaluate the quality of the existing article about this topic on Wikipedia, if there is one. If Wikipedia already has an excellent article on this topic, you'll need to choose a new topic.
- List 10 to 15 references from the peer-reviewed literature that will serve as the basis for the essay.

Benchmark I: Brief introduction and illustration, table of contents:
- Provide a brief first sentence that defines the topic you will describe in the Wikipedia entry.
- In the first paragraph (called the lead paragraph), provide a concise summary and overview of the entire article.
- Provide a Table of Contents for the article.
- Provide at least one illustration for the article.
- Limit this section to between 100 and 300 words.

Benchmark II: Background and history:
- Provide clear background information about your topic so that it can be understood by a general audience.
- Provide a more detailed overview of the topic.
- Describe key events (for example, key experimental observations) for the topic.
- Limit this section to between 750 to 1500 words.

Benchmark III: Brief and well-documented descriptions of key aspects of the topic:
- Provide clear descriptions for each of the key topics listed in the Table of Contents.
- Provide appropriate depth of information about each topic.
- Provide appropriate breadth of information about each topic.
- Limit this section to between 2000 and 4000 words.

Benchmark IV: Cross-references and literature citations:
- Provide links to other Wikipedia articles from key words mentioned in your entry.
- Provide citations for all statements made in the text of your entry.
- Your citations should be primarily based on peer-reviewed journal articles (not other Wikipedia articles, reviews, or textbooks).
- Make sure your citations are in Wikipedia format (see the Notes section at the end of Wikipedia articles).
- Provide 3 to 10 additional reference to read (see the Reference section at the end of Wikipedia articles).
- Provide 3 to 10 additional external links for additional reference (see the External Links section at the end of Wikipedia articles).

Picking a topic: Articles in Neuroscience that are currently stubs in Wikipedia:

Neuroscience stubs

Important general guidelines for writing a Wikipedia article:

A guide to writing your first article for Wikipedia
The stages in developing your own Wikipedia article
The most important criteria for evaluating the value of a Wikipedia entry
The general policy for editing Wikipedia articles
To link to other articles on Wikipedia, surround the word with double brackets and add "wikipedia :" in front of it, then add a vertical bar after the word and the text you would like to have in the link.
- For example [[wikipedia : Neuron | neuron]] will create a link like this: neuron.

Examples of excellent encyclopedia entries (A level):

Wikipedia article on the topic Neuron
Scholarpedia article on the topic Neuron
A Wikipedia article on Neurotoxins
- Please note: This article was initially a stub, and was modified and greatly improved by a student in this class who then uploaded the revision in December, 2011; the article is now considered an A level article.
A Wikipedia article on Halteres
- Please note: This article was also initially a stub, and was modified and greatly improved by a student in this class in 2015. The article has served as a basis for a review that the student wrote with her Principal Investigator, which is now referenced in the Wikipedia article.

Exemplary Term Papers

Below are links to exemplary term paper proposals, benchmarks, and final papers. Some of the benchmarks have examples of good and poor student comments.

Note that some of these exemplars do not make use of the wiki citation format, but your term paper should!

Exemplary Critical Review

Exemplary Grant Proposal

Exemplary Wikipedia Article

Term Paper Presentation

Here are some guidelines to help you as you prepare your presentation:

If you choose to create your own presentation, please plan to bring your presentation on a laptop that can be connected to the class projector. If you choose to present directly from Neurowiki, you can use the podium computer for this purpose.
Each student will have a total of 10 minutes for their presentation. This includes the time for set up. After about 8 minutes, we will let you know that you have only 2 minutes left, so you can conclude your presentation. Please make every effort to stay on time, so that all students have a chance to present.
Remember that you have become expert in the research that you are presenting, but the rest of the class may know nothing about the topic. So,
- Provide clear background explanations.
- Make sure to explain the neurobiological significance of the topic.
- For a grant or a critical review, present a clear hypothesis.
- For a grant, describe the Specific Aims that allow you to test the hypothesis, key preliminary data showing that the experiments you propose are feasible, and a description of the innovative aspects of the work you propose to do, and the impact is is likely to have more broadly on the field.
- For a critical review, present the evidence supporting the hypothesis, the evidence that contradicts the central hypothesis, and then your conclusions as to whether you think the hypothesis is likely to be true, and the key experiments that you feel still need to be done to address it.
- For a Wikipedia entry, carefully walk the class through the key components of the entry.
Make sure to have a clear summary and conclusions section, so students who may not have followed all the details of your presentation still get a sense of what you found out and now understand.
Please practice. Ten minutes is actually a very short time for a presentation, and if you haven't practiced, you may find that we have to cut you off before you've presented any of the real results, which would be very frustrating for you (and for us). Of course, if you rattle though the material too quickly, no one will understand you either.

Presentations are worth up to 3 points of extra credit, based on the discretion of the instructors. Following these guidelines is likely to earn you the full 3 points.

Additional Important Information

Back up your work

Please understand that although we will make every effort to keep NeuroWiki available to you, and we are backing it up on an hourly and daily basis, we cannot guarantee that it will not periodically become unavailable (e.g., due to power failures, denial of service attacks on CWRU or other parts of the Internet, internal server errors, and so on). Thus, instructors are regularly making backups of any material they put on NeuroWiki. Dr. Chiel regularly goes into edit mode, selects all the text within the editing window for the page, and copies this into a text editor and saves this as a backup. We strongly recommend that you do the same.

Citation style

It is important to use a consistent citation style. For this reason, we ask that you use the wiki citation tools described on the help page.

Help with writing

If you are having difficulty composing clear and succinct prose, we would encourage you to take advantage of Case's writing resource center.

Privacy

Because this wiki is publicly available to anyone, and because some students include information in their term papers they do not want to openly share (such as new ideas for research they are actively working on), term paper writing will take place on a private section of the wiki that will be visible to students in the course, but to no one else. There is a direct link to the private section of the wiki in the side bar on the left of each page labeled "Term papers".

Figures

If you wish to include illustrations, which are required for the Wikipedia entry and may be useful for your grant or critical review, you must use them appropriately.

For a Wikipedia article:

Your illustrations should meet the legal requirements for Wikipedia listed here.
In brief, these require that a picture or illustration either be your own work which you are releasing into the public domain or under a free license, or be already in the public domain or available under a free license.
If you do not know, do not assume that it is acceptable to use an image - most images on web sites can not legally be used, even if they are not labeled, and we may penalize you if you do this.
Although in rare cases you may be able to use a copyrighted figure under fair use law, this may be questionable and is not advisable.

For a critical review:

You may use any illustration that meets the Wikipedia guidelines, and it may be useful to use figures from the literature with appropriate citation under fair use laws.
Note that if you were to submit the critical review in the future for publication, you would need to get permission to use any copyrighted figures from the copyright holder.

For a grant proposal:

You can generally rely on fair use laws because the grant is only seen by a small number of reviewers, but you must associate the source and copyright information with the figure, citing the source and copyright appropriately.
If you use unpublished data that is not your own for your grant proposal, make sure you have obtained the appropriate permissions to do so from the person(s) who generated the data.
If you contact us and ask us that the grant not be released to the public, we will not release the figures as requested.

Term Paper

Contents

Overview

Term Paper Proposal, Benchmarks, and Deadlines

Where do I post my work?

Where are the rubric surveys?

Point Values

Details for Each Type of Paper

Grant Proposal

Critical Review

Wikipedia Article

Exemplary Term Papers

Term Paper Presentation

Additional Important Information

Back up your work

Citation style

Help with writing

Privacy

Figures

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