Biology Department Integrative Exercise
Welcome to the Senior Integrative Exercise for 2008/2009. Please be certain that you understand completely what is expected of you before you leave for the summer. Keep this document available, since it is the definitive set of requirements and instructions. A copy of this document and the list of questions will be on the Biology Department Web site throughout next year.
There are three requirements that must be completed successfully to pass Biology comps:
1) Submit a synopsis and bibliography that provides an answer to the question you've chosen from the list provided. The synopsis is limited to 10,000 characters (approximately 5-6 pages). Detailed instructions are given in "Form and Style of the Synopsis and Bibliography" below. This written assignment is due at the end of your first comps term.2) Make an oral presentation of up to 30 minutes, based on your answer to the chosen question. The presentation is immediately followed by 30 minutes of questions from the two members of your faculty committee. This takes place in the first half of the second term of your comps.
3) Attend two-thirds of the weekly Biology Department seminars. In the past, this has been about 12 of the seminars offered during the academic year. Seniors who attend seminars that they want to count toward the comps requirement must sign the book, which will be in the seminar room. Note that you should start attending seminars as soon as they start in Fall Term, no matter which term you are writing your synopsis and bibliography.
SCHEDULE OF DEADLINES
FALL/WINTER SCHEDULE
1. First sheet (choice of question and advisor) is due in the hands of the Administrative Assistant, Carol Horan, on FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 at 4:00 P.M.
2. Original and 2 copies of the synopsis and bibliography are due in the hands of Carol Horan on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 at 4:00 P.M. Second sheet is also due at this time, with choice of open or closed oral presentation, synopsis character count, and your permission to bind your written work (see instructions below). Please staple all three copies of your paper. Copy for binding should be single sided ONLY.
3. Oral presentation will occur during the first half of winter term.
WINTER/SPRING SCHEDULE
1. First sheet (choice of question and advisor) is due in the hands of the Carol Horan, on FRIDAY, JANUARY 9 at 4:00 P.M.
2. Original and 2 copies of the synopsis and bibliography are due in the hands of Carol Horan on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 at 4:00 P.M. Second sheet is also due at this time, with choice of open or closed oral presentation, character count, and your permission to bind your written work (see instructions below). Please staple all three copies of your paper. Copy for binding should be single sided ONLY.
3. Oral presentation will occur during the first half of Spring Term.
REGISTRATION
Each person preparing the Senior Integrative Exercise must enroll in Biology 400-4 (4 credits) during the term in which writing takes place (i.e., Fall or Winter). Successful enrollment in 400-4 constitutes permission to prepare the Integrative Exercise during that term. No matter which term you write the synopsis and bibliography, you should register for Biology 400-2 (2 credits) during the Spring Term ONLY. (DO NOT register for Visiting Speakers, Biology 260, this is for Freshman-Juniors only.) The full 6 credits for the Integrative Exercise will not be awarded until successful completion of the seminar requirement by the end of Spring Term.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
To start the process, you will choose one of the questions provided for investigation. Please choose a question for which you have the proper course background. Insufficient course preparation is one of the most common sources of trouble during comps.
After choosing a question, contact a member of the Biology Department faculty (of your choice), inform him or her of the question you wish to investigate, and request that he or she act as the chair of your Senior Integrative Exercise. (Faculty members may not feel able to chair your committee because they are not sufficiently familiar with the area you have chosen or because they have reached their "quota" of committees for the term.) Then prepare a typewritten page that includes the following:
- your name and signature.
- the number of the question you've chosen.
- the name and signature of your comps advisor.
- the Biology courses you have taken.
This first sheet must be returned to the Carol Horan (Administrative Assistant, Hulings 303A) by the date listed above under Schedule of Deadlines. Shortly after the sheets are submitted, a list will be posted outside the Biology Department office and on the web with the composition of your comps committee (chair and one other faculty members).
A second sheet (also typewritten) will be due when you submit the written synopsis and bibliography. This sheet should include:
- your name and signature.
- the count of total characters in the body of your synopsis (all characters count except spaces and paragraph marks; do not include title page, bibliography, figures, tables, or citations within the text).
- title of your paper.
- title of your talk if different from your paper.
- whether your oral presentation is open to the public or closed (faculty committee only).
- a statement that you give the Biology Department permission to bind your comps.
The preparation for the written synopsis will require thorough and in-depth research into the most recent primary literature on your topic. Individual students have different styles of doing their comps and of interacting with their faculty committee. You are strongly encouraged to meet with your comps chair early in the term in which you are preparing your synopsis, so that together you can work out an approach to the assignment that will work well for you. Many students find it useful to make a series of deadlines during the term to keep them moving toward successful completion of the synopsis. It is especially important to determine your list of key references (see below) in consultation with your entire committee, well before the time that you produce a rough draft.
You can meet with your committee members (or in fact any member of the department) as often as you and the faculty feel is appropriate. At the discretion of the faculty author(s) of a particular question, there may be one or more meetings for all of the students doing that question. Every faculty member handles comps differently, and it's up to you to determine the pace of writing and to adhere to deadlines. It is your responsibility to turn in a draft of your comps to your committee (in a timely fashion) and seek feedback during your writing term.
Understand that you are not in competition with other students who are working on the same question. You are strongly encouraged to discuss your ideas and research with others who are working on the same question (or related ones) during your preparation. However, it is important to keep in mind that your submitted comps work is ultimately an individual and original effort.
Late submission of the Synopsis and Bibliography is not allowed except under extraordinary circumstances. If you fail to submit the paper on time, you may not be allowed to complete the Integrative Exercise during the current academic year.
Your oral presentation will be scheduled in the term after you prepare your synopsis and bibliography (unless you will be off-campus winter term – see Schedule and Deadlines, above). Assignment of dates and times for the oral presentation is done in a random manner, except where requests have been made for early scheduling. (Requests for "late scheduling" are not accepted.) For those doing Fall/Winter comps, we can inform you by e-mail of the time of your Winter Term oral presentation if you send a request to Carol Horan (choran@carleton.edu) after the decisions have been made in December or check the website.
When we initially schedule the oral presentations, we do not take into account the student's schedule. This is a matter of practical necessity since students often do not know their final course schedule until after the start of the term. If the assigned comps time conflicts with a legitimate academic exercise (i.e., another class), the student should discuss this problem with their comps advisor and another meeting time will be sought. We respect the importance of class attendance in all Carleton courses.
The synopsis, bibliography, oral presentation, and question period will be the basis upon which a decision of Distinction, Pass, or Failure of the Senior Integrative Exercise will be made. The final form of the paper and power point presentation should be submitted electronically. Full instructions for electronic submission will be forthcoming. Format (see Form and Style of the Synopsis and Bibliography), correct English usage, spelling, punctuation, number of typographical errors, etc. will be considered in the Distinction, Pass, or Failure decision.
If the committee determines that further work is required to pass comps, the student may be required to prepare and submit additional work after the oral presentation. This work can be of various forms, and in some cases may consist of a 25-page paper on the question. If further written work is required, it should be submitted both in print (four copies) and electronically.
Each student will be notified in writing shortly after completing the oral presentation of either Pass or Fail by the Senior Integrative Exercise Coordinator. Notification of Distinction will be made after all examinations and comps requirements are completed in the spring term.
Form and Style of the Synopsis and Bibliography
Your audience for this work is the faculty, not other students. Assume that the readers are familiar with the area under study and much of the background material. In the text of the synopsis, cite only directly relevant papers; the bibliography must include these cited papers, but should also include other important papers that you read during preparation of the synopsis. Therefore, the bibliography will provide us with a basis for understanding your general background and the breadth of your investigation into the literature.
Within the Bibliography, there should be 10-15 key references indicated by an asterisk as the first character in the listing. These are the papers that you judge to be the most essential contributions to the topic of your paper. Avoid using review articles (as in the "Trends" journals) for these key references. Choose papers in which important research results or conceptual advances first appear. Each of these key references should be cited at least once in the text. During the question period after your oral presentation, you will be expected to be able to explain why you chose these key references and to have a thorough understanding of all elements of the papers.
All papers (including remedial) are to be typed in 12-point font and single-sided. Margins should be 1 inch on top, bottom, and right side, but 1 and 1/2 inches (for binding) on the left side. Submit three copies. Staple each copy in the upper left hand corner.
The synopsis should begin with a cover page, which includes your paper title and your name. The body of the synopsis should be double spaced throughout. The bibliography should be single-spaced within entries, with a double space between entries. Number all pages after the cover page, including the bibliography.
Literature citation is a critical part of any scientific paper, and to avoid plagiarism it is essential to cite the work of others correctly. It is assumed that you are intimately familiar with the College pamphlet on "Academic Honesty in the Writing of Essays and Other Papers." Unless the idea is your own, you should let the reader know where you got it. If the idea is yours, it is better to use the first person ("I conclude that...") than to use ambiguous phrases such as "the author concludes..." (which author?) or "it is concluded that..." (concluded by whom?).
It is important that the synopsis be written with care and in the proper professional style. If there are serious errors of writing, punctuation, spelling, etc., it sometimes has been necessary for students to correct these and resubmit the paper. This may delay re-evaluation until after the end of the Spring Term.
Footnotes are very rare in scientific writing and should be avoided. Direct quotations from sources should be used only when it is essential for the reader to know exact wording; the usual practice is to paraphrase sources. Figures and tables are sometimes useful, but excessive use of these can become very cumbersome. Discuss with your comps advisor the nature and number of your figures and tables.
There are many differences among scientific journals in the style of citing references in the text and listing them in the Bibliography. For your synopsis, you should choose the style of one of two model journals selected by the Biology faculty: Cell or The American Naturalist. Once you select your style, it will be essential to consult a recent issue of the model journal for details of how to proceed. Please note that there is a standard way of listing an article in a journal, a chapter in a book, an entire book, etc. References should be cited within the text by author(s) and year. Do not use the numbered reference format found in Science or Nature; the bibliography should be arranged alphabetically by author. The asterisked key references should be alphabetized with all the other sources in the bibliography.
The Oral Presentation and Questions
At the time you turn in the second sheet with your synopsis and bibliography, you must indicate whether you want your talk to be OPEN to friends and colleagues or CLOSED (faculty committee only). The large majority of students in the past have chosen to give a talk that is open.Your oral presentation will consist of talk of up to 30 minutes followed by a 30 minute oral question period by your faculty committee. You are cautioned that this opportunity is not to be used to read your submitted synopsis, but to pursue some aspects of your topic in greater depth than is allowed by the synopsis alone. The presentation should follow a structured format, but be presented without reading a prepared script verbatim. Direct your remarks to those familiar with the topic, not toward any non-scientists who may be present in the audience.
Your power point presentation must be submitted electronically in its final form, at some point before you make the presentation. It is essential that this be submitted on time, since this will be used by the faculty committee as part of the evaluation of the presentation.
During the question period, committee members may asks questions on a variety of topics related to either your paper or your oral presentation. In preparing for the questions, be sure to pay particular attention to the key references you chose in your bibliography. For these sources, you should be able to defend your choice of each key reference within the context of the question, as well as demonstrate an understanding of details such as experimental methods, figures and tables, etc. You should bring a copy of each of your key references, and you are free to refer to these during the question period. Other questions from your committee will be diverse and not easily predictable, but the faculty will be interested in how well you are able to explain and defend the positions you have taken. If you are well prepared and are interested in the subject, the discussion should be stimulating and even enjoyable to all.
Evaluation Meeting
At the time of your oral presentation, your committee chair will arrange for a time to meet with you to learn what the committee has decided. This meeting usually will be within one "business day" from the presentation. That is, if the talk is given from Monday through Thursday, the meeting typically would take place the next day. If the talk is given on a Friday, the meeting typically would take place the following Monday.