Evaluation Form for Term Paper Presentations

Presenters:

Topic:

ITEM / COMMENTS / SCORE
DELIVERY: Poised, well rehearsed, eye-contact, clear, audible, not too fast/slow, used appropriate scientific language, did not read from notes, took cues from audience, fielded questions well.
ORGANIZATION:
Introduction: captures attention, clearly describes research question and objectives of study, introduces relevant literature
Main section: Describes methods adequately, effective use of graphics, highlights predictions of study and their interpretation
Conclusion: Recognition of limitations of the study; emphasis of the implications of the study for community ecology
VISUAL AIDS:
Simple (uncluttered); helps guide the presentation, important points emphasized
THOROUGHNESS OF RESEARCH:
Up-to-date literature (journal articles) used to support rationale of study; speakers familiar with classic literature and understand material presented
TEAMWORK:
Coordinated transition between speakers; equal participation of team members; non-speaking members attentive and not distracting

Maximum 10 points awarded for each item; each presentation will be graded independently by Dalling and Duggan and the mean score of both evaluations scaled to 15% of the course grade.

***Note: Attendance during the term paper presentations will continue to contribute towards the 10% of course credit for attendance; questions related to presentations will be collected at the end of each class

Adapted from A student handbook for writing in biology (Sinauer Inc, 2005)

Further instructions and rubric for term paper grading

Each student must submit an independently-written report of their term paper project. Team members are welcome to share literature related to their project theme and may work jointly to develop hypotheses, predictions and experimental design. Nonetheless, the organization and text of each report must be developed independently by each team member. Normal rules concerning plagiarism apply. If you have any questions about this, best ask us first.

The written term paper must have the following structure and include all of the following elements:

THE PAPER SHOULD BE A MAXIMUM OF 5 PAGES (double-spaced; Times New Roman 12 font), excluding the title page and literature cited.

First (title) page must include:

  1. Descriptive title
  2. Author
  3. Abstract (NOTE: MAXIMUM 200 WORDS)

Subsequent pages must include:

  1. Introduction
  2. Hypotheses and predictions (these can be incorporated into the introduction or presented below a separate sub-heading)
  3. Study Area and Organisms
  4. Methods and experimental design
  5. Significance of work
  6. Literature Cited (use a journal format of your choice (e.g. Journal of Ecology, Oecologia)

The following criteria will be used for grading the report:

1. Abstract: Does the abstract reflect the title of the project and the aim and scope of the work? Does it contain essential information on rationale, hypothesis, study system and significance? Is it written clearly? (10 points)

2. Introduction: Does the introduction start by introducing a significant question in community ecology? Are statements supported by appropriate citations from published literature? Is the initial question refined through the introduction to statement of the objective of the study? (10 points)

3. Hypotheses and predictions: Are the hypotheses presented clearly related to the objective of the study and are they logically connected to the ideas presented in the introduction? Are hypothesis stated correctly (i.e., do they provide an explanation for an observation)? Are predictions logically connected to the hypotheses? Are alternatives to the primary hypothesis acknowledged (where appropriate)? (10 points)

4. Study area and organisms: Is necessary background information on the ecology/natural history of study organisms and the study site presented? Is there unnecessary/irrelevant information that could have been omitted? Is the choice of organism/study site appropriate given the objective of the study? (10 points)

5. Methods and Experimental Design: Is the explanation of the methods clear (use figures if necessary)? Are the methods appropriate to test the hypothesis proposed? Are essential methodological details included?This might include, for example, replication of treatments, size of treatments, duration of experiment, description of independent and dependent variables. Has the author considered potential confounding effects that might interfere with the ability to test the hypothesis? Are these recognized/addressed (where possible)? (10 points)

6. Significance, originality and creativity of work: This is the justification statement for the project – this does NOT mean just the conservation/management (i.e., applied) importance of your proposed work. I am looking here for a statement to indicate how this project can move the field of community ecology forward. Does this study potentially provide new insights into how communities are organized? Are the results from this study system broadly applicable to other groups of organisms or other kinds of interactions? What other studies might build on the results from this one – or would the results of this study allow you to infer something new about this system that you could then go on to test? (10 points)

7. Literature Cited: Are the papers in the body of the proposal cited in here? Are the references cited here in the body of the text? Is consistent formatting used? (5 points)

8. Presentation and clarity: Are the different sections of the proposal well linked? Are the ideas presented clearly – and can they be followed from one section of the proposal to the next? Is the writing style clear (topic sentences introduce themes presented in each paragraph; concise language used; spelling and grammar acceptable)? Use of tense and active/passive voice is consistent? Note: Use the past tense to describe results found in previous studies; use future tense “we will…” to describe work that you propose to do. (5 points)

One additional criterion:

We would like to ensure that you contribute equally to the development of group projects. To do this, we would like each member of a group project to email Jenny Duggan your assessment of the contribution of every other member of your group (on a scale of 1 to 10. Where 1= no contribution (parasite), 5= moderately engaged (discussed and/or helped refine ideas but did not contribute new ideas), 10= actively engaged (made important contributions to developing ideas and helped implement them). We will take the average scores for each person (10 points). If you are flying solo you get 10 points!

Total points for the term project (80 points possible) will be scaled to 30 % of final grade.