ASSIGNMENT 2 – FINAL PAPER
You will prepare a short paper of 1000 words (~4 pages
double-spaced, 11 pt. Calibri or 12 pt. Times New Roman font) on a topic of
your choice – preferably using the same articles you used in your first
assignment. You may use additional
sources/articles for this assignment if you wish, but it is not necessary, and
do be sure to properly cite all information correctly as per the Assignment
Formatting and Citations Guidelines for ENV-1600. If you
are doing your paper on the same topic and articles you used in your first
assignment, you may skip to Step 3, if you are choosing a new topic, please
begin at step 1.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
·
To
gain familiarity with research resources available to you at UW
·
To build
foundational research and writing skills required for success at the
undergraduate level
·
To
develop your writing with the goal of improving your clarity and conciseness
THE TOPIC:
STEP 1: Identify a human-environmental issue of
interest to you that fits within the scope of ENV 1600, which you should
have done as part of assignment 1. This
could be related to any textbook chapter (whether or not we cover it in the
course) and most importantly your topic/issue should be as specific as possible. If you are uncertain about your topic –
please ask!
Examples
of good, well-scoped topics might
include:
·
Eutrophication in Lake Winnipeg
·
The role of Indigenous peoples in establishing
new protected areas in Canada
·
The effects of sunscreen on ocean corals in
Hawaii
·
The impacts of a federal carbon tax on the
economy of British Columbia
·
The effects of climate change on a particular
species, or agriculture in a particular area etc.
·
The effects of marine plastic pollution on a
specific species or type of animal.
Examples
of poorly-scoped topics might include:
·
Global climate change
·
Renewable energy
·
Plastic pollution
·
Decline in bird populations
STEP 2: Conduct
a search of the library database and limit your search to peer reviewed and
full text articles. Start broad and refine search terms related to your
topic. For example, “Climate Change” is far too general and will yield
potentially millions of hits. The search: “Climate Change” AND “Manitoba” AND “Boreal
Forests” will likely produce more specific results. Experiment with searching
different keywords to refine your topic choice and related resources. Be sure to limit your search to only peer
reviewed articles for this assignment. Be sure that at least 2 of them are
published within the last 10 years (preferably more recently). It would be
good if one were a review article and 2 research articles (examples provided
below).
After reading
several abstracts and papers, select THREE
relevant publications to form the basis of information in your short paper (preferably
those from your first assignment, though if you would like to do a different
topic because of something you learned in class that may be O.K. too, but do
let me know). NO informal references
will be accepted in this paper, only peer-reviewed literature and you will be
required to email me your sources as downloaded pdfs. Please send them again when you submit
your paper, even if you submitted them for your first assignment, as it makes
it easier to mark when everything is submitted together – thank you.
FORMATTING AND STYLE
One inch margins, Times New Roman (12 pt.) or Calibri font (11
pt.) for body text. Format your headings and subheadings according to
taste. Use double-line spacing and
number your pages (your title page is not numbered). Follow the instructions in
the Assignment Formatting and Citations Guidelines for ENV-1600 posted under
Assignments on Nexus.
Length:
Four pages, (~1000 words) at double-line spacing, excluding Literature
Cited section.
PAPER
CONTENT
Your entire paper will consist of 5 sections:
a Title Page, Introduction, Body (contains the
majority of the information and ideas), Conclusions (preferably with
solutions to a problem that you identified in your introduction) and Literature
Cited.
As a general rule – your introduction should
contain about 10% of the words in your paper, the main body about 80-85% and
the conclusions about 5-10%. It is
essential that your paper contain all three sections!
The Title Page should
include the title of your paper (i.e., The effects of oil spills on sea
otters), your name and student number as well as the name of the course, instructor
and the date and it should not be numbered.
I’ve included an example for you
under the assignments link.
In your introduction you introduce your topic by highlighting known
scientific facts (cited) and state
the objective of the review or the problem/question to be addressed in your
paper. Your introduction also tells the reader what you are going to talk
about and lists the topics to be covered in the order they appear in the
document. Note – the majority of this section can be written last, once the
body of the paper has come together.
This section is never written in the first person – you do not use the
word “I” here. For example, you would not say I will discuss, rather, you might
say the remainder of this paper will address…etc.
Your
introduction should generally be brief – no more than 1 to 2 paragraphs. Its purpose is to introduce your topic, why
it is important and delivers a thesis statement or provides an objective for
your paper that clearly describes the problem (your paper is addressing), the major cause of the
problem as well as one or more solutions.
Examples of good and bad thesis statements:
Good: Climate change is
causing flooding
to worsen in many parts of Quebec, and to prevent future damage the
Premier is offering to buy flood-prone houses for up to $200,000 (in-text citation required). This paper examines this problem and presents
other solutions to reduce the impacts of flooding, including replacing
pavement with greenspace.
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