College of Natural Sciences
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NEU 466G Functional and Synaptic Neuroanatomy
Department of Neuroscience
What substantial writing projects will your students complete during the course?
Writing Assignments constitute 75% of the total grade:
- Literature Summaries: Each student will prepare a 1 page summary (400 – 500 words) describing the review and primary literature papers to be discussed and presented in class approximately biweekly.
- Written Questions: Compose and hand in a copy of at least 3 questions from the review and primary literature to serve as discussion points during the group presentations. Written answer format: Choose one of your questions, to seek an answer to write up and hand in the following week. Write a 2-3 sentence answer to your own question based on your review of the literature or class discussion.
- Term Paper – written in 4 parts: Title and topic statement, full draft (10 pages) for peer review, next draft with response to peer review and letter to editor, finally, prepared for oral presentation and critique of written materials for oral.
- Lab report based on regular lab assignments, and a final group project where data are shared and analyzed, but each person writes an independent lab report. Imaging Lab (IGL) reconstruction projects with written reports (Two example assignments are included for IGL lab 5 and the final lab report (IGL 6-11).
- Written Peer Reviews of Oral Presentations: Students will be required to write a peer review of at least 1 student presentation given in class as well as a peer review of the first full draft of another student’s term paper.
What kinds of feedback will students receive from the instructor, and what opportunities will they have to read and comment on each other’s work? How often and how extensively will they revise their own writing?
Every writing assignment will receive written and oral feedback from me. The papers will all be peer reviewed, and students will receive graded critiques on both their review of other student’s papers as well as on their response to these critiques. They will revise their papers repeatedly throughout the course. Their research projects and oral presentations are done as group projects, although each member of the group will write an independent report after having worked together to gather and analyze the data.
What amount of the final course grade will come from the written work (minimum one-third for a three-hour course)?
75%