BS 218 - Waterman        Southeast Missouri State University

Biology in the News Position Paper Instructions  

The purpose of this assignment is to provide an opportunity for you to apply your research and writing skills to think critically about the social impact of biological knowledge. This page describes the procedure I want you to follow for this assignment.

Overview: Generally, you will locate a newspaper article written since Feb. 1, 2009 with controversial topics related to biology and humans.   You will be researching and summarizing the biology, describing some of the controversial implications of this issue, defining "pro" and "con" positions, and then defending your own position using a rational set of arguments supported by evidence. The references you will be using must be reputable sources such as refereed journals, scientifically reputable web sites, etc. Five pages max. plus references.

Finding articles and preparing a topic proposal

Researching the topic and documenting the paper (citation formats, reference formats)

Writing the paper, with scoring guide

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