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Primary literature refers to the journals and books in which original data are presented. They are usually peer reviewed (even the books).  This means that, prior to publication, the material is given review by others who are also experts in the field.  This eliminates much poor, inaccurate, and speculative writing (although not all).  For our purposes, this is the stuff one must read if one is to become a biologist.  Familiarity with at least some primary biological literature is a necessary part of your undergraduate education.  For this reason, we will concentrate our efforts on including material from evolutionary primary literature.   Visiting one or two of the many websites dealing with evolution and presenting whatever comes up is not an option.  However, when first entering a field, it is often difficult to begin by reading the primary materials.  Beginners are not their target audience.  You should begin with a very useful type of journal article called a review article.  They appear in many journals dedicated to primary literature and are so popular that there are entire journals dedicated to review articles.  A review article will act as an introduction to a specific topic in evolutionary biology.  The target audience for these articles are biologists not familiar with the primary literature in the area but with considerable background in biology.  You are among the target audience for these articles.

 Your audience for this paper is easy to define:  Phil Ganter.  It is not for a general audience and its purpose is to convince me that you have read and assimilated some aspect of evolutionary biology.  The papers need not be long (2-3 pages, if well written, can be enough but more is also OK if you need the space).   Focus on explaining an article from a scientific journal.  You must explain why the author or authors did the work, what they did, and how their data supports or refutes the goal of the authors.  Thus, you must place the paper in context with an introduction to the area.  In addition, you must understand the experiment thoroughly. 

Your paper must also cite any sources you use using the citation format below.

So, how to go about this?

Start by thinking about what area you are interested in learning more about.

Having problems with this?  You are not the first.  Come and see me and a little conversation will unveil some area of interest.

Find a review paper if possible

If this seems hard to do, this is another case where you should come to see me.

Read the review and select a paper as the centerpiece of your paper.

If you are having a problem actually getting the article, come see me once again

We have access to several review journals and some of the primary journals, so we will get you the material you need.

In addition, there are some other requirements:

1. All topics must be pre-approved by the instructor.  Failure to do so will result in a paper not being accepted and a 0 for the assignment.
2. No paper papers will be accepted.  Submit your paper in electronic format (MSWord or RTF formats are the only acceptable formats) by sending it to my email address at pganter@tnstate.edu.
3. No quotations can be as long as a sentence in length.  I want to know what you know in your own words, not what your sources know.
4. The original materials must be included, either as a paper copy or an electronic copy.

Citation Format

CITATIONS IN THE TEXT OF THE PAPER AND A LITERATURE CITED PAGE ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. ANY PAPER WITHOUT THEM WILL RECEIVE A ZERO FOR A GRADE.

In-Text Citations:

Citations are put into the body of the paper to note where an idea, fact, or quoted material has come from. Your papers and presentations, since you are re-packaging what information you have gathered from others, should be chock full of citations. Failure to do so is considered plagiarism and will result in a 0 for the paper, so put them in and follow your paper or outline with a literature cited page.

Be sure to place quotes around all sentences or phrases taken from the literature. After the quoted material, list its citation. Also, you have to cite any ideas or facts taken from the materials (Finknotle, 1992), even if you are not taking it word-for-word. Literature citations are to be done by placing the last name of the author and the year of the materials publication in parentheses at the end of the sentence or paragraph in which the material is mentioned (Finknotle and Glossip, 1989). When you are introducing several things from a single source in a series of sentences as part of a paragraph, then wait until you have presented them all before including a citation (this saves space and makes for less repetition). Examples for 1, 2, and 3-or-more authors (in order):

(Finknotle, 1992) for a single author, or (Finknotle and Glossip, 1989) for a pair, or (Finknotle et al., 1990) for more than two.

The literature cited section should come at the end of the text, must alphabetically list all materials consulted and should use the following formats:

Book

Author's Last Name, Initials. Year. Title. Publisher. City and country of publication, pages of interest (if not the entire book).

Article from a Book:

Author's Last Name, Initials. Year. Title of article. Ed. Editor of book. Title of book. Publisher. City and country of publication, page numbers of article.

Journal Article

Author's Last Name, Initials. Year. Title of article. Journal name, Volume number: pages (of entire article).

Internet material

Author's Last Name, Initials. Year. Title of article/Name of site. Internet site URL, date accessed.

Last Updated February 5, 2009