Paleontology in the News Assignment

We may not know it, but new discoveries about paleontology and dinosaurs are occurring all the time.  For this assignment I want you to use the Internet (Google News Search, Science Magazine, Scientific American, New York Times, etc.) to find a recent article in the news on any topic relating to paleontology or dinosaurs.

Format and Guidelines:

• Due on Thursday, December 29th, 2016 by 11:59 pm.
  • You must submit this assignment through the course website (assignments page on sakai).
• Using the Google News Archive Search engine (or any other online magazine, newspaper, or other search engine) find an article published in the last 3 months that covers any paleontology or dinosaur related topic. (http://news.google.com/archivesearch)
  • Publication date of article must be between September 1^st, 2016 and December 29th, 2016.   If you use an article that does not fit within this time frame, it will not be accepted and you will receive a ZERO.
  • Your article must be published from a reputable news site/source and not an Internet blog, etc.  You can email me the link to take a look at your article if you are unsure if you can use it or not.
• Write aMinimum 500-wordanalysis of this article.  If you are under the minimum word requirement you will AUTOMATICALLY loose 15 points from your assignment!!!  The header, works cited and any other extra words DO NOT count towards your word requirement.
  • Analysis: I am not looking for a simple summary of the article.  You will have to briefly summarize the article, but this should not take up more than ~25% of your paper.  The rest of your paper should analyze the article and should touch on some (but not limited to) the following topics:
    • Importance of the discovery/find, how it changes our previously held notions, how it relates to class, why you find it interesting, etc.
  • You must cite your references within and at the end of your paper.  Failure to cite in both places will result in an automatic 10-point deduction.
  • Works cited page: List of references used in your paper at the end of the text. 
    • You can use MLA format for this or a format of your choosing.  Please be sure that you are consistent with your formatting and that you include all relevant information about each source used in this section.  Do not just include the link to the article.  You must put as much information about the article as you can find. 
• Within Line Citations: Any time you use information or an idea that is not your own, you must cite the original source within your paper. 
  • If you are writing several sentences from the same source, please cite that source at the end of those sentences (before switching to another source) or at the end of the paragraph.
  • If you switch sources within a paragraph, you must cite the different sources at the end of each sentence. 
  • Please use the following format when citing within the text. 
    • (Author or authors last name, year source was published)
    • Here is an example (Adamo, 2010).
  • Footnotes are also acceptable. 
• Quotations: This is a very short written assignment and there is no need to put quoted portions of your article in your paper.  Doing this defeats the purpose of this assignment and papers with more than two article quotations willautomatically loose 15 points.  When summarizing and analyzing your article, please put everything in your own words and cite the original source.

Plagiarism and Cheating

• Plagiarism or copying another writers words is unethical and a violation of academic integrity.  Be sure to write everything in your own words. 
• All papers will be analyzed by a plagiarism detecting service (Turnitin.com), and if your paper is flagged, you will receive azerofor the assignment and must rewrite the assignment.
• If you choose not to rewrite the assignment, you will receive an automatic F in the class, and the case will be turned over to the Dean of Academic Integrity.
• If you rewrite the assignment, you will still receive a zero for the assignment, but you will not receive an automatic F in the class and case will not be turned over to the Dean of Academic Integrity.

Turnitin.com

• All papers will be check by turnitin.com for plagiarism.  Turnitin generates a report after your paper is submitted and gives you a percentage of plagiarism.  This number does not need to be 0% but it is a problem is large portions of your text are taken word for word from an external source. 
  • Check your paper- If you submit your paper early you will be able to view your plagiarism report through the assignments page on sakai.  If there are any problems with it, fix it and then resubmit the paper BEFORE the deadline.  I will only read one file so be sure to put something in the title of your file (i.e. READTHISPAPER.doc) so I know which one to grade.