Writing is a key skill for everyone. No scientific
investigation is complete until it becomes known to
the world. Scientists do this by writing papers and
publishing them. Too many important discoveries have
been ignored because the scientists did a poor job of
writing up the results, in ways that other people
could understand.
I will therefore assign a paper, over 1200 words
long, due on the last day of instruction. These
papers may be on any topic in contemporary or
historical astronomy, space exploration, or related
sciences. Since I take this so seriously, I
personally read and grade every one, so make them
good!
I want these papers to be well-thought-out, polished,
beautiful little gems, not big loads of ore. It will
help to focus on a specific topic. A 1200-word paper
titled "Stars" can't be very good; stars are complex,
and whole books have been written about them. A
1200-word paper on star formation would be a little
better, but still, star formation is a vast topic in
itself. More like it would be a 1200-word paper on
the youngest protostars (also called Class 0).
For ideas, see the text, including chapters we
haven't yet read, as well as current and back issues
of reputable popular magazines such as Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, Scientific American,
and New
Scientist. Articles in these magazines are
what your papers should be like.
Feel free to use the internet for research, too, but
be careful of what you use, since there's a great
deal of rubbish on the net. When using the web for
research, be sure as always to reference your
sources, by listing their web addresses, also called
URLs. Because everything on the web is subject to
change without notice, it is also essential to list
the date that appears on the page to indicate when it
was last updated. If no such date appears on the
page, list the version number appearing on the page.
If there is no version number, then list the date you
consulted the page. Information from one website on
different web addresses do not count as multiple
sources. Different web pages linked together as part
of one website count as only one source. Two
different articles on one website that are written by
different people does that count as one source or
two.
Having something to say in your paper is essential.
How you write it is also important: good content is
so much better if it's written in a way that's
clear and easy to understand. For hints on writing,
see The Elements of Style, by W. B. Strunk and
E. B. White. There is now an online
version, too. Read it from cover to cover twice
a year, for life!
A typed (or computer printed) paper title and short summary
(between 100 and 250 words) is due by email to Professor Ringwald by
11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, April 27.
It will be graded on a 3-point scale, with -1 points for
not being written at college level, and -1 points for not showing
evidence of preliminary research. This is a distinct and separate
assignment from the paper: one item turned in will not satisfy the
requirements for both assignments. Still, you are allowed to
change your topic after this if you discover something better: this is
something I like particularly about science. A list of example paper
topics is available online, at:
http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/psci21.paper.topics
Papers must be typed (or computer printed), double-spaced,on standard
8.5-inch x 11-inch paper with standard, one-inch margins. Use a
readable 12-point serif font such as Times or Computer Modern
Romannot Arial, Chicago, Helvetica, Monaco, or Geneva, which are
sans serif and hard to read in large doses. All papers must be in
English.
These papers must provide a list of at least
eight references, or works cited. Not doing
so can turn an "A" paper into a "C" paper, or worse.
If you want an A, there should be substantially more.
If you know how to use APA or MLA format to cite references, you may use
it. Whatever format you use, the format needs to work: it drives me
crazy whenever a student writes something so interesting I want to know
more about it, but the reference is so hard to follow, I can't look it
up. If you don't know how to use APA or MLA format, here is my own
example format for listing references:
For a journal article:
Ringwald, F. A., & Naylor, T. 2018, The Astronomical
Journal, volume 115, pp. 286-295,
"High-Speed Spectroscopy of a Cataclysmic Variable
Wind: BZ Camelopardalis"
For a web page:
Ringwald, F. A., 2018,
http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/comp2.3lis
"Composite-Spectrum and Related Stars That Are
Candidate Detached Post-Common-Envelope Binaries, v.
2.3" (March 29)
For a book chapter:
Ringwald, F. A. 2018, in the Third Conference on
Faint Blue Stars, edited by A. G. Davis Philip, J. W.
Liebert, R. A. Saffer, and D. S. Hayes (Schenectady,
New York: L. Davis Press), p. 425,
"PG 1002+506:
a Be Star at Z = +16 kpc"
For a book:
Warner, B. 2015, Cataclysmic Variable Stars
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press), p. 221
(Don't forget to include the specific page that
contains the information you used. It's too much to
expect your reader to wade through the entire book to
find what you mean.)
For a magazine article:
Ringwald, F. 2020, Astronomy, vol. 28, No. 6, p. 48
(June issue),
"The Sky Down Under"
Knowing how the references were used is also
important. You should therefore cite references in
the text, especially when making statements of fact
that aren't well-known or immediately obvious. Give
the author's name and the year of publication, so
your reader can easily match up the statements with
the references. Here are three different examples of
how to cite references in the text:
"Although doubt had been expressed in the past about
whether this approach was feasible (e.g., Smith
2013), the problem was solved by Horne (2014), and
described in detail by Warner (2015, p. 221)."
Here, Smith (2013) and Horne (2014) were journal
articles, but Warner (2015) was a book. Note that
with the case of Horne (2014), one can put the
author's name into the sentence, useful for
emphasizing that Horne did this work.
You need not use this exact format for citing
references, but do use a format precise enough so
that I can look the references up myself. I get
frustrated whenever a student writes something
interesting, but gives a reference that's so
imprecise, I can't find out more about it!
Other tips on writing:
- Don't write about feelings. Some high
school teachers encourage students to do this, but
college students need to go beyond this. Write with
facts, they speak more convincingly than feelings.
- Avoid gratuitous opinion. If you can
substantiate an opinion logically, fine, that's what
it's all about. If you can't, you really should,
since even the most ignorant people have opinions.
Back up your claims with evidence!
Opinions are like children: anyone can have them, but
you may keep them only if you support them. Remember:
this is supposed to be a scientific paper,
not an opinion piece.
I will admit that, to enliven my classes, I sometimes
do inject opinions and value judgmentssuch as my
opinion that total solar eclipses are amazing
phenomena that everyone should see, at least once.
There is a big difference between spoken and written
communication, however. Avoid opinion when you
write: stick to the facts.
- Thoughtful students may wonder whether my
insistence on logic, facts, evidence, composition,
and style "inhibits creativity." The answer is
no: no more so than the format of the minuet
inhibited Mozart, or the form of the sonnet stifled
Shakespeare. The truth is, when given well-defined
sets of rules, creativity does well. Few
things help creativity better than a firm deadline.
Your imagination and originality are greatly
encouraged, and will be rewarded. They must be
disciplined, though. Get your facts right, and
explain carefully and clearly: Why do you think what
you think?
- Do not confuse the following:
"It's" is the contraction of "it is."
"Its" is the possessive of "it," as with "hers" or
"his."
This error may be common, but it drives me wild, and
can be bad for your grade.
- Clichés are words or phrases that are
over-used, often thoughtlessly. Avoid clichés
like the plague, they're old hat and hard to swallow
in this day and age, and don't hold water when you
should be thinking outside the box. (See how trite
they sound?)
- Avoid hype, it makes me vomit. Seriously:
science is about truth, remember?
- Use the word "unique" sparingly. Unique
specifically means one-of-a-kind. It's therefore
never necessary to write "very unique."
- Use the word "interesting" sparingly. It
smacks of opinion. Anything can be interesting to a
nerd.
- Use the word "awesome" sparingly. The Grand
Canyon is awesome. Your new bicycle is not, even if
it cost $10,000.
- Words loaded with value judgements, such as
"amazing" or "wonderful," should be used sparingly.
If you must use them, remember that "amazing"
specifically means able to amaze. "Wonderful"
specifically means able to inspire wonder. As
Michael Faraday said: "Nothing is too wonderful to be
true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature."
- Don't write "very important," unless what
you're describing is worthy of a Nobel Prize. Use
"important" sparingly. Avoid using "very." (Mark
Twain wrote that instead of "very," you should write
"damn." Your editor should remove every instance of
this, and your writing will become as it should be.)
- Avoid writing in the first person ("I," "me,"
"mine," or "we") or the second person ("you,"
"yours"). Academic writing is more formal than the
average email message. This doesn't mean that your
writing must be stuffy or boring. Write in a way that
seems natural to you, but avoid slang,
colloquialisms, and clichés.
- Avoid using the following words or phrases:
"very," "nice," "good", "bad," "I/me/my," "you,"
"big," "a lot," "fact that," "hopefully."
- Omit needless words. Omit needless words.
Omit needless words.
(See The Elements of
Style, by Strunk and White.)
- Avoid putting a numeral at the beginning of a
sentence, since it makes the sentence confusing. For
example, don't write this: "94% of the students who
took this course in Fall 2000 passed." Instead, write
this: "Ninety-four percent of the students who took
this course in Fall 2000 passed." Another way is:
"Of the students who took this course in 2000 Fall,
94% passed." Although it is allowable to write out
numerals at the beginning of sentences, it is not
allowable to write out any numeral greater than 10 in
any other context. Doing so solely in order to
increase the word count can be bad for a student's
grade.
- The names of Earth and other planets, such as
Mars or Venus, should be capitalized, since they're
places. Some older references do not capitalize
"Earth": they should be informed that we're living in
the Space Age. The "Solar System" should be
capitalized, since it is a proper name, but "solar
systems" in general (more properly, stellar systems,
or extrasolar planetary systems) are not. "The Sun"
should be capitalized, but "sunlight," "sunrise," and
"solar energy" are not. "The Moon" should be
capitalized only when referring to the Earth's Moon,
but not for any of the many other moons of the
planets (which more properly should be called
satellites). Again, "moonlight" and "moonrise" are
not capitalized. "Galaxy" should be capitalized only
when referring to our own Milky Way Galaxy (often
called just "The Galaxy"), or as part of the proper
name of another galaxy (e.g., The Great Galaxy in
Andromeda, also called M31). "Universe" should be
capitalized, because it is a place; "universal," when
used to mean general or ubiquitous, should not.
- Italicize the names of spacecraft, such as
Hubble Space Telescope or Chandra X-ray
Observatory, or missions, such as Apollo
15.
- The plural of "phenomenon" is "phenomena."
This also holds with other Latin words, such as nova
(novae) and spectrum (spectra).
- Avoid sexism. In the 1960s, it was "manned"
spaceflight; it's now called human spaceflight.
"Unmanned" spacecraft are no longer called that:
they're now called robotic spacecraft, or space
probes, or robots. Sputnik was the first artificial
satellite, not the first "man-made" satellite. It's
not "mankind," it's "humankind," or better,
"humanity." Avoid exclusive use of male pronouns: if
Shakespeare could use "they" in the singular, so can
you. Be natural: for example, "To boldy split
infinitives where no one has gone before..."
- The word "internet" used to be capitalized,
even if it wasn't the first word of a sentence. It no
longer is. Internet should therefore be written
thusly: internet.
- Do not write papers about Stonehenge,
there is a great deal of unreliable information about
it. Beware in particular of the book Stonehenge
Decoded, by Gerald Hawkins. It over-interprets the
data with its claim that Stonehenge was used to
predict eclipses. Stonehenge was certainly used for
astronomy, but it was never that accurate.
- Do not write papers about the Drake
Equation or the Fermi Paradox, there is a class
exercise about both of these.
- The course texts may be used as references,
but they don't count as the eight required
references. Research should mean doing some reading
on your own.
- Encarta, Wikipedia, dictionary.com, or any
other kind of encyclopedia or dictionary do not count
as the eight required references. Avoid using
encyclopedias: college work requires more detailed,
and expert, sources. Do not use Wikipedia:
it's so unreliable and misleading, it's less than
useless.
- Proofread carefully, to spot missing words,
jumbled sentences, or other ill effects of writing
with a computer.
- Always run a spelling check! Not doing so
makes you look sloppy.
(It is not called a
"spell check," it's a spelling check. I don't know
what a "spell check" is: it sounds to me like
software used by witches, to make sure they've cast
the correct spells.)
This is how the papers will be graded:
- F = This paper was handed in late, or it
was not typed (or computer printed), and so will not
be counted. Any paper meriting a D because of
content (see below) that is also full of composition
errors, with five or more per page, will get an F.
Papers that are plagiarized, either fully on in part,
will earn an F for the entire PSci 21 course.
- D = This paper showed a basic lack of
understanding of what science is about. Examples of
this include not knowing the difference between
astrology and astronomy, making claims without
providing evidence, providing dishonest evidence,
being an opinion piece only with no attempt at
research or reporting evidence, or being unrelated to
contemporary or historical astronomy or space
exploration (e.g. papers about the Green Revolution
or shock absorbers in cars: but then, preventing
papers like this is one reason for the assignment on
paper titles and summaries), or any papers about
Stonehenge, the Drake Equation, or the Fermi Paradox
(see above). Additionally, and regardless of
content, any paper that has more than ten composition
errors per page, or was clearly too short, will get a
D.
- C = This paper was full of errors in
spelling, grammar, or style (as described by The
Elements of Style, by W. Strunk and E. B. White),
with 5-9 such errors per page, or was factually
incorrect otherwise poorly researched, or was
otherwise an A paper but lacked a reference list.
- B = This paper contained more than two errors
in spelling, grammar, or style per page, or it was
was skimpily and begrudging researched, with barely
more than the minimum references.
- A = This paper was well written and well
researched, and was a real pleasure to read because I
learned something from it. Papers like this are
almost never written the night before they are due.
They are the result of a great deal of careful
thought and preparation. There will be no A+, A-,
B+, B-, C+, C-, D+, or D- grades.
For more on how papers are graded, see the
California State University, Fresno General Education
Writing Rubric.