Semester 1: Developing Communication Skills
A) Listening comprehension, accessing the literature, referencing and plagiarism
In Welcome Week you will attend a Research Showcase talk. You will write a summary of this talk and email this summary to your Advisor prior to your first tutorial. The summary should be a maximum of 1 side of A4 using Arial 10pt font, 2.5cm margins, and 1.5 line spacing. Writing this summary will help you gain listening comprehension skills, which will improve your understanding of lecture content. Instructions for this assignment are available on the BIOL10000 Blackboard site.
By the end of week 3 you may have been on a library tour with your tutorial or PASS group, which will help get you started in finding different sources of information needed to complete the various assignments that form part of the tutorials. You will also receive guidance on the correct way to acknowledge (reference) the different sources of information that you use. Your Advisor will go through a tutorial activity on correct referencing and plagiarism.
Plagiarism is the use (theft) of someone else’s work without proper acknowledgement, presenting the material as if it were one’s own. Plagiarism is totally unacceptable in any form. Any first year student found to have plagiarised work will have to attend an interview with a panel of academic staff. The panel will determine a suitable penalty, which may include a mark of zero for the assignment or for the course unit. The penalties are increasingly severe in later years of the programme!
Early on in the semester you will do an exercise with your tutorial group on how to recognise and avoid plagiarism.
The Library’s My Learning Essentials training programme has an online resource that explains what plagiarism is and how to avoid it:
http://libassets.manchester.ac.uk/mle/avoiding-plagiarism/
The following links provide excellent resources with more information on plagiarism and how to avoid it, including self-test tutorials:
http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/index.html
http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/TLTC/learnhigher/Plagiarism/index.html
There is also further information on plagiarism in the appropriate section of your First Level Handbook and the University’s guidance document on plagiarism can be viewed at:
http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=2870
B) Essay writing
Success in every degree programme involves learning how to organise your thoughts and communicate an understanding of a topic. An essay is not simply a series of facts, but a structured presentation of a logical argument, backed up with evidence, to establish a point of view. Writing an essay therefore requires careful research and planning. In Semester 1 you will complete two essays (the second of which will be formally assessed), on topics selected by your Advisor and Programme Director. You will also take part in exercises that will enable you to distinguish good scientific writing from bad and to avoid plagiarism (see above). Appendix 2 of this Handbook provides guidelines on essay writing and should be used for guidance.
To aid in developing your writing skills, you are required to attend a Workshop session on essay writing presented in week 2. You should attend the session specified for your degree programme (listed below and on the BIOL10000 Blackboard site). You should bring a device capable of accessing the internet to the session so that you can register your attendance. You will not have a small group tutorial session in week 2, so your attendance at the Workshop will count towards your overall tutorial attendance, and the same rules to absences apply as for the rest of the tutorial programme. If the session allocated to your degree programme clashes with a language unit, you may attend the other session.
Workshop 1: Week 2 only, Wednesday 11am – noon, Roscoe Theatre A
for Anatomical Sci, Biomed Sci, Immunology, Life Sciences, Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Pharmacology & Physiology, Physiology, degree programmes, and any students attending BIOL10401 data handling clinic
Workshop 2: Week 2 only, Wednesday noon – 1pm, Roscoe Theatre A
for Biochem, Biology, Biology with S&S, Biotechnology, Cell Biol, Cog Neuro, Dev Biol, Genetics, Med Biochem, Microbiology, Molecular Biol, Plant Sci, Zoology degree programmes and all students enrolled in BIOL10381.
To facilitate your understanding of plagiarism and enable you to eliminate plagiarism from your own work, the assessed essay you complete in Semester 1 will be submitted through Blackboard and put through the University’s plagiarism detection software TurnItIn (TII). You will find the submission site and instructions for submitting your essay in the Assessments area of the Blackboard BIOL10000 unit. You may find this document useful for uploading your essay file:
Should you have any technical difficulties with uploading your file you should submit an eLearning enquiry through Blackboard (a tab can be found on the left hand side of the tutorial unit site) or contact the Student Support Office.
Your Advisor will give you instructions for the page length, margins, spacing and font size for your essay submission. The deadline for submission of the draft version is 4pm Thursday week 7 (9th November 2017). Once the draft essay submission deadline has passed, you will be able to see the plagiarism report on your essay. You should review the content of the plagiarism report and if necessary edit your essay to eliminate plagiarised material. Please save a pdf of your plagiarism report as your Advisor may wish to discuss it in tutorial. This activity will assist you in learning how the University checks for plagiarism, and gives you the opportunity to learn how to recognise plagiarism in your work in order to avoid it in the future.
The final version of the essay is due 4pm Thursday week 9 (23rd November 2017). The final version of your essay will also go through a plagiarism check but this will only be for staff use, and will be considered when your essay is marked. If you do not submit a draft of the essay in week 7 you may still submit a final version for assessment in week 9, but you will not be allowed to see the plagiarism report on your final version. Late submissions of the final essay will be penalised with a 10% mark deduction per day late.
Feedback on your final essay will be available in Week 12. You should save a copy of your feedback commments for use in future assignments. Your feedback will no longer be availalbe after week 2 of semester 2, so you are strongly recommended to view it before the end of week 2 of semester 2.
You may find this document useful for viewing your draft plagiarism report and your feedback for your final version of your essay file:
http://elwiki.ls.manchester.ac.uk/groups/elearning/wiki/10ef4/How_to_View_Feedback_in_TII.html
C) ‘Frontiers of Science’ lecture
The ‘Frontiers of Science’ lecture is a seminar given by a leading researcher from the Faculty, which you are expected to attend. The lecture is aimed at a general audience, so don’t worry if you know little about the subject before you attend.
The Frontiers of Science lecture is presented during week 3 of semester 1. There are two sessions, and the same lecture will be given at each session. You should attend the session allocated to your degree programme, unless you have a clash with a language unit, in which case you may attend the other session. You should contact your Programme Director if both sessions clash with your language units.
Prof Matthew Cobb: The Brave New World of CRISPR Gene Editing
Week 3, Wednesday noon – 1pm, Roscoe Theatre A
for Anatomical Sci, Biomed Sci, Cog Neuro, Immunology, Life Sciences, Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Pharmacology & Physiology, Physiology degree programmes
Week 3, Thursday 9am – 10am, University Place Theatre B
for Biochem, Biology, Biology with S&S, Biotechnology, Cell Biol, Dev Biol, Genetics, Med Biochem, Microbiology, Molecular Biol, Plant Sci, Zoology degree programmes, and any student attending the BIOL10401 data handling drop in clinic.
Following the lecture you should write a summary, of maximum one A4 page, describing the content of the talk. Instructions for this assignment are given on the BIOL10000 Blackboard site. This assignment should be uploaded to the assessments area of the BIOL10000 Blackboard site, to the assignment called Frontiers of Science Submission, by 4pm, Thursday week 4 (19th October 2017). Your advisor will provide feedback on your summary. This feedback is for your information, and will assist you in judging whether or not your listening comprehension skills are sufficient to allow you to take accurate notes in lectures. This assignment does not count towards the tutorial unit mark and you will not receive a numerical score on it.
D) Poster presentation
Scientists often present their work at conferences in the form of a poster to communicate key aspects of their work in a visually appealing and informative manner. Constructing a good poster is a challenging task. It should allow the viewer to understand the topic, without having to spend a long time sifting through details. It should also be eye-catching, to attract the attention of anyone passing.
In your tutorial group, towards the end of Semester 1, you will choose a topic for your poster in consultation with your Advisor. You will research the topic, design and prepare your poster for display at a Poster Event held for all first-year students in the School of Biological Sciences on Tuesday 12th December at 1:30 p.m. or 2:30 p.m. (Week 12). The session you should attend will be determined by your degree programme and further information will be available from your Advisor.
The poster session is a compulsory part of the Tutorial Unit and failure to attend will result in a 20% reduction in the mark awarded.