Programme Aims and Objectives

The aims of the programme are:

  • to attract and nurture high calibre students and prepare them for continuing research in industry or academia by providing them with laboratory experience, a comprehensive set of practical research skills, and professional, transferable skills that will be vital for their future professional development;
  • to meet the needs of universities and industrial employers by supplying high calibre graduates with a proven commitment to research, coupled with a broad base of practical research skills, general transferable skills and laboratory experience;
  • to enable students to make an informed decision about their personal suitability and motivation for a research career.

The objectives of the programme are fulfilled because on graduation you will:

  • have acquired a comprehensive set of practical Research Skills in your chosen areas of interest, including the ability to identify and analyse problems, design a series of experiments to test hypotheses, and to analyse and present results and conclusions,
  • have acquired a broad set of transferable skills to help prepare your for the workplace – these will include oral and written communication skills,   time management, group skills and leadership,
  • have direct experience and understanding of different research environments,
  • have acquired critical skills in reading scientific documents and responding to the research of others,
  • have acquired the ability to plan and organise an in depth piece of scientific writing which sets a coherent description of the work undertaken, including timeliness, relevance, methodology, and a discussion of the findings.
  • have acquired the ability to summarise the scientific content of a research paper or research presentation.
  • have acquired the ability to write in a scientific style according to given formats e.g. a published paper or an oral presentation
  • have acquired a high level of library and IT skills, including the ability to use a range of reference tools to search and retrieve information.

Academic Advisement

MSc Biochemistry, MRes Biological Sciences, MSc Cancer Research and Molecular Biomedicine, MSc Cell Biology, MSc Developmental Biology, MRes Integrative Biology, MSc Plant Sciences, MSc Neuroscience                                           

Course List 1 – Mandatory must take 14 from 14
Core Compulsory Taught Units
BIOL60210 Tutorial and Workshop unit (15 credits)
BIOL60330 Scientific Communication (15 credits)
BIOL65161 Statistics and Experimental Design (15 credits)Core Compulsory Research Units
BIOL60231 Research Placement 1 (65 credits)
BIOL60232 Research Placement 2 (70 credits)Graduate Training Programme
BIOL60311 Communication Skills (0 credits)
BIOL72020 PGT Advisor Meeting 1 (0 credits)
BIOL72060 PGT Advisor Meeting 2 (0 credits)
BIOL72140 PGT Advisor Meeting 3 (0 credits)
BIOL72210 PGT Advisor Meeting 4 (0 credits)
BIOL85440 PGT ALP (0 credits)
BIOL12000 Health & Safety online course (0 credits)		 > Academic
Requirement 1Mandatory 180 credits		 > REQUIREMENT
GROUPTotal 180 credits

Programme Structure

Core Compulsory Taught Units Credits
BIOL65161 Statistics and Experimental Design 15 September to December Taught
BIOL60210 Tutorial and Workshop unit 15 October to August Taught
BIOL60330 Scientific Communication 15 October to August Taught
Core Compulsory Research Units Credits
BIOL60231 Research Placement 1 65 October-March Research
BIOL60232 Research Placement 2 70 April-September Research
Total credits required for Masters 180
Total credits required for PG Diploma (exit award) 120

It is a requirement to pass BIOL65161, with a pass mark of 70%, but the actual mark will not be used to calculate the taught average.

Key Dates

Important dates relating to your programme can be found on the timeline here. Your timeline should be your first point of reference and you should ensure you manage your time effectively. Please note that as a postgraduate student you do not have the same semester dates as an undergraduate student. This means that you are expected to be in the lab, or in private study, throughout the month of January as long as the University is open. As a student on an MRes/MSc programme, the majority of your time will be spent in the lab (see below) however there are other activities that will also take place. If you have to spend any time out of the lab you should inform your supervisor.

In addition, as part of your MRes/MSc, you will be required to attend seminars and tutorials that will not necessarily have a structured timetable. The timeline below is a list of each week of the year. In some weeks you will not have any timetabled activities however you are expected to be working either in the lab or in private study writing up your project report. An extension to the deadline for submitting a piece of work may be obtained based on a valid reason, only if such a request is made prior to the deadline.

This unit is split into two sessions, Statistics and then Experimental Design. This unit will run throughout semester 1. The dates and times of these sessions are on your timeline.BIOL65161- Statistics and Experimental Design

BIOL60210-Tutorial & Workshop unit

This unit runs from October until August. The Bioethics Tutorial is timetabled to take place in October (please see your timeline). You are also required to attend 2 group tutorials which should be organised with the academic staff member who is leading the tutorial. There are deadlines for the completions of the tutorials. Tutorial 1 should have taken place by Week 30. Tutorial 2 should have taken place by Week 45.

BIOL60330 Scientific Communication is based on the Faculty Seminar Series. The timetable for this unit is dependent on when the seminars run. Your Programme Director will communicate dates of what seminars to attend and when. This unit usually runs from January through until April however this can vary depending on the seminar series. This unit also includes oral presentation and poster sessions, details of which can be found in the timetable below.

BIOL60231 Research Placement 1 – see timeline for dates.

BIOL60232 Research Placement 2 – see timeline for dates.

Further information on each course unit can be found on the individual course unit specifications.

Timetable

The MRes timeline can be found here.

Programme specific progression rules

In accordance with the University’s credit rating for Masters degrees, the MRes/MSc degree comprises 180 credits. You will receive percentage marks for all assessed components of the course, and except for BIOL65161, each will contribute to your final degree mark based on their credit rating. The Board of Examiners meet in May and November. Members of the Examination Board normally include your unit coordinators, programme directors and external examiners from another university. The Board of Examiners will review all the results anonymously and make decisions on the award of credit and who can be referred in exams/ assessment or gain compensation. It is also the role of the Board of Examiners to decide who cannot continue and will leave the University with an exit award.

Participation in research placement 2 of the MRes/MSc programme can only be undertaken once the criteria noted below have been met and approved at the first examiners’ meeting in May (in practice students will have started research placement 2 by the date of this meeting). The progression rules are as follows:

  • Achieve mark of at least 50% in the first research project report
  • Achieve a mark of at least 40% for the research skills element of the first research placement
  • Achieve an overall average of 50% in the taught compulsory units that have been completed
  • Satisfactorily attend and complete any other compulsory element.

A student who fails the first research project report may be permitted to resubmit the project on one further occasion subject to approval by the Board of Examiners. The maximum mark to be awarded for a resubmitted project will be 40%, unless the previous mark was within the compensation zone, in which case the original mark will stand

If a student fails to achieve a pass mark in their resubmitted project, the student will normally be invited to submit for a PG Diploma. If achievements do not meet the minimum criteria the student will normally be excluded from the programme.

The information below outlines the taught and research units on your programme:

Taught Units:

BIOL65161 Statistics and Experimental Design

BIOL60210 Tutorial and Workshop module

BIOL60330 Science Communication

Research Units:

BIOL60231 Research Placement 1

BIOL60232 Research Placement 2

MRes Research Placements

Your MRes/MSc degree requires students to complete two research placements. The duration of each of the research placements is ~18 weeks each. Note that the placements will run alongside other units, so you should expect to spend 4 – 4 1/2 days in the lab. The placements will be in laboratories within the Faculty of Life Sciences.

How to select your research projects and how to get started

In the first week your Programme Director will give you a list of potential research projects. When choosing potential supervisors that you would be interested in undertaking the research project with, you should read recent research papers published by the lab and other relevant papers. You may wish to arrange to meet individual supervisors, but this is not essential. It is not necessary to learn each subject area in detail but it is important to have some knowledge of the research topics.

When you have decided which research placements are of interest to you, you should rank your top four in order of interest (1=top choice) and submit your list to your programme director. Your programme director will then allocate projects, to best fit all the students’ interests.

Once your research project placement has been confirmed, make sure that you:

  • Arrange a time when you can meet with the supervisor either on the first day of your placement or very soon after. You will have to complete an online form to confirm this meeting has taken place.
  • Have regular meetings with your supervisor.
  • Discuss with your supervisor a timetable of progress (i.e. what he/she expects you to achieve and when)
  • Leave time at the end of the placement period to write up your report.
  • Discuss the draft of the report with your supervisor before you start writing.
  • Give your supervisor a complete draft before you hand it in.

Restrictions on the choice of research placement:

We aim to provide you with the widest choice of research placements. However, the following restrictions apply:

  • Students who have performed an undergraduate project in the Faculty of Life Sciences cannot return to those labs for placements 1 or 2.
  • Some placements will involve working with animals. In order to participate in these you must register for the Home Office training course (optional for all students) that takes place in October. Details can be obtained from your PGT Advisor.

Health and safety

In most laboratories, you will come across potential hazards.  To minimise the risks to yourself and others you must complete a lab induction form with your supervisor at the start of the first lab placement and forward it on to the Student Support Office. Laboratory coats must be worn in laboratory areas. Project work must be carried out according to the particular guidelines for that piece of work or project in the laboratory in which the project is undertaken.  Any accidents occurring in laboratories should be immediately reported to your lab supervisor.

Out of hours working

You may need to work out of hours on occasion in the evening or at weekends. If this is the case you should first consult your supervisor since any out of hours working occurs at their discretion. In addition you should make sure that you have signed appropriate risk assessment forms.

Project Reports

Work done in each of the laboratory placements is written into a project report, each of which contributes directly to your degree by providing a weighted contribution to the overall percentage mark for the degree.

General guidelines for writing an MRes/MSc project report.

One aim of your degree is to provide you with training in communicating your work in writing. An essential skill is to be able to describe your work concisely to both an expert and broader readership. Your project reports should be based broadly on the format for journal publications and you are advised to look closely at how these are laid out, picking the standard journal of your field. The project report gives you the opportunity to clearly summarise and explain your results independent of if they are positive or negative. You should then use the discussion to demonstrate that you can put your results in the scientific context of current literature in the area. This is a report about your research and not a general literature review.

You should expect some help from your supervisor in writing the report, in the form of one set of comments on a compete draft. You should provide your supervisor with adequate notice when submitting your draft project report since they have many calls on their time. You will find it helps to prepare figures and to work on aspects of your report during the lab rotation, rather than waiting for the rotation to end before you start writing.

Keep in mind that an aim of the MRes/MSc degree is to provide research training. It should be clear to the examiners what training the research placement has provided. The project reports are short and the examiners will know that the students are unlikely to produce a finished piece of work or to have accumulated large quantities of data. There should, however, be a clear demonstration that new skills have been acquired.

It is important to remember that one of your markers will not be closely aware of your projects. It is therefore important to provide clear and concise write-ups. Given that projects will vary in the number and size of figures/images, the fairest and most consistent method to standardise the length is to impose a word limit. This is also excellent preparation for scientific writing; most journals impose strict and exacting word limits.  The word limit for the project report is 10,000 words.

Detailed Format of the Project Reports

Format

  • Project Reports should be submitted via Blackboard (details will be forwarded to students nearer the time). It is the student’s responsibility to check that the document uploaded to Blackboard does not undergo any formatting changes or corruption.
  • The Project Reports should be typed double spaced. Font should be Arial 11 point, except where specialised fonts are required.
  • A word count excludes the tables of contents, bibliography, glossaries, appendices, tables, figures and figure legends.

The final word count, including footnotes and endnotes, must be inserted at the bottom of the contents page. (Please note that there are penalties for exceeding the word limit of 10,000 words).

Introduction and aims: This section should provide information about the background to the project. The main aim of the Introduction is to inform the reader of why the area of research is important, and how the project contributes to the research field. This section should end with one or two paragraphs that clearly state the overall aims of the project (e.g. what hypothesis will be tested?) and the key objectives (e.g. what reagents will be generated?, what experiments will be performed?). The Introduction should be self-contained and should not require the reader to access additional material in order to understand it. Neither should it be a leisurely review of the field. It should be limited to around 6-8 pages of typescript. The referencing of reviews to cover large areas of literature is appropriate. However, research that is directly relevant to the project should be referenced in full as primary research papers. The use of figures to illustrate concepts or previous work is encouraged. It is best that figures are originals. Where unavoidable (e.g. for micrographs), figures may be copied or adapted from journals, in which case they must be cited in full within the legend.

In summary, it is important to identify in the Introduction:

  • The research topic or area;
  • The question or questions being addressed, and why they are important;
  • The purpose of the project. In most cases, the project should seek to test a hypothesis, or at least to generate reagents that should allow the testing of a hypothesis. Some projects may be more observational, in which case it is important to identify how these observations will be utilised to advance the field.
  • The aims of the work: what did you try to do, how would the experiments allow you to test the hypothesis?

Materials and Methods:   This should provide a description of the experimental systems and designs employed to obtain data, the materials used (including suppliers), and the methods of data and statistical analysis. Detail should be sufficient for others to repeat the work and to demonstrate that the student has understood the methods used. The key here is to appreciate which methodologies require detailed descriptions and which standard procedures can be dealt with quickly by referencing previous publications or manufacturers’ instructions:

  • There is no need to describe at length many standard laboratory procedures. For example, cell culture could be described by: “HeLa cells were grown in a 5% CO2environment, in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS and containing penicillin (x U/ml) and streptomycin (x U/ml).” Methods of cell splitting etc. need not be referred to unless they are intrinsic to the design of experiments.
  • Many standard protocols use kits (protein assays, mutagenesis kits, in vitro translation kits). These can be described by identifying the kit and stating that methods were followed according to the manufacturer’s instructions (with details of any modifications or specific information, such as the amount of radioactivity used for a translation, or the amount of DNA used for a transfection).
  • The amount of detail also depends on the context. For example, transient transfections can be dealt with briefly by naming the kit, stating the DNA/cell ratio and stating how long after transfection were cells used for the experiment. The raising of stable cell lines will require more significant detail; selection basis, strategy for selecting clones etc. PCR reactions normally require no more description than the primer, polymerase, reaction cycle details but should be described at length if they are central to a project (quantitation of message, identification of polymorphisms etc.). Standard cloning strategies (digests, ligations, transformation) need only a brief description that identifies reagents and method (eg. electroporation/heat shock), but should include more detail if methodologies were adapted to overcome technical difficulties or if esoteric strategies were used.

Results : A detailed description of the results and findings. These should not endlessly restate the aims of the project but should provide sufficient information to allow the reader to ascertain the aim of each experiment/method development and what the result was. The reader should be able to do this without getting bogged down in details. Tables and Figures should be self-contained with appropriately detailed legends and it should normally not be necessary to describe every aspect of the table/figure in the text. There may however be occasions when you want to draw the reader to specific components of the Table/Figure (for example, ” note differences between columns X and Y in Table II”, or “note the asterisked bands in lane 6 of Figure 4” etc). The results are often best divided into sections, each with a theme. The text should be supported with figures and tables. These should be placed in the appropriate position within the main body of the report, i.e. immediately following the first reference to each table or figure, and not all put at the end of the report. Unless there are special reasons, do not present the same data in more than one form. Tables should be numbered consecutively. They must have an informative heading and an explanatory legend. These should make the general meaning comprehensible without reference to the text. Consider the layout carefully so the significance of the data can be grasped readily. Statistics should be quoted where appropriate. Units in which the results are expressed should be given at the top of each column. Figures should also be numbered consecutively and should contain appropriate headings, annotations and legends. Do not make the figures over complicated by presenting too many sets of data. On graphs, each line should have a separate symbol and error bars should be shown where appropriate. Gel lanes should be easily identified from the annotations. Micrographs should include scale bars.

Discussion : The Discussion should not be a paraphrasing of the results and is normally headed only by a brief summary of your findings. The Discussion should consist of a logical flow of arguments and reasoning that explains and expands upon the results in simple English, and identifies their relevance to published findings. You will be expected here to refer mainly to primary papers in the literature. The Discussion also provides an opportunity for you to defend your conclusions, identify how experiments could have been improved upon, and to discuss how the project might develop given more time.

Acknowledgements: You may wish to acknowledge the people who have helped you in your project.

References: References must be cited in full (all author names and initials, date, title, journal, volume, pages). References can be cited in the text either by author and date (e.g. Smith, 1996 or Smith and Brown, 1980 or Smith et al., 1990) or by numbering e.g. (34). You are encouraged to use a referencing software package such as Endnote or Reference Manager.

Appendices etc : Appendices are useful ways to include supplementary data (e.g. DNA sequences) without breaking the flow of the dissertation. Abbreviations should be listed on a separate page, preferably after the Table of Contents. Terms that are abbreviated should be used 3 or more times in the text. They should be written in full the first time they are used, followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis.

Seminars in the Scientific Communications unit

It is recognised that an essential part of being a successful research scientist is the ability to give clear and interesting presentations, and likewise, to be able to assimilate new information presented in the form of a seminar. In the seminars students will acquire the ability to listen to a presentation, understand the key concepts and record important details, and then summarise its contents in a brief written report. The seminars also encourage students to develop the ability to critically assess the scientific merit of other scientists’ work.

The Faculty of Life Sciences seminar programmes provide an excellent and unique teaching opportunity at postgraduate level. The seminar programme you are required to attend for assessment depends on the type degree you are studying. You will be informed of the seminars you are required to attend in semester 1.

Students are required to attend all of the seminars in their designated seminar series. The seminars are assessed as follows:

  • Each student is required to write four assignments that are based on four different seminars.
  • Each written assignment should be a 500 word précis of a seminar attended by the student.
  • All four assignments are marked and the best three marks are used for the assessment.

Conduct in Seminars

Students should be aware that it is not appropriate to record or film seminars without the permission of the speaker.

Guidelines for preparing a precis

The precis of the seminar should be no longer than 500 words, excluding the title, name and affiliation of the speaker. Please be aware that any precis that exceeds the word limit will be penalised by a deduction of 10% for every 50 words over the limit or part thereof.   Therefore a précis with 501 to 550 words will get a 10% reduction, a précis with 551-600 words will get a 20% reduction etc. The percent reduction is calculated from the maximum achievable mark, i.e. 100. So for example a 10% reduction will decrease a mark of 60 to a mark of 50.The précis should be typed in Arial 11pt with 1.5 line spacing.

The précis should describe the key questions addressed by the speaker, summarise the findings described and their importance as explained by the speaker in the talk. You are not expected to read other publications for the writing of the précis. Additional papers or work should not be cited.

Points to should consider when attending the seminars and preparing your precis:

  • You will need to listen and take good notes during a seminar as this will form the basis of your précis
  • You may find it helpful to first write an ‘outline’ or list of bullet points based on the notes you took during the seminar, then expand this outline into an extended written draft, and finally condense this draft into an accurate and succinct summary of the seminar.

The précis should be a technical summary of the seminar you attended and as such should provide a detailed and accurate description of the research presented in the seminar. The structure of précis should also reflect the flow of the speaker. It is important that your assignment includes the following points but only if they were covered in the presentation:

  • A brief description of the background to the work, summarising its importance; only one or two sentences of background are required.
  • An explanation of the concepts behind the research and the biological problem it sought to answer.
  • The hypothesis. Did the speaker explain what her/his hypothesis was? Was this hypothesis-driven research?
  • A description of how the speaker approached the problem, giving technical details of the experimental techniques and procedures that were employed in the research.
  • A review of the results of the work and how successful the approaches proved to be.
  • The conclusions that were drawn).
  • The relevance. Did the seminar topic have relevance to other areas of biological sciences?

It is important that the précis should comprise a logical series of arguments and statements. It is inappropriate to list the major findings without describing the importance and relevance of these findings. Your précis should be exclusively based on the presentation of the speaker and not on any other reading you might have done.

Examples of a seminar precis are available on Blackboard.

Deadline for submitting a precis

The précis should be submitted to Blackboard no later than 2 working days after the seminar before 4pm. This is important so that you can receive feedback on your précis before the next seminar you have to write up. If a précis is submitted late, a mark of 0 will be applied. Students will not be allowed to re-submit. You can expect to receive your marked précis 10 working days from the date of submission or sooner if the next précis falls within this time frame.  Students should ensure that a valid reason for late submission is given to the Student Support Office BEFORE THE DEADLINE.

Tutorials and Bioethics Workshop

General information

Students are required to prepare a group oral presentation following the Bioethics workshop and typically for each tutorial.  It is the responsibility of each student to prepare high quality PowerPoint slides for the tutorials. As a group students should be prepared ahead of time. Any requirements such as a computer should be discussed with the Advisor before the tutorial session.  Do not turn up at the seminar room or staff member’s office with a memory stick and expect a computer to be available.

General guidelines for a successful tutorial:

  • It is the duty of all students to be active participants in the tutorials. They should have an overall understanding of the topic of the tutorial plus a detailed understanding of at least one sub-area of interest.
  • Each group member produces relevant overheads/PowerPoint slides that are legible and aid discussion of the topic.
  • Group communication is essential. Everyone in the group should participate.
  • The subject matter should be of interest to the students to promote self-learning.
  • The research topic should ideally be multidisciplinary.

Format of written assignments for Tutorials and the Bioethics Workshop

The length of the assignments should be a maximum of 1500 words. The assignment should be typed in Arial 11pt with 1.5 line spacing.

The assignments are marked according to quality and clarity of thought and not on volume. However, unnecessarily brief assignments that lack content might be expected to attract a poor mark. Students are encouraged to write a structured report which can be judged by the criteria listed below. The report should include:

  1. a cover page with title and word count;
  2. an abstract (150 words maximum), which summaries the content of the assignment;
  3. sub-sections that demonstrate understanding of the various aspects of the research topic, including a discussion of the paper(s) in the context of the field and indications of how the work might be relevant to related fields;
  4. a short conclusion that summarises the contribution of the paper(s);
  5. tables, figures, diagrams and references should be included if they help to explain the topic. The reference list is not included in the word count.

Deadline for submission of written assignments

The written assignments should be submitted to Blackboard no later than ONE week after the tutorial. Late submissions are not acceptable so will be awarded a mark of 0.

Bioethics workshop

Students will attend a Bioethics Workshop, which begins with a compulsory introductory session.

All students are required to attend the first (introductory) session of the Bioethics Workshop. Attendance will be monitored at the beginning of the session. Any late arrival or absence will need to be justified in a meeting with your PGT advisor. Prior to this session, you will be given some relevant material that should be read before attending the session.  At the introductory session, you will receive information about bioethics, as well as instructions for the second session, the Bioethics tutorial, which will require students to give a group oral presentation.

The Bioethics tutorial will be given in advisor groups. The time and venue for this tutorial will be arranged by your PGT Advisor, but typically will occur one week after the introductory session.  At the tutorial, students are required to give one logical presentation that covers aspects of the workshop and the papers that were discussed. Each student should present some of the slides but avoid repetition. Therefore, students must meet as a group before the tutorial to organise what each student in the group will present.

It is expected that the tutorial will be driven by the students with the Advisor acting as a facilitator.  The Advisor will award individual marks for the tutorial based on the marking scheme, which is available on Blackboard.  The mark will consider the student’s understanding of the topic and ability to discuss the issues.  Students also write an individual 1500 word essay and submit a copy via Blackboard one week after the tutorial.  The Advisor marks the essay and inputs the marks into Blackboard within 2 weeks of the submission deadline.  Students will be informed of the marks via Blackboard.

Guidelines for Writing the Bioethics Workshop written assignment

The aim of the Bioethics Workshop is to increase students’ awareness of ethical issues that may be raised by scientific advances. The written assignment should: provide a background to the research topic that you have been assigned and an account of the ethical issues that are currently associated with that topic; assess whether the current direction of research is acceptable; consider how the ethical issues may change with further advances in this field; and assess the relevance of the ethical issues raised to other fields of research. Each student should provide a discussion of all the issues addressed during the tutorial but can put an emphasis on, the material that they presented. The assignments should aim to discuss the ethical issues in the context of the field, and should not be limited to a review. Important points to bear in mind are that:

  • the background information should account for no more than one-third of the report, with the majority (two-thirds) dedicated to the bioethics discussion
  • the report should present an overall balanced discussion of the all the issues, although students are encouraged to put forward their own viewpoint towards the end.

Tutorials

Students are given tutorials in their advisor groups. Students within each group will attend 2 tutorials as well as a Bioethics Workshop. The purpose of the tutorials is for you to critically discuss research papers relating to cutting-edge biological techniques. The tutorials will be will be delivered by PGT Advisors.

The PGT advisor will distribute one or two research papers, relevant to the broad subject area, that will form the basis of the tutorial.  The Advisor will inform students of the date, time and venue of the tutorial at this stage (dates in the timetable are given as a guide only).  The tutorial will involve a critical discussion of the paper and/or individual presentations.  Therefore, it is necessary for the students to meet as a group prior to the tutorial to discuss the paper or organise the group presentation, as appropriate. This may involve the students dividing the subject into subtopics, with each student researching at least one subtopic independently.

The tutorial is largely driven by the students, with the Advisor acting as a facilitator.  The Advisor will award individual marks for the tutorial based on the marking scheme, which is available on Blackboard.  The mark will consider the student’s ability to discuss the paper and comment on it.  Students also write an individual 1500 word essay and submit a copy via Blackboard one week after the tutorial.  The Advisor marks the essay and inputs the marks into Blackboard within 2 weeks of the submission deadline.  Students will be informed of the marks via Blackboard.

Guidelines for writing a tutorial written assignment

The aim of the tutorial unit is to enable students to assess the impact of research paper(s) on the field of interest. The written assignment should provide a background to the scientific area, an account of the main issues that are addressed by the paper(s), and an assessment of the quality/importance of the paper(s). Each student should provide a discussion of all the issues addressed during the tutorial, and should not limit their write-ups to the material that they presented. The assignments should aim to discuss the paper(s) in the context of the field, and should not be limited to a review.

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