Semester 1: Developing Communication Skills

Introduction

In Welcome Week you will attend a Research Showcase talk. Listening to this talk and writing notes during the talk will help you gain listening comprehension skills and gain an insight into how you might take notes to improve your understanding of lecture content.

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 Academic Tutor and material covered in BIOL10741 ( see below) will cover 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

 

• 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 an essay on a topic selected by your Academic Tutor 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 plenary sessions (see further details below) on:

(i) Assessment Literacy: Understanding Assessments at University

(ii) How to Write an Essay

(iii) Frontiers in Science

(iv) Communicating to Different Audiences

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:

http://elwiki.ls.manchester.ac.uk/groups/elearning/wiki/7ee2a/Uploading_Your_Essay_%28vi  a_Blackboard_and_Turn-It-In%29.html

Should you have any technical difficulties 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 Academic Tutor 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 (8th November 2018). 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 Academic Tutor may wish to discuss it in a 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 (22nd November 2018).

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 9 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. The final essay will receive feedback and a pass/fail mark.  Late (if not approved by the Student Support Office) or none submission or the final essay will receive a Fail. Feedback on your final essay will be available in Week 12. You should save a copy of your feedback comments for consideration when submitting your second tutorial essay in semester 2 and for other future assignments.

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

 

• ‘Frontiers of Science’ Plenary Lecture Summary

 

The ‘Frontiers of Science’ Plenary lecture (see details below)  is given by a leading researcher from the Faculty and is aimed at a general audience, so don’t worry if you know little about the subject before you attend.

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 submitted to your Academic Tutor by 4pm, Thursday week 4 (18th October 2018) and they will provide feedback on this 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.

 

• 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 Academic 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 11th 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 Academic Tutor.

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.