In today's world, many societal, ethical, and political issues seem to be more contentious and complicated than ever before. We as citizens are being asked to voice our opinions on matters that we may be ill prepared to analyze. Many of today's issues are directly or indirectly related to the activities of microorganisms. In this assignment, you will identify such an issue, determine the two sides of the issue, collect a minimum of 20 relevant articles, books, or web sites, then write a short paper summarizing the debate. Below are the directions for completing this assignment.

STEP 1 IDENTIFY AN ISSUE OF INTEREST TO YOU. I will give you tremendous latitude in this choice. However, the issue must be one of significance, having local, regional, national, or international impact. Below is a list of suggested issues. You are not limited to this list, so feel free to identify your own issue.

STEP 2 WRITE AN ISSUE STATEMENT. State the issue in one terse paragraph. In this paragraph, clearly indicate the two sides of the issue and identify the major parties in the debate.

STEP 3 SEE THE INSTRUCTOR. She will read your issue statement and modify or refine it if necessary so that the assignment can be done in the time allotted.

STEP 4 PREPARE THE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. Use the full range of library information sources to identify a minimum of 20 articles, books or web sites relevant to your issue. For each resource present the full citation: author, title, journal, volume, page, etc. Each citation should also include a short statement (2 - 3 sentences) summarizing why the article, book, or web site is relevant and important to your issue.

STEP 5 WRITE A SUMMARY PAPER. This paper should be typewritten, double-spaced, and approximately 2 - 3 pages in length; it will be returned if it is handwritten. It should summarize the main arguments on each side of the chosen issue. It should also evaluate the evidence used by each side and reach a conclusion as to the strength of the arguments made.

STEP 6 TURN IN THE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON TIME. Late bibliographies will not be accepted.

GRADING This assignment will be graded using the attached score sheet. Submit the score sheet with the bibliography and summary paper. If the paper is plagiarized, it will be returned, ungraded.

___ Completeness of Bibliography (9 Points) ^a

Signed Issue Statement Attached	Number of Citations	Reader Can Locate All Documents in Library or WWW	Summary Statement for Each Document Is Included
Yes (1)b ___ No (0)___	20 (3)___ 15-19 (2)___ Less than 14 (1)__	Always (3)___ Usually (2)___ Rarely (1)___ Never (0)___	1 statement / citation (2)___ 1-5 citations lack summary statement (1)___ More than 6 citations lack summary statement (0)___

a Number of possible points.
b The numbers in parentheses indicate the mastery level.

To Score:

• If there are at least 15 citations then sum the mastery levels and record that number as the points earned.
• If there are 14 or fewer citations, sum the mastery levels and then multiply the total by 0.5. Record that number as the points earned.

___Quality of Bibliography (14 Points)

Documents Are Pertinent to Issue	Documents Are from Unbiased Sources	Balance of Pro/Con Documents		Documents Are Up-to-Date (less than 10 years old)	Documents Are from Reputable Sources of Scientific Information
All (3)___ Most (2)___ Many are not (1)___ None (0)___ _______	All (3)___ Most (2)___ Many are not (1)___ None (0)___	About 50:50 (including documents that present both sides) (4)___ Majority of documents argue for the same side of the issue (2)___		Most are (2)___ Many are not (1)___ None (0)___	Many (2)___ Few (1)___ None (0)___

^{To Score:}

• If there are at least 15 citations then sum the mastery level and record that number as the points earned.
• If there are less than 14 citations, sum the mastery level and then multiply the total by 0.5. Record that number as the points earned.
• If none of the documents are pertinent to the issue, the score is 0 for this component of the project

   

___Quality of Summary Paper (13 Points)

Clearly States Major Arguments for Each Side	Accurately States Major Arguments for Each Side	Demonstrates Thoughtful Evaluation of Arguments Made by Each Side		Makes Statement of Relative Strength of Arguments Using Knowledge Gained in Course	Uses Language That Can Be Understood by Non-Scientist
Yes (3) ___ Somewhat vague or unclear (2)___ Difficult to understand (1)___ _______	Yes (3)___ Some inaccuracies (2)___ Many inaccuracies (1)___	Yes (3)___ Good try (2)___ Major confusion about arguments (1)___ No attempt to evaluate (0)___		Yes (2)___ No (0)___	Usually (2)___ Infrequently (1)___ Never (0)___

To Score:

• Sum the mastery levels and record that number as the points earned.
• Score 0 points if the summary paper is not done.

___Quality of Writing (14 points)

Overall Organization	Paragraph Structure	Sentence Structure		Proofreading & Editing	Scientific Names Are Written Properly
Overall presentation is logical and the main theses of the paper are easily understood (3) ___ Some organization problems, but the main theses of the paper are easily understood (2)___ Organization is so poor that the main theses of the paper are difficult to understand (1)___	Consistently good paragraph structure is observed (2)___ Poorly constructed paragraphs are frequently observed (1)___	Grammatical errors are rare (3)___ Grammatical errors are relatively common, but do not significantly impact readers ability to understand meaning of sentence (2)___ Grammatical errors are so serious and/or frequent that understanding sentences is difficult (1)___		No typos and spelling errors (3)___ Some typos and spelling errors (2)___ Many typos and spelling errors (1)___	Always (3)___ Usually (2)___ Rarely (1)___ Never (0)___

To Score: Sum the mastery levels and record the total as the points earned