INTRODUCTION: Why write a research paper in a required course that is heavy in content - especially a chemistry course? Writing is an integral part of learning chemistry. Writing is also an essential tool to being a practicing chemist (whether in academia, industry or a contract lab). Being able to find, read, use and apply the literature of chemistry (inorganic or otherwise) is an essential skill. You have probably written a research paper (or research report) before. This will be an opportunity for you to refine the tools and skills which you have already have and to build on that collection by acquiring new skills.

The research project for this course will count approximately one third (1/3) of your grade and you will spend the entire semester working on it. You will participate in series of cooperative, active-learning activities as a part of this process. The activities are designed to help you become better acquainted with the resources (*print and electronic) of the Owen Library (and the Pitt library system), the methods of searching (using high-tech on-line and low-tech hard-copy methods) and the literature of inorganic chemistry. The obvious outcome is that you will be able to obtain more (relevant and up-to-date) reference material and write a higher quality research paper. The long term (less obvious) benefits will be that you can apply the skills that you will learn to your other courses, your research projects, your future graduate work, your jobs, etc. As a group you already have a very good collective knowledge of the library and library skills. The goal of the library activities is to build on this collective knowledge and distribute it among all of the class participants. To this end, cooperation and collaboration are essential. It is a win-win situation and everyone benefits in the processes! You will work in teams to complete the library exercises and will receive credit (points) for completing the activities in a timely fashion.

PROJECT OBJECTIVE:

• To provide students an opportunity to research a current topic of particular interest.
• To further acquaint students with the chemical literature including on-line data-base searching.
• To introduce students to skills of writing a scientific research paper and presenting a seminar, including:
  • Selecting a topic.
  • Searching the chemical literature.
  • Reviewing background material (including instrumental methods) in order to understand the topic fully.
  • Carefully selecting and narrowing the topic to a manageable size.
  • Organizing material to "tell a story."
  • Writing in good scientific style.
  • Documenting literature references.
  • Preparing graphical media and developing effective use of poster-board space.
• Developing oral and written communication skills.

1. Research a topic of interest and present a paper/presentation which tells an interesting but complete story about your topic.
2. Critically review a paper from the current literature of inorganic chemistry (no earlier than 2010!).
3. Perform a laboratory experiment that is of interest. You must also thoroughly research the background of the experiment. Your final report will contain an overview of the problem the experiment sets out to solve, the experimental procedure, your results and a discussion of your results (What can you conclude?).

You will select your topic from a recent article in Inorganic Chemistry.  Begin by reviewing the table of contents for the past six months to a year (12 to 24 issues) of Inorganic Chemistry.  You can do this on line (in the library, the student computing labs and your computer connected to ResNet).  Find three articles that interest you. Take advantage of the fact the the ToC has "pictures" relevant to the main topic of the paper.  They may be on three totally different topics or all three articles may be related. Carefully read the abstract.  Then read the "introduction" and "results and discussion" sections.  You may find it helpful to read the entire article, but at this point it's not critical.  Write a one paragraph summary of each article based on this read through.

Now you want to find more background on the subject.  As a first step locate the "lead references" for each article (these are the ones listed for the introduction).  Some will be more relevant than others; the abstracts will help you identify the relevant ones.  You will want to read these.

Next step is to do a literature search. There are two objectives here:

1. Find other articles on the same subject written by the authors of the paper(s) you have selected
2. See if other researchers have also cited these lead references or the papers you have selected.

For this you will use SciFinder or Science Citation Index on the Web of Science.  A careful review of the citation results will help you determine which additional papers you will need to study to expand your background on the subject(s). SciFinder is available on the computers in the UPJ Owen Library and the computers in the organic lab in E&S.

The lit search will help you narrow your topic -- to one of the three papers you selected originally.  Some of the additional references you collected will be very useful, others will not.  It's time to determine which subject interests you the most and begin a more focused review of the relevant literature.  Carefully read the journals articles which you determined to be relevant to your topic.  Using the procedures outlined in Beal and Trimbur write a summary of each article.

Use the summaries and your other research to guide you in writing a n outline for your paper

Use your summaries to write your rough draft.

• REFERENCE MATERIAL MAY INCLUDE: These general references may also be helpful in seeking good background material.
• Primary literature (ie - journal articles)
• Review Articles:
• Accounts of Chemical Research
• Progress in Inorganic Chemistry
• Chemistry Reviews
• Journal of Chemical Education
• Structure and Bonding
• Book chapters, Conferences Proceedings, etc.
• Other sources previously recommended.

This is a personal thing. Check the sample manuscript on reserve in the Library for an example of how to write a paper. Use the ACS Style Guide and the Instructions for authors found at the ACS web site as a starting point for designing your poster presentation. You will receive additional guidelines later in the term. You may wish to examine some examples of "good" and "bad" visuals and old student posters to gain an appreciation of how to best use this medium.

Include the following in both your written paper and the oral presentation:

• Introduction: Include some background material (Why was this research first attempted? What has been done previously? Why should this be novel?) Remember, you are the expert, your audience is composed of "informed laypersons." You want to provide them with the necessary background so that they will become as interested in the material as you are.
• Presentation of data/results: This will vary. If you chose to review a single paper, briefly describe the experiments and the results obtained. If you chose to look into a topic which interests you, describe evidence you found that substantiates or explains what you are after. If you have chosen to review a topic, present the current research that has taken place (the more recent, the better). If you chose to do an experiment, follow the style described in the Instructions for Authors for Inorganic Chemistry.
• Summary and Significance: Summarize what you have learned/presented. Ask yourself the following questions: What's important about this work? Why is this research important to the bigger picture of science? Why is it important to this team of researchers? What have I learned about this topic from preparing this paper/presentation? How good is the science? (Remember, not all science is good science. You are beginning to develop an awareness to appreciate this. Give this some thought as you begin to pull your references together.) Does the topic relate to the course material and how? Put your answers into a brief summary.

I will use the following criteria in evaluating your papers and presentations. I have divided the evaluation into three parts: Preparation, Content and Presentation. The effort put into the preparation of your project is as important a part of the research as the final project. You will receive a maximum of 60 points for meeting each of the deadlines. For each missed deadline (without a valid excuse) you will loose 10 points. Under content I am interested in your understanding of the material and the manner in which you organize the paper and presentation. This criteria will apply to both the paper and the poster presentation. The points will be distributed equally to each. Under presentation I am interested in how well you present the material (and yourself). Since one objective of the exercise is to gain experience in preparing and defending a poster-type presentation, one third of the total points will be assigned to "Presentation" alone. Total points: 265 .