Your review paper should include the following sections: 1. Introduction - This part should provide background and explain why the topic is important or of interest. It should also set up a current question or issue to be addressed in the discussion. There should be substantial depth here beyond the lecture notes and textbook from class, but it should be written so that anyone in the class can understand it. It should draw on a diversity of the available literature. 2. Discussion - This is the logical, organized presentation of the current critical issue(s) in the topic. It should address and give the most current answers (if known) to the key question(s) posed in the introduction. As in the introduction, this section should be based on recent literature. It also may include substantial discussion of controversies found in the literature. Remember to include the scientific names of every species the first time it is mentioned in the research proposal. Scientific names should be italicized. 3. Summary - This brief section should recap the key points or conclusions. It should also state which side of the controversy you think is best supported (if appropriate) and where future research in this topic should go. 4. Literature Cited – Include all of the references cited in your research proposal. Each paper listed here should be referenced in your paper, and each reference in your paper should be listed in this section. See below for detailed instructions on citing references. While writing your research proposal, you should consider your intended audience to be your fellow students (i.e. someone with a general knowledge of biology, but no specific expertise in the field of vertebrate natural history or in the topic about which you are writing). Please be careful to avoid plagiarism by providing citations to credit all of the information you are using. Don’t cut-and-paste directly from original sources into your document. You must cite all information gathered from your sources, whether or not the information is presented as a direct quotation. In the body of the research proposal you must use parenthetical notation (author's name and date) next to the information you have gleaned from that paper. Below are a few ways to construct a citation within the text. Direct quotes from a source should be avoided when possible (paraphrasing in your own words is preferable), but if you do use a direct quote, note that it should be put within quotation marks. Also note that "et al." is used when there are more than two authors for a citation and that multiple citations are listed alphabetically. Birds interact with invasive plants in many ways (Reichard et al., 2001). Invasive plants can affect avian habitat use by altering the physical structure of habitats (Beissinger et al., 1982; Green et al., 1989). Parrish (1997) found that fecal sampling is a useful method for determining dietary preferences of frugivorous birds. According to Stutchbury and Morton (2001), anthropogenic habitat modification will have a greater impact on avian biodiversity in the tropics than in the temperate zones. “Increasing vegetative cover in urban areas may increase the number of bird species, support larger populations of insectivores, and perhaps create suitable habitat for some ground nesters” (Beissinger and Osborne, 1982). In the literature cited section, list all citations alphabetically by author. Do not include papers not cited in the text, even if you read them. If you used a chapter from an edited volume, the name of the chapter’s author is cited, not the name of the editor of the book. The following examples are for journal articles, a chapter from an edited book, and a book. Please ask me if you have questions about sources that don’t fall into any of those categories. Most of the literature you cite will probably be available online. I don’t expect you to send me copies of the literature you use as separate files, but please include live links to online literature, as shown in the citations below. Please ask me if you have questions about inserting links. Single-author article Parrish, J. D. 1997. Patterns of frugivory and energetic condition in nearctic landbirds during autumn migration. The Condor 99: 681-697. View article Two-author article Beissinger, S. R., and D. R. Osborne. 1982. Effects of urbanization on avian community organization. The Condor 84: 75-83. View article Multiple-author article (three or more authors) Green, R. J., Catterall, C. P., and D. N. Jones. 1989. Foraging and other behavior of birds in subtropical and temperate suburban habitats. The Emu 89: 216-222. Senner, N. R., Hochachka, W. M., Fox, J. W., and V. Afanasyev. 2014. An exception to the rule: carry-over effects do not accumulate in a long-distance migratory bird. PLoS One 9: e86588. Chapter in edited volume Reichard, S. H., Chalker-Scott, L., and S. Buchanan. 2001. Interactions among nonnative plants and birds. pp. 179-223 in Marzluff, J. M., Bowman, R., and R. Donnelly. (eds.). Avian Ecology and Conservation in an Urbanizing World. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Boston, Massachusetts. Book Stutchbury, B. J. M., and E. S. Morton. 2001. Behavioral Ecology of Tropical Birds. Academic Press. San Diego, California. Website National Park Service. 2014. Wolf restoration continued. Available at http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wolfrest.htm (accessed September 2014). It is increasingly easy to find and access scientific literature. There are publicly available online search engines such as Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/). Many journal databases, such as Biosis and Science Direct, are available to you through the Mary & John Gray Library at Lamar University (http://biblos.lamar.edu/dblogin.htm). Remember that almost any journal article can be obtained through interlibrary loan. Please see me if you don’t know how to use interlibrary loan. Note that once you’ve found an article or two, the best (and easiest) resource for finding other, related articles, is to use the Literature Cited sections in the first articles that you’ve found.