Student Research Projects         Off-Campus Research    Research Guidelines for Students Literature Citation        Writing a Scientific Paper

Research Opportunities are provided in most departments.   Students majoring in biology, chemistry and computer information systems are required to complete a research problem.  Credit is 1-3 hours and is designated as "Dept." 485. 

Examples of  Student Research Projects in biology from 1996 and 1997 include the following:
        Habitat Relationships Among Benthos Freshwater Invertebrates
        The Effects of Caffeine on Hydra Regeneration
        A Comparison of Coliform Bacteria Concentration Upstream and Downstream
        A Comparison of Glass and Tympanic Thermometers
        The Effects of Vegetation Complexity on Bird Species Diversity
        Correlation Between Tree Density and Bird Species Diversity
        The Effects of Varied Periods of Stretch on the Work Done by the Frog
                Gastrochnemius
        The Effect of Chromaslim on the Weight Gain of Mice
        The Effects of Clotrimazole and Byutaconazole Nitrate on Candida albicans
        The Acute Effects of Caffeine on Heart Rate and Blood Pressure in Female
        The Effects of Ibuprofen on the Heart Rate in Rana pipiens
        Antioxidant Properties of Melatonin on Paramecium Culture
        The Effects of Direct Current on the Development of Root Tissue of Bryophyllum
        Creatine Monophosphate:  Its Effects on Frog Skeletal Muscel Contraction
        The Effects of Nutmeg on Aranea sericata's Silk Production and Web Pattern
        Mutagenic Effects of Mestinon in Combination with DEET in Drosophila
                melanogaster
        The Effects of capsaicin on Staphylococcus aureus

 College StudentsOff-Campus Research can also be done; these
                    have included the following:
        University of  Missouri -- National Science Foundation Summer Research
                Fellowship for Women in Science (3)

        University of Missouri -- National Science Foundation Summer Research (3)

        University of Missouri -- Physiology, student research done under the direction of                            faculty (2)

        Continental Cement -- analytical chemistry (3)

        Argonne National Laboratory -- Science and Engineering Research Semester (1)

Research Guidelines for Students
Your BASIC STRATEGY should be:
1.Make sure that you are clear as to the broad objective/s of your project.
2.Begin seeking and reading relevant literature, particularly with regard to
techniques for achieving your objectives.
3.Familiarise yourself with the organism/s and/or habitats with which you
are to work.
4.Make decisions about methods to be used, equipment needed, timescales
involved and any resources needed. Also, decide on how you are to keep
records of literature, etc during the course of the project so that when you
have to write them up, your task is minimised.
5.At this point, I will discuss your plans with you to ensure their
practicality, etc. So you will need an outline plan of your campaign for
me to consider at this point (about week 2 if possible).
6.Set yourself weekly goals to achieve and examine at the end of each week
how you have progressed and what, if any, problems you encountered.
Write these out in your practical book for me to examine (I will do this
randomly during the year to see how well you are doing)
7.If you encounter a difficulty, your procedure should be: try to sort it
out by yourself first - if it is difficult, however, come and discuss it with me
or my staff (we will first ask what you have done to try to sort it yourself).
Don't let problems delay you unnecessarily, however, and don't be afraid
to seek assistance quickly. The more independent you are, the better from
the point of view of reporting on your work, but NOT if you go astray and
fail to achieve objectives through trying to be too independent.
8.Writing up should begin in about week 6 of the second term but at all
times you should keep work properly analysed. Don't do a piece of work
and them store it away unanalysed - it might have important consequences
for any subsequent work. Complete things as you go and that can include
drawing up tables and graphics during the work so that writing is easier at
the end.
9.Remember that the writing up and verbal reporting of your project is an
important component of the exercise. How good is your english? Do you
express yourself concisely? If you use a wordprocessor, make use of
spelling and thesaurus facilities and some have built-in grammar checkers -
these are far from perfect in their application but writing a short segment of
text and then analysing it is, in my experience, very enlightening. Try to
develop your writing capabilities during the year: don't wait until the time
to write up your project!!

Allan Jones, Dundee

                          
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