Short Papers:
Two short paper are required of all students presenting summaries of scientific journal articles listing the critical points made. Articles must be approved by Prof. D. Summary papers must be accompanied by the articles. Papers should be the equivalent of approximately 2-3 pages typed, double-spaced, plus references in a standard bibliographic format, and any figures.
Information from articles other than the article being reviewed must be cited in the body of the paper and listed in a bibliography at the end of the paper.
The articles that you select must present new data or analysis to attempt to answer a question or solve a problem.
Sources of Articles
I have been compiling an extensive listing of articles in many areas of the Earth sciences, including plate tectonics. These can be found via the Library Resources link. Articles relevant to this course can be found not only in the Plate Tectonics page, but also Historical Geology, Geochemistry, and probably a few in other pages as well. Scroll down the pages looking for titles of interest, or use the Find function of your web browser to search for keywords in the titles.
Not all of the listed articles present new data. Some are news, opinion, or review articles. They are not appropriate for this assignment.
Most of the articles listed are from the scientific journals, Nature, Science, and Geology. All of these can be found in the Periodicals Room downstairs in the C.W.P. Library. They also have websites: Nature (www.nature.com), Science (www.sciencemag.org), and Geology (www.geosociety.org go to www.geosociety.org/pubs/chooser.htm)
Additional sources can be found through the Library Resources page.
Organization
Organization is key in this or any paper. The information must be presented in an orderly fashion. Outline your paper before you start to write it. Do not simply summarize the articles paragraph by paragraph or section by section. Determine what the key ingredients of the paper before you start to write. Then write it in your own words - no paraphrasing, quoting, or copying.
As discussed in class your paper must :
Citing your Sources
In any formal paper, you must cite the sources of all information except that which is common knowledge. In Science writing, you cite (acknowledge) your source in the text and give the full bibliographic listing at the end of the paper. You must use a standard citation and bibliography style. These can be found in a style manual (ask the librarian) or in scientific journals (follow their style).
Following is a sample using a common citation style. After that are a few bibliographic listings in a standard format.
Introduction (*)
Hotspots stand among the most tantalizing realizations of the plate tectonic revolution. During the 1960's and 1970's it became evident that the active ends of volcanic island and seamount chains in the Pacific and elsewhere lie above deep-seated sources of hot rising mantle material (Wilson, 1963; 1965). Moreover, Morgan (1971, 1972) boldly proposed that mantle plumes are fixed relative to one another and therefore constitute a fixed mantle reference frame. From this fixed reference frame the "absolute" motions of lithospheric plates might be measured (e.g., Gordon and Jurdy, 1986; Yan and Kroenke, 1993). However, the presumed deep-seated origin of hotspots combined with convection of the mantle seem to rule out fixity as a general property of hotspots (Duncan and Richards, 1991). In this paper we examine the question of hotspot fixity, specifically the relative fixity of Indo-Atlantic versus Pacific hotspots, by testing the global plate circuit through Antarctica.
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Acton, G.D., and R.G. Gordon, A 65 Ma palaeomagnetic pole for the Pacific plate from the skewness of magnetic anomalies 27r-31, Geophysical Journal International, 106, 407-420, 1991.
Duncan, R.A., and M.A. Richards, Hotspots, mantle plumes, flood basalts, and true polar wander, Review of Geophysics, 29, 31-50, 1991.
Ford, A.B., and P.J. Barrett, Basement rocks of the south-central Ross Sea, Site 270, DSDP Leg 28, in D.E. Hayes, L.A. Frakes, et al., eds., Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project 28, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 861-868, 1975.
Wilson, J.T., A possible origin of the Hawaiian Island, Canadian Journal of Physics, 41, 863-868, 1963.
* Note, text should be double spaced
** Note, the first line of each entry should be flush left; suceeding lines should be indented; references should be single spaced and there should not be a double space between entries
Bibliography Format
This is the format of the examples above. This is one common reference style.
journal:
authors (first author’s last name first; second, third, etc. authors with initials first), title of article (in sentence case), name of journal, journal volume (name and volume both underlined or in italics), pages, year of publication.
Entries are separated by comas, with a final period.
article or chapter in a book:
authors (first author’s last name first; second, third, etc. authors with initials first), title of article (in sentence case), editors names, name of book underlined or in italics, publisher, city (the closest city listed on publication page), pages, year of publication.
Entries are separated by comas, with a final period.
book:
authors (first author’s last name first; second, third, etc. authors with initials first), name of book (underlined or in italics), publisher, city (the closest city listed on publication page), number of pages, year of publication.
Entries are separated by comas, with a final period.