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All of the rules under the Rice Honor Code apply to BIOC 313. When you turn in an assignment, you must be able to make the statement, "On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment." This pledge applies to notebook entries, homework assignments, project proposal, final paper, and the journal club presentation.

You are encouraged to use resources available at Rice's Center for Written Oral and Visual Communication (CWOVC). Additionally, you are encouraged to meet with a CWOVC consultant for feedback about your presentations. However, you are NOT permitted to meet with a CWOVC consultant for help with any writing assignments for this course.  Please consult with me if you have any questions.

Laboratory Notebook (INDIVIDUAL Effort)

• Notebook pages that you turn in must be exact copies of the original page in your permanent notebook.  Making changes on the "copies" or the original notebook pages AFTER removing them from the notebook or leaving the lab is an honor code violation.
• All corrections must be indicated in the notebook when the mistakes are discovered, even if it's days or weeks after that particular entry was made; do not attempt to "line-up" the copy page under the original to make a correction.
• All notebook entries must be dated with the actual date; that is, you cannot "pre-date" or "post-date" pages to agree with a particular lab session.
• The notebook is a "real-time" record of the procedures, problems, and results that occur during lab; you are not allowed to come to lab with the protocols already written in your notebook.
• You may paraphrase from the protocols that you print from the course web site, but you must not enter the information word for word in your notebook. Document exactly what you did, including any mistakes, problems, setbacks, etc.
• Since you work as a team, you are expected to share "raw data" that is generated during lab.  However, you absolutely must not copy procedure details directly from another student's notebook! Communicate with your co-investigators and share the information by word of mouth to confirm what steps your team members carried out so that you may enter the information in your own words; include the name of the team member who performed the experiment as well as the page #'s in her/his notebook which contain the information.
• The notebook must contain evidence that you personally did the manipulations required to calculate all of the data presented.
• Although the notebooks will contain similar data, the presentation of this data and how it was obtained, as well as the objectives of each lab, experiment summaries, and conclusions, must be unique to each student.
• All notebook pages recorded DURING lab are due in your folder at the end of that lab session (i.e., you must turn them in BEFORE you leave lab).
• Do not remove notebook pages from your folder.

Brainstorming Document and Project Proposal (TEAM Efforts)

You will prepare a written brainstorming document and a project proposal for a novel genetic circuit. You have a great degree of flexibility as to how you prepare your work; each team's brainstorming document and proposal should be unique in organization and style.


• Each team must cooperatively create all text in the brainstorming document.
  Do not consult other teams as you prepare your document.
• Each team must cooperatively create all text, tables, graphs, and figures that are presented in the proposal. If you adapt a figure from a published paper or from the web, acknowledgement as to the source of the data is required. Do not consult other teams as you work on your proposal. The instructor needs to know your own understanding of the concepts in your own words. NEVER quote directly from ANY source, and never paraphrase or summarize someone else's interpretation.
• Do NOT share any form (electronic or hard copy) of any version of your assignments, with anyone.
  
• DO NOT LET ANYONE ELSE "CRITIQUE" OR "PROOFREAD" ANY FORM OF ANY VERSION OF YOUR WORK.

Homework assignments

Written reference material

• You may consult your notebook, the course web site, reference readings, textbooks, review articles, and primary sources (published research papers).
• You may NOT consult another student's lab notebook, project proposal, or PowerPoint presentation, from this year or from any previous year.
• You may not consult my comments on past presentations or notebooks. In fact, those comments may be inappropriate for the current lab.
• To protect yourself and others from possible plagiarism please do not allow anyone access to your notebook or computer files.