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Honor Code Policy for Experimental Molecular Biology
Please carefully read over the following policy before
beginning work on your lab notebook and poster.
If you are in doubt then ask the Instructor, NOT fellow
students.
***NOTE: Policy for my other courses may differ***
All of the rules under the Rice Honor Code apply to BIOC
413. 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 and the scientific poster.
You are encouraged to use resources available at
Rice's Center for Written Oral
and Visual Communication; 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 (TEAM 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. 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.
- 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 until after they
have been graded.
Poster preparation (TEAM Effort)
- You will present your findings in a Scientific Poster.
You have a great degree of flexibility as to how you prepare
your work; each team's poster should be unique in organization
and style.
- The major restriction is that EACH
TEAM must individually create all text, tables, graphs,
and figures that are presented in the poster AND draw their
own conclusions.
You must write each section of the poster entirely on your
own. The Instructor needs to know your own understanding of
the concepts in your own words. NEVER quote directly from ANY
source, and never paraphrase someone else's interpretation.
- Discuss strategies for data preparation and
interpretation ONLY with the other members of your TEAM.
- DO NOT LET ANYONE ELSE "PROOFREAD" YOUR POSTER.
- RAW data may be exchanged freely among CURRENT class participants, including photographs or photocopies of original gels.
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 or poster,
from this year or from any previous year.
- You may not consult my comments on past posters 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.
Copyright, Acknowledgements, and Intended
Use
Created by B. Beason (bbeason@rice.edu), Rice University, 9 June 1999
Updated 6 September 2012