You will hand in a proposal at Bamfield. Do you want to do something exciting but aren't sure if it can be done? What if it needs special equipment? Then think about this BEFORE Bamfield. In order to organize your thoughts, write a PRE-PROPOSAL and send it to us.
The purposes of the pre-proposal are 1. to allow us to evaluate if your project idea is feasible/give us the opportunity to give you preliminary feedback; and 2. to make sure we bring the needed equipment and consumables to Bamfield. The pre-proposal should be a 1 page document that outlines the following (bullet points preferred):
- TENTATIVE PROJECT TITLE + PEOPLE
- WHAT: 1-3 sentence/bullet point description of what the project is about
- WHY: 1-3 sentence/bullet point description of why the project is useful/interesting/worthwhile doing
- WHERE & WHEN: proposed site(s) for measurements; special needs with respect to sampling time (i.e. high or low tide, day or night)
- HOW: proposed sampling & analysis plan : how many stations? how are they distributed in space/time? what measurements at each station? what sampling depths (if applicable)? what analysis is to be done in the labs at Bamfield? what analysis is to be done at UBC
- WHO: student name or names (if a group project)
- EQUIPMENT/CONSUMABLE NEEDS: a list of instruments/equipment and consumables required
An excellent example of a pre-proposal from a previous year can be found here.
Please send your pre-proposal to the Instructors at least one week before we leave for Bamfield.
Sampling Exercise Write-up ("Group Data Report") Guidelines
During the first three days at Bamfield, students will learn about various sampling techniques in all the disciplines of biological, chemical and physical oceanography while taking some useful data. A summary of these activities and exercises will be written up. This write-up should be 2 or 3 pages in length (not including figures) for each discipline (biology, chemistry and physics), and will include:
- A brief statement of the day's objectives and the means by which they were carried out. E.g. "The objective for Feb 17th was to acquire CTD data from a transect beginning at Bamfield and moving up Grappler and Bamfield Inlets. A large seagoing ferry was used which unfortunately ran aground repeatedly. A heavy swell was present so data from the first few meters is suspect".
- A summary of your data collection. Include locations (lat/long), times, dates, weather info, sea state, personnel, vessels involved, and relevant comments for all stations. This should be in the form of a table.
- A summary of the results of the days observations (do some science!). For example, describe the variation of temperature with depth and location for CTD data, or the species observed in net tows. Plot your profiles, describe your species...and then write a few paragraphs explaining what is there.
Please hand in a HARD COPY which will be marked, and email in a PDF which will be archived.
An excellent example of a write-up from a previous year can be found here.
Research Proposal Guidelines
1) A research proposal will have to be submitted on WEDNESDAY during the week at Bamfield.
2) A proposal should answer the questions "Who/What/Why/When/Where, and How" (W5H):
- WHAT: is the question you want to address?
- WHY: do you (or indeed would anyone) care about this problem?
- WHERE: do you want to take data from (a map of stations is helpful here), and where will the analysis be done (relevant if you are doing things in a particular lab at UBC)?
- WHEN: do you want to take your data? Also you should estimate how long it will take to take the required data, e.g. in terms of available ship resources, time on station, lab time, etc. DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH DATA TO ANSWER THE QUESTION?
- HOW: the data is going to be collected and analyzed. You can assume that the people reading your proposal know how standard data is collected routinely. You will want to give specific, non-standard details - e.g. the sampling depths and intervals. In addition indicate the tools (physical or mathematical) you will use to analyse the collected data.
- WHO: are the personnel (later, who will be doing what)?
There are two ways of writing a proposal:
- "Traditional" - Your proposal should have:
- a Title and Authors
- an Abstract (a short summary of the proposal),
- an Introduction (with background and a statement of the problem),
- a Methods section (detailing the fieldwork requires and the analysis plans),
- Figures (probably only a map of station locations).
- "Modern" - you can use the What/Why/Where/When/How/Who headings to organize things.
but even if you use the traditional style, make sure you address ALL of W5H!
3) This should be NO MORE than 2 pages of text in length, with an (optional) figure showing sampling locations. We won't read more than 2 pages.
4) Research proposals can be individual, group, or joint proposals (a joint proposal is one written by an individual or group that is somehow linked to a separate proposal written by other individuals or groups). The contribution of each individual in a multi-person proposal should be clearly outlined.
5) Some things to keep in mind:
- Think about the audience. Typically only one (or maybe no) members of a granting committee are experts in your field, although they are trained scientists. A proposal full of dense jargon is usually not a good idea.
- Keep in mind that proposed work, even when funded, often turns into something quite different. Your final report shouldn't be too different than the original proposal, but it doesn't have to be exactly the same either. The first problems will arise on Wednesday evening when we try to schedule all the fieldwork - you may not get everything you want. Think about fallbacks - what is the MINIMUM amount of data you need. What would be nice to have?
- If you can use data from the exercises of previous days (whether it is yours or belongs to others) then do so if at all possible, but you should also propose collecting more data of some kind.
- Feel free to consult with any of the staff about any questions while writing your proposal.
- Write the abstract last, or at least make sure that things IN the abstract are IN the proposal.
An excellent example of a proposal in the traditional style from a previous year can be found here.
An excellent example of a proposal in the modern style from a previous year can be found here.
Conference Talk Guidelines
SEE THE DETAILED GUIDELINES FOR ORAL PRESENTATION PREPARATION AND DELIVERY. SEE ALSO THE ORAL PRESENTATION EVALUATION CRITERIA.
At the end of term we will have a "conference" at which everyone will present a 10 minute talk on their results.
This procedure is standard for conferences:
- A "call for papers" is issued. E.g. 2020 Bamfield Field School Conference. Submissions relating to problems arising from and related to the 2019 EOSC field schools at Bamfield Marine Station are being solicited. Abstract submission deadline: 23:59 PDT, Tuesday March 24 2020.
- Before the session deadline, each participant submits the title, author(s) of their talk, abstract, as well as their preferred scheduling (date in this case).
- Session organizers (the course Instructors here) then organize the abstracts in some fashion that makes sense, and publish a schedule. You may get your preferred scheduling, or you may not.
- At the appointed time, you stand up and give your presentation. You will have 8 minutes (+2 minute for questions) and will be cut off if you go over. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T GO OVER YOUR ALLOTTED TIME - it is a shame to have to leave off the conclusions.
A talk should contain the following parts (and you will be marked accordingly).
- a title slide
- a statement of the problem and a discussion of the rationale for studying this problem
- a brief summary of the methods
- a discussion of the results
- some conclusions and (possibly) ideas about future work.
Some tips:
- for a 10 minute "talk" plan on talking for only 8 minutes (for a 15 minute "talk" plan on talking only for 12 minutes), thus leaving time for questions at the end. The only way to know how to do this is.... practice... practice... practice. If you are lying in bed awake, go over your talk. If you are on the bus...practice your talk (to yourself or anyone who will listen). Roughly speaking about 1 overhead or data slide per minute is about right, but complicated slides can take more time to explain.
- try to relate your work to that of others (e.g. "if you examine my data slide in relation to this profile of temperature obtained by so-and-so, you will see that...").
- when writing the talk, try to anticipate possible questions (i.e., think to yourself "If I say XXX then someone is sure to wonder YYY so how do I prevent this").
- figures:
- should be legible (especially graph axes). Use pretty large font sizes - larger than you would use for a figure in a paper. When showing a figure, explain what the axes represent (nothing worse that seeing a plot flash by in 10 seconds accompanied by "this figures shows XXX").
- should be easily understood - if you have to use legends, make them BIG. Colour is also good.
- should illustrate the points being made. Don't be afraid to redraw a figure to emphasize the points you want.
Marking will be based on:
- timing of the talk (not too long or too short)
- completeness (does it contain all the parts listed above)
- quality of the figures (legibility, ease of understanding, do they illustrate the points being made?)
- quality of the presentation (was the speaker articulate, could we hear them?)
Notice that marking is NOT based on having final definitive results - but you should have SOMETHING to talk about.
Finally, talks MUST be given by individuals - "group" presentations will NOT be allowed. This does not mean you cannot have "multiple-author" talks - it just means that for any one talk a single person is responsible for presenting everything. If you are working in a group and are unsure how to do - ask. Generally speaking any project can be broken up into smaller sub-projects. For example, if two people A and B are working with a single dataset one person can give a self-contained talk on the methodology and its advantages/disadvantages (e.g. "Pitfalls in measuring estuarine depths", by A and B), and the other a self-contained talk that discusses implications of the results (e.g. "Estuarine depths and their relationship to the phase of the moon", by B and A).
SEE THE FINAL PAPER GUIDELINES and RESEARCH PAPER GRADING RUBRIC (in pdf).
SEE ALSO THE UBC WRITING COACHING AND TUTORIAL SERVICE.
The final paper will be written up in the style of a journal article. You may follow the style of any journal that you feel is an appropriate place for your work. After you choose a journal get a copy of their "information for contributors''. These instructions are usually in the first issue of each volume, and outline such things as the arrangement of sections, style to be used for references, and so forth. Many journals are now available in electronic form via the UBC library. Instructions are sometimes found on the journal web pages as well. If you have problems after reading the instructions come and see one of us. When you hand in your paper you must also had in a copy of the "instructions''. Note that we will permit one deviation from the instructions: the request that the figures in a paper follow the text (a remnant of days when the paper would be physically split apart and text sent to a typesetter, figures to a photographer). Feel free to include your figures "in line".
In order to make sure that you aren't going wrong we suggest that you to hand in a rough draft of the paper some time before the final version is due. The rough draft need not be complete (in particular, if you have not finished analyzing your data, the Results and Discussion sections may be somewhat skimpy), but you should briefly outline what must still be done. The more you have in your draft the more useful our feedback will be. The more useful our feedback the higher quality your work, the higher quality the work the better the mark.
Both the draft and the final paper should be handed in via the Insturctors' mailbox in the EOSC main office by 3pm on the due date. A PDF of the final version should ALSO be emailed to the professors. Marked drafts should be available within a couple of days.
Things to note:
- SI units should be used.
- The length of the paper is up to you. Be concise but thorough. It's unlikely you will need to have more than 8 figures at most.
- The paper must be typed and double spaced.
- The Title Page should have a title, author's name and student number, and a date.
- The Abstract should be concise and complete in itself without reference to the body. It should NOT repeat anything that is stated in the title, since these two sections always appear together and are consequently considered a unit. It should summarize the observations and conclusions of the paper.
- The paper should have the following sections, each with its own section heading: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion or Conclusions, and References. Sometimes these are broken up into other sections; check "your'' journal to see how people do this. Subheadings sometimes help.
- Avoid the use of "I'', e.g. use "It was found that...'' rather than "I found...''
- Always include a map of the study site and the sampling locations used.
- The Introduction should include a description of the problem and the hypothesis you are testing. In other words, do not assume your reader has seen the research proposal. This section should also include a literature search and a brief review of your topic.
- If appropriate, include tables giving the raw data collected (this applies primarily to results of bottle, net, and bottom samples). However, be aware that presenting tables is a mind-numbingly dull way of showing data, and it is unlikely your audience will spend more than a minimal time assimilating info in a table - MAKE A FIGURE instead.
- Figures should be "publication quality'' - avoid freehand drawing. You should spend a lot of time on your figures - indeed, one way of writing a paper is to first get the figures together, and then describe them.
- In general, marks will be assigned partly on form, that is, how well can you adhere to a "scientific'' style, and partly on content, that is, do the words make scientific sense.
- References must be referred to in the text.
A helpful article about the 5 pivotal paragraphs in a paper from the Editor in Chief for Global Ecology and Biogeography can be found here.
A journal article that serves as a good example of the format and scope of what we have in mind can be found here.