Instructions for Blog Posting

During the semester you will write 2 blog posts.  The first must be posted by 2/6, and the second must be posted by 3/12.  Your two graded blog posts will be short articles that you write about a primary research paper that you have read.  You will write them in the form of the of a Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/) news post.  To do this, find a peer-review scientific article.  This article has to have been published in either 2014 or 2015, and has to relate to ecology or evolution.  My suggestion for places to look for good articles would be:  PLOS, Current Biology, Science, Nature, Behavioral Ecology, Evolution, Ecology, or PNAS.  Check out my video for tips on how to find these articles:  http://relayfiles.njit.edu/wisner/Faculty%20-%20For%20Modules/MP4%20with%20Smart%20Player%20%28Large%29/BlogPost_-_20150109_162520_15.html.  Once you find the article you want to use, read it, then read it again.  Really try to understand what the article is about.  Then start writing.  You want to write a 300 - 700 word article about the research article that could be understood by a general audience.  You can include graphics in your post if you would like, but it is not required.  A good example article can be found here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140924144939.htm.  Make sure to include a title (this should be different than the title of the research article), your write-up of the article, and then a citation at the end.  The citation should be listed in the format used for the journal Ecology (Note: this is the same citation format you will use in lab).  For a journal article it should look like this:
Morin, P. A., J. J. Moore, R. Chakraborty, L. Jin, J. Goodall, and D. S. Woodruff. 1994. Kin selection, social 
structure, gene flow, and the evolution of chimpanzees. Science 265:1193-1201.

The rubric used to grade the blog posts is found HERE.
Instructions for how to post your blog post and how to comment on another classmates blogpost can be found HERE.

In addition to being responsible for posting two news articles, you are also required to comment on two blog posts that your fellow classmates have written.  These comments should be constructive & should be at least 2 sentences long.

You are more than welcome to post other things to the blog as well.  For example, you could post cool videos that relate to the course, or interesting news articles that you come across as well.  These things won't be for points, but are welcome!

Let me know if you have any questions.
Dr. Wisner