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The Rose Dragon
2011-05-24, 08:34 AM
...and it's a big one.

I have to write a report (not a paper) about platypus and molecular evolution, but I have little time left to do it. So, I need help writing it, and I need it fast (in about 12 hours, so I have time left to write it).

I've got a pretty good idea why platypus is so interesting from an ME perspective, but there are several papers already written on the topic, and they had much better funds and research than I did. What can I write on the topic that is not obviously stolen from someone else?

Daimbert
2011-05-24, 09:49 AM
...and it's a big one.

I have to write a report (not a paper) about platypus and molecular evolution, but I have little time left to do it. So, I need help writing it, and I need it fast (in about 12 hours, so I have time left to write it).

I've got a pretty good idea why platypus is so interesting from an ME perspective, but there are several papers already written on the topic, and they had much better funds and research than I did. What can I write on the topic that is not obviously stolen from someone else?

Are you sure that you need to do something new, as opposed to a good summary of the work and its importance? It's listed as a report, and a report sounds to me like a summary, and so you need to be able to distill all the research you have done to a reasonably sized report with proper citations -- ie not stealing from others -- and perhaps an interesting observation or two.

The Rose Dragon
2011-05-24, 09:53 AM
I haven't done any research, though. I just can't see how to come up with something that isn't entirely writing what others wrote before, but in simpler terms.

Daimbert
2011-05-24, 10:07 AM
I haven't done any research, though. I just can't see how to come up with something that isn't entirely writing what others wrote before, but in simpler terms.

That's probably what a report should be, though. But you should know what the requirements are better than me [grin].

Is there a word or page count on this?

The Rose Dragon
2011-05-24, 10:11 AM
My advisor hasn't mentioned any, but I suppose 2-4 pages is a good place to be.

Daimbert
2011-05-24, 10:21 AM
My advisor hasn't mentioned any, but I suppose 2-4 pages is a good place to be.

Ah. Do you have a specific paper to look at or is it just in general?

In 2 - 4 pages, you don't have the time to say anything really important or cite a lot, so I'd even say just dumping what you know from your brain would work ... but be careful about citing anything that is specific; you don't want a plagiarism change ruining your graduation [grin].

I've done these things in grad courses for Philosophy, and generally what was expected was a short paragraph or two on it in general and then a more detailed treatment of a specific point of interest, but that was for a specific course and we had to do more than one, and we had a specific paper to look at. So making sure what's expected is important, but what you're being asked to do sounds similar to those sorts of things.

Daimbert
2011-05-25, 10:31 AM
I hope this worked or works out for you ...