The Official Cricketweb Science Thread!

[four_or_six]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Haha really?

I do . Some dude said so would usually not result in a very good outcome for my student. But you're in high school, so I suppose they overlook a lot more.

You're not one of those people who gets worked up when one of the reference list has a bit of bold or italics missing are you?

[silentstriker]

Errr. No.






Who am I kidding? Guilty as charged. I don't know about worked up, but they would lose points (not many) in citation section. It shows a lack of attention to detail, that's all, not necessarily the italics or bold itself. Especially as now there are websites like easybib.com that'll do it all for you.

But I would certainly fail people for using inappropriate sources.

[four_or_six]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Errr. No.






Who am I kidding? Guilty as charged. I don't know about worked up, but they would lose points (not many) in citation section. It shows a lack of attention to detail, that's all, not necessarily the italics or bold itself. Especially as now there are websites like easybib.com that'll do it all for you.

But I would certainly fail people for using inappropriate sources.

Lol, yeah, it's fair enough really. Just makes me laugh when the first comment someone makes on a report is that the references aren't formatted right or (shock horror) that there's a space missing between a number and some units somewhere. Why not comment on the science first?!

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by four_or_six

Lol, yeah, it's fair enough really. Just makes me laugh when the first comment someone makes on a report is that the references aren't formatted right or (shock horror) that there's a space missing between a number and some units somewhere. Why not comment on the science first?!

Yea of course. I mean if the report is excellent but they just messed up a little on the italics, I might still give them 100/100. At worst they'd still get 99/100 or 98/100, unless there were more than a couple mistakes in citation.

However, it could be the best science paper I've ever read but if their citations were not legitimate, I would give it a failing grade. And I make that clear before any assignments. In science, you are building upon past knowledge - and if you're going to say something that's not 'common knowledge', you better have a citation for it. You can't do science in isolation, and students need to learn that, it's as important as their ideas and experiments.

Now sometimes students take it too far - you really don't have to cite Sir Isaac Newton when you write F=ma....but anything recent or not very well known by your reader should be cited.

Of course, if someone cites page 105 of book X that I haven't read, I'll probably never find out if he's telling the truth (but most citations are now internet based, pubmed, or other sites). But if I do, he's in a world of hurt. Unless it's an honest mistake (which happens, and would result in merely points off), he's either going to fail, or he's going to fail and I'm going to report him for academic dishonesty.

However, I've never read a citation of 'some dude on the internet' (though I do get wikipedia citations, which is points off) and it'd be hilarious to encounter. That wouldn't be academic dishonesty - it'd be too much honesty really - but it would result in a meeting and a fail grade. Or if I was amused enough, another second draft.

Oh, another thing that annoys me are wikipedia citations. I'm like 'dude, good wikipedia articles cite their sources. Scroll down and click the citation, read it, and cite that instead of the wiki article.' -10 points for laziness.

[PhoenixFire]

Haha so many of my sources are form wikipedia, although they are mainly stuff like Maxwell Boltzmann distributions and stuff like that. It's good for diagrams and the like.

Pretty sure that our spec just says we have to put in at least 10 references and you won't drop any marks for them. We have to date them as well, but I'm just going to make that up.

[silentstriker]

Man, if only I was grading your paper....

You sure they will allow wiki citations?

[blahblahblah]

Originally Posted by PhoenixFire

Thanks a lot mate, you can now be entered as a reference in my chemistry investigation, how's that for kudos!

haha, that sounds cool

[wellAlbidarned]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Man, if only I was grading your paper....

You sure they will allow wiki citations?

Not necessarily talking about science papers specifically here, but in my (short) experience wikipedia citations are fine as long as there's not too many, and that the info supplied by them can be easily proven from other sources (in other words, doesn't sound like total horse****).

IMO, Wikipedia is fine for general ideas and concepts, however specific dates, and little details etc are where it often fails.

[silentstriker]

Well, as I said, much of it I'm sure is accurate but generally you (or at least I do) want primary sources. When grading, I make that clear. Normally, 'general ideas' don't really need to be cited in science, unless they are something not commonly known within the field and/or are new.

If it's that general (e.g relativity, or newtonian mechanics), then you don't need any citation.

With that said, I do know several profs who do allow wiki sources. So if I TA for a professor who tells me that he'll accept wiki sources, well so be it...not a big deal. But generally, you do want primary sources.

[Flem274*]

NASA may have found proof SS has relatives:NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life - Yahoo! News

Please not let him be a crackpot.

[blahblahblah]

[Flem274*]

Just visited the Journal's website. Looks very tabloidish. I'm getting skeptical.

Ghey.

[Flem274*]

And this puts the kibosh on it.

Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites? : Pharyngula

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

NASA may have found proof SS has relatives:NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life - Yahoo! News

Please not let him be a crackpot.

Lol Journal of Cosmology.


And well, technically since they are terrestrial, they are my relatives.

[Flem274*]

Thought this was pretty gun.

New Interpretation of Antarctic Ice Cores: Prevailing Theory on Climate History Expanded

New interpretation of Antarctic ice cores: Prevailing theory on climate history expanded

For the first time they took into account winter temperature has a greater influence than summer temperature in the recorded signal in the Antarctic ice cores. If this effect is included in model calculations, temperature fluctuations reconstructed from ice cores can also be explained by local climate changes in the southern hemisphere.