Final draft due Thursday but don't submit without revision

I expect to crank out the last grades on Younger Dryas papers today, so I have pushed everybody's due date back to Thursday evening, which is a 72-hour period I wanted to give you had I been able to get all done on Friday (due Monday night).

So time pressure is off.

Da Vinci writers, you can submit anytime now, but Younger Dryas writers must wait until they see my comments in GradeMark and incorporate them into the final draft by Thursday evening.

First paper is now IN at TurnItIn.com

OK, good, the ball is rolling, with one paper now turned in at TurnItIn.com. Jacob, good work

Let me caution everybody on their bibliographies: You can certainly keep it to 2 entries only, if you desire:

1. Grillo + 1 new source, for Leonardo da Vinci writers
2. Dalton + 1 new source, for Younger Dryas writers.

And the "new source" must be from Nature or Science.

If you include more sources, it is acceptable, but only from Science or Nature. I do NOT want to see any bibliography items from MSNBC.com or Wikipedia or anything like that. Consider them to be contraband. We are writing from scholarly journals only, Nature and Science. I will mark down any paper I see with contraband.

First draft assignment instructions now ready.

First draft instructions are now activated. Look in Writing assignments module, items 7.1, 7.2, 7.3.

First draft due date is in the instructions page.

First draft instructions will be out this afternoon

I am working on the last details of the instructions for the first draft of your writing assignment, which will be due Friday evening, March 28. Stay tuned.

Younger Dryas on History Channel

I watched a decent new program on History Channel, "Journey to 10,000 BC" which covered some of the concepts in the Dalton article about the comet impact. It was bigger than just the comet impact conjecture, though... It also had some other scientists talking about mammoths etc. Lots on carbon spherules, not much on iridium. Allen West and Albert Goodyear mentioned in Dalton's article are also in the program. Overall, fairly decent.

Next replays will be April 1, 7 AM... so you guys in Younger Dryas groups will have to make some coffee on April 1. :)

How to proceed

You each now have your question.

The writing project will be a paper (first draft, then final draft) in which you state your answer and why... backed up by solid scientific information.

The solid scientific information is what you must now hunt down in Nature and Science, bookmarking in Connotea if the article is really good for your paper. Talk over your hunting strategies etc. inside Webcourses discussions, in your group's private discussion group.

You won't be writing a textbook, so don't get carried away, but be free with discussion and hunting interactions. Kibbitz, coach and gab about finding information.

Next Monday I will release the specific guidelines and instructions for writing the first draft, so do your hunting this week.

If you can come up with one or two good sources, bookmarked in Connotea with an SFX link that works, you will be in great shape. Help each other find one or two good sources.

Let's go.

Join a writing group! GO FOR LAUNCH

Time to join a writing group!

Look for this Connotea icon on the home page. It is the entryway for the writing/bookmarking group signup sheets. Double check the questions we selected and then find a group dedicated to that question.

As soon as you click to sign up, your Da Vinci or Younger Dryas group's private discussion area will automatically appear. Look in "Discussions related to the writing assignments" in Discussions. There are already two postings for you to read and act on. We will be grading your participation in the private discussions.

Also, look through the Writing module, especially the March-April schedule (item 1.3), Connotea catchup (item 4.3), and the blurb on how I will add your username to a Connotea group that corresponds to your WebCourses group.

Deadline for group signup is lunchtime, Monday after vacation. After that, we are going to proceed forward. If you miss this deadline, your grade for the writing project will be kaput.

New writing assignment tasks are UP, due March 3.

I just activated two new quizzes:

• Universal Leonardo question selector (2 points)
• Younger Dryas - comet impact question selector (2 points)

You are to complete these by March 3, next Monday night, 10 PM. Look for them in Assessments or in the Writing module page (see image below).

There is also an updated overview, "Writing assignments: two tracks (UPDATED)," item 1.1 in the Writing module page (see image below). Take alook over that overview page, especially if you are behind.

WARNING Many of you have not activate a Connotea library, as required. You can no longer get points for doing so, but you still need to do it. The warning is that if you do not get your library up and certified by Ashton, you risk all the rest of the points on the assignment, roughly 40 out of the 50 points. Disaster. So look over the page for the Connotea catch-up task, item 4.3 in the Writing module (see image below).