COURSE SYLLABUS
CHM 298, "Scientific Literature"
SPRING 2006



Instructor:
Dr. Mark McClure

Office: SCI 3217

Office Hours: MTWRF 10:00 - 11:00

Office Phone: 522-5706

Email: mark.mcclure@uncp.edu

Description and Goals: This course is desigbned to introduce students to the methodology of researching topics in both print and electronic sources scientific (mainly chemical) literature.

Course Format and Grading: This course is offered in an "online" format. Although there will be no formal meetings of this class, you will be expected to complete assignments by the specified due dates. Assignments will be posted weekly, and unless otherwise noted, will be due Friday at 5:00. Late work will be accepted, but with the penalty of ten points per day, excluding weekends. Assignments will be posted here (see the sections below), and should be submitted to the email address chm.298@uncp.edu. Assignents will be posted by 5:00 on Friday of the preceding week, so that you will always have one full week to complete the assignment. A total of 10-12 assignments will be given over the course of the semester. Some will require a trip to the library, whereas others can be completed over the internet. Your final grade will be the average of the assignments submitted over the course of the semester. Letter grades will be assigned according to the standard scale shown below.

B+ 87-89 C+ 77-79 D+ 67-69
A 94-100 B 84-86 C 74-76 D 64-66
A- 90-93 B- A80-82 C- 70-73 D- 60-63



CHM 298 Assignemt 1: (Due Friday January 13 by 5:00)

Welcome to CHM 298! Here is your first assignment. There are two parts to this assignment. First, all correspondence regarding this course is to be done with standard university email accounts. Mail submitted from "yahoo" and "hotmail" acccounts will not be accepted. Therefore, if you do not already have one, your first assignment is to obtain a university email account. To establish an electronic mail account with UNCP see the Office of University Computing and Information Services website at http://www.uncp.edu/ucis/accounts/index.htm.

Here is the second part of your assignment. Send to me an MS Word document describing yourself. Include your year (sophomore, junior, etc.) major (i.e. chemistry, biology, etc.), your research interests (or favorite area of science - biotechnology, analytical, organic, biochemistry, inorganic) and your postgraduation plans. The file should be saved in the format of "yourlastname-yourfirstname-assignment number", for example "mcclure-mark-1". This and all future assignments should be sent to the email address chm.298@uncp.edu.

I look foward to hearing from all of you!

Assignment 2: (Due Friday, January 20 by 5:00)

Assignment 3: (Due Friday, January 27 by 5:00)

Assignment 4: Science Citation Index Part 1 (Due Friday, February 3 by 5:00)

Assignment 5: Science Citation Indec Part 2 (Due Friday, February 10 by 5:00)

Assignment 6: Science Citation Index Part 3 (Due Friday, February 17 by 5:00)

Assignment 7: CHEMnetBASE search (Due Friday, February 24 by 5:00)

Assignment 8: MSDS Data Sheets (Due Friday, March 3 by 5:00)

Assignment 9: Dissertation Abstracts (Due Friday, March 17 by 5:00)

Assignment 10: Manuscript Preparation (Due Friday, March 24 by 5:00)

Assignment 11: Introduction to Chemical Abstracts (Due Friday, April 7 by 5:00)
Note: you have two weeks to complete this assignment

There was some confusion last week - some students listed the previous assigment as 11 and 12. It was not - I merely gave you to weeks to read the chemical abstracts manual. Assignment 12 is listed abelow.

Assignment 12: Using Chemical Abstracts (Due Friday, April 21 by 5:00)
Note: you have two weeks to complete this assignment
Note: You will need a password to access chemical abstracts. Next week I will begin distributing the passwords via email.