LIBRARY RESEARCH PAPER & TALK
These count (30%) in your final grade.
RULES
1. These must be on a semiconductor physics topic (applications are acceptable!) of your
choosing, but it should be one which we did not have time to cover in class.
2. The paper should be 5 to 10 typed pages long (a typed paper is preferred, but not required) and
should be written with proper grammar and spelling.
3. The paper should MOSTLY be based on OUTSIDE readings. Some material researched
for it can come from the texts, but the majority should come from other (outside) sources.
This is the reason it is called a LIBRARY Research Paper & Talk! Using internet sources
is also acceptable. A suggestion is to start by doing a web search on your topic using, for
example, the “Current Contents” (“Web of Knowledge”) search engine available to
ALL TTU users. A link to it from the TTU Library page: http://www.lib.ttu.edu/. Direct
link: http://apps.isiknowledge.com/. My understanding is that to be able to use this, you
must access this page from a computer on the TTU network.
4. All outside sources used for the paper MUST be properly acknowledged in a
bibliography. Internet sources should be acknowledged by citing the URL for the web
page. Failure to properly acknowledge sources is PLAGIARISM, which will not be
tolerated! Plagiarism includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
a. Quoting or even paraphrasing texts, journal articles, or web pages without
acknowledging the source.
b. Presenting someone else’s work as your own.
c. Presenting as your original work already prepared papers on your subject which
might be available for sale (or even for free) on the internet.
Note that TTU has strict policies against plagiarism and that there are severe penalties for
it, including possible expulsion from the university. In the case of copyrighted work,
plagiarism is also ILLEGAL. See further discussion about this in the Catalog and/or the
TTU Student Handbook.
The paper is due at 5pm, Wednesday, December 10! NO EXCEPTIONS!!!
THE TALKS
Your talk should be about ½ hour long. It can be (but isn’t required to be) done in Power Point.
If you are nervous about talking in front of the class, you need to get over it! If you are going
to be a professional scientist you have to get used to talking!
1. Out of courtesy to the rest of the class
EVERYONE WILL BE PRESENT TO HEAR EVERYONE ELSE'S TALK!!
2. Presentations MAY be done in Power Point, but this isn't required!
3. I will try to schedule the Physics Conference Room for the talks.
4. If you plan to use Power Point, you need to arrive in the room EARLY to set up your
talk with the computer & projector & to make sure that it all works correctly!
5. We will agree to a presentation schedule as the time gets closer.
This is not required, but I request that, if you do your presentation in Power Point
and/or your paper in Word, please send me the electronic versions of them. My plan is
to post them on the web as examples for future students in this course. Note that, if you send
me these electronic files, you are implicitly giving me permission to post them on the web
so that others may use them in this way.