Course objectives: Cellular and molecular biology is a vast discipline that encompasses a number of sub-fields, each of which is growing extremely rapidly. In this course, instead of trying to learn every detail, you will develop an understanding of the unifying principles of life at the molecular and cellular level through exploration of illustrative examples. You will become familiar with how scientists think in the laboratory, and you will learn to design, execute, and analyze experiments. Finally, you will practice communicating biological ideas with clarity and precision in your written and oral laboratory reports.

Textbooks:
Life: the Science of Biology, 9th edition, by Sadava, Heller, Orians, Purves, and Hillis.
Study Guide and Lab Manual by Campbell, Lom, Hales, Bernd, Sarafova, and Wessner, Spring 2011 version (in the bookstore).
A Short Guide to Writing About Biology, 7th edition, by Jan Pechenik.
Web reading mentioned in the study guide can be found at http://www.bio.davidson.edu/bio111.
Additional handouts and WWW reading to be announced.

Office hours: Please always feel free to email me to make an appointment for any mutually acceptable time (list three possible dates/times in your email and I'll get back to you). Or stop by whenever my office door is open. My door is open most of the time when I am not in class, though I do step out for meetings and errands. I will guarantee my presence in the office Thursdays 1:00-1:30 PM and Fridays 11:30-12:10 PM.

Email: I will regularly send important announcements via email. You are responsible for any information/assignments/instructions I send by email, so check your messages each day.

Grading: Your final grade for the course will be calculated as follows:

%	94-100	90-93.9	87-89.9	83-86.9	80-82.9	77-79.9	73-76.9	70-72.9	66-69.9	60-65.9	0-59.9
Final grade	A	A-	B+	B	B-	C+	C	C-	D+	D	F

Attendance: I will not record attendance in lecture. However, I usually notice if you are not there, and it will affect your participation grade. In lab, attendance is mandatory. One unexcused absence from lab will result in a full letter grade deduction on your final course grade. A second unexcused laboratory absence will result in a failing course grade.

Participation: Your participation/daily preparation grade depends upon the extent to which you participate in classroom and laboratory dialogue over the course of the semester as well as upon your responses to written and verbal quizzing at the beginning of class and lab.

Classroom etiquette: Please do not get up and leave the classroom in the middle of class unless it is a true emergency. Use the restroom before coming to class. Turn cell phones completely off during class.

Laptops and recording devices: You may not use a laptop or recording device in class. If you would like to request an exception, you must come see me with sufficient justification.

Lectures: PowerPoint files to accompany each lecture will be posted online by the evening before each class. I use PowerPoint only to provide illustrations and outline topics but not to write out every idea; viewing a PowerPoint file therefore does **not** substitute for attending lecture. Click the link from the lecture schedule below to download the file. Log in using the same information as for email, and for the domain name type davidson. To print the file, please first set printer options to include multiple slides per page.

Daily homework: Reading assignments to complete before each lecture are indicated below. The page numbers refer to the Study Guide. Within the Study Guide reading, you will be directed to read particular sections of your textbook. Some textbook reading is designated as "overview reading," meaning you should read for the general ideas only. When the textbook reading is designated as "focused," you should read carefully for detail. Come to class prepared to answer questions on any aspect of the material from the previous lecture. There will be regular quizzes at the beginning of class on the previous day's material; quiz grades make up a portion of the "participation and daily preparation" portion of your grade.

Reviews: Some reviews will be entirely take-home, closed book, and closed notes, while some reviews will also have in-class portions. The take-home portion will be posted on the web from links on this syllabus. You may access a take-home review only when you are ready to start it. You may choose whether to hand write or type your answers; however, since I sometimes ask for word counts, typing is more efficient. Each review is designed to be completed in roughly one and a half to two hours, but you will have twelve waking hours from when you start until when you must finish. The final exam will be offered through the Exam Center in Chambers, and it will be designed to take two to three hours. I strongly recommend using old reviews as a primary way to study. Old reviews are here: Rev#1, Short Test, Rev#2, Rev#3, Final exam.

Penalty for late assignments: Ten percent per day or part thereof. The full ten percent penalty applies starting at the beginning of each day that the assignment is late; for example, an assignment that is one hour late will have a ten percent penalty applied.

Math and Science Center: The MSC offers free assistance to students in all areas of math and science. Trained and highly qualified peers hold one-on-one and small-group tutoring sessions on a drop-in basis or by appointment. Emphasis is placed on thinking critically, understanding concepts, making connections, and communicating effectively, not just getting right answers.  In addition, students can start or join a study group and use the MSC as a group or individual study space. The MSC is located in the new Center for Teaching and Learning, in the library.  Drop-in hours are Sunday through Thursday, 8:00 PM-11:00, and Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday 4-6 PM, starting January 29th. Appointments are available at other times.  For more information, visit www3.davidson.edu/cms/x39569.xml, or contact Dr. Mark Barsoum (mabarsoum or 704 894 2796).

Honor Code: You are to affirm your respect for and compliance with the Davidson Honor Code on every review and paper. The full Honor Pledge reads as follows: "On my honor I have neither given nor received unauthorized information regarding this work, I have followed and will continue to observe all regulations regarding it, and I am unaware of any violation of the Honor Code by others." Plagiarism is an Honor Code violation and is defined as representing another person's words and ideas as one's own. Paraphrasing (taking another person's sentences and changing a few words here and there) is NOT equivalent to writing something in your own words, and it is considered plagiarism unless proper citation is made. Please see the Davidson Department of Biology statement on plagiarism for comprehensive information.

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More information on laboratory write-ups and presentations

Written lab reports:
You will be writing group reports for the first two lab report assignments. For a given report, a different person within your lab group should be in charge of each of the major sections (introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion). Once a first draft of each section has been written, a separate person in the group should be in charge of editing that section, using input from all members of the group. Editing involves more than fixing typos; rework the order of ideas, the language, and the logic to achieve maximal precision, completeness, and clarity. Work collectively to construct the title, abstract, and references.

You must be in charge of a different section each time and must edit a different section each time. At the end of each report, make a chart indicating who was the primary author and who was the primary editor of each section.

See the appropriate appendix in your Study Guide & Lab Manual, as well as the appropriate Pechenik chapter, for instructions on the organization and content of your lab reports. Pay special notice to this additional requirement regarding the reference section: you should cite the lab manual, AND you must find at least two additional relevant print sources and one additional online source for each report. Proper formatting of citations is described at the Biology Department statement on plagiarism.

In addition to the grading criteria listed below, correct spelling, grammar, and syntax are essential. It is in your best interest to focus my attention on the meat of your report instead of on messy mechanics.

Signing the pledge on your lab report signifies (among other things) that everyone in the group has contributed his or her fair share of the work.

Lab posters: For the second lab report, you will also adapt your data into a lab poster presentation.

Third lab report: At the end of the semester you will prepare an individual write-up on the Ames test experiments. You may choose either a written report or a lab poster format. .

Oral presentations:
Each group will have 15 minutes for their oral presentation, with a few additional minutes for questions afterwards. You will have access to all the audiovisual equipment in the lab, including the computer and document camera. Each presentation should be divided into four sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Each member of your lab group must speak, with everyone contributing roughly equally. See the appropriate appendix in your Study Guide & Lab Manual for what kinds of information to put into each section.Your classmates will critique your presentations, but their comments will not determine your grade.

Grading:
I will evaluate your written and oral reports based on the following criteria:
1. Clarity and organization of presentation
2. Whether you show an understanding of your experiments and results
3. Completeness, especially in your discussion section
4. Conciseness

Grading rubric for final lab report or poster (note that on the poster some sections can be combined, but the content will be graded as if these elements were separate components):
Title/authors/affiliation 4 pts
Abstract 5 pts
Introduction 12 pts
Methods 10 pts
Results 12 pts
Discussion/conclusions/future directions 12 pts
References and acknowledgments 5 pts
Quality/organization of writing (lab report) or formatting/aesthetics/balance of text and graphics (poster) 10 pts

The lab grades are apportioned as follows:

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