Marine Fisheries Group Project
Foundations for Collaborative Science Writing
Assigned: Beginning of term
Due dates: This project will require work every week of the term. See the Course Assignment Schedule
and the detailed due date breakdown at the end of this document for more information.
Weight: 40% of course grade
Purpose: Group work leads to success in your career and often requires contributing to projects
remotely. This assignment will give you experience working with a team toward a final report while
learning more about a current concern of fisheries biologists and sharpening your informal and formal
writing skills.
Approach: The ultimate objective of your marine fisheries group project (MGP) will be to assemble and
synthesize information on a selected topic that provides a substantive review of the issues and supports
a series of recommendations for long-term fisheries sustainability. The layout of the team is designed to
simulate an agency working group tasked with assessing a current issue in fisheries biology and
management, with the constraint of a 10 week term. You are expected to spend time both working
individually and communicating in groups to complete the components of this assignment. Canvas
Collaborations will be utilized to provide access to Google Docs.
This will be accomplished by each group member generating a 2000 word version of the document
containing all four sections described below in an Individual Version. These will be submitted to the
instructor and shared with your team for feedback and collaboration. After sharing with the group, each
team member will be responsible for providing feedback to others and collaborating to construct a final
integrated version of the paper.
Additional instructions for each component are detailed on the following instruction pages.
Timeline:
Week 1 – Topic selection
Week 5 – Individual versions completed and submitted to instructor and shared
Week 6 – Instructor provides feedback
Week 7 – All team members provide feedback
Weeks 8 & 9 – students work together on collaborative revision, editing, and proofing
Week 9 – Sunday – Final versions due to Instructor
General Expectations: Detailed expectations for each component can be found on following instruction
pages.
• A single student from each team must submit the topic to the Instructor in the appropriate
assignment space in Canvas.
• All team members must use Canvas Collaborations for the Marine Group Project work. Each
group will have access to at least one document called “MGP Feedback” or similar and one
document called “Final Version”. These must be used to provide feedback and for revising the
final versions, respectively.
• All team members must participate and communicate regularly with their group throughout the
term.
• Each student will independently complete a 2000-2500 word* version of the paper covering all 4
sections as described, submitted through Canvas to the instructor and shared with their team.
• All students are required to provide timely, constructive feedback to team members.
• All team members must collaborate on revision, editing and proofing a final harmonized version
that integrates individual versions into a single coherent document with one bibliography, a
maximum of 8,000 words* that fulfills all instructions and requirements. This will be verified
using version history.
*All minimums and maximums are excluding citations, bibliography, figure captions, maps, table,
figures, references, etc.
Sections of the Marine Group Project: The assigned individual and final versions of the paper consist of
4 sections. All sections should be adequately supported with citations from the primary literature and
government documents (Avoid news articles, wikipedia websites, or blogs). It is essential that all team
members understand all of the sections and communicate with each other in order to work within the
boundaries of the section content and to prevent overlap and redundancy.
In the Individual versions, each section should be about 500 words, more or less. Required sections
include:
1. A Statement of Issue to be Addressed
The statement should include, at a minimum, what the topic is, why it is relevant, who is affected by the
issue (the fish and fisheries involved, for example), and mention any laws or pending legislation (state or
federal), treaties, or international agreements associated with the issue, and any other relevant
information important to providing sufficient background.
2. The State of the Science
The State of the Science section reviews the available information from government documents and the
primary literature, and presents what is known about the topic and what perhaps needs to be known.
This is a literature review section. It should not repeat the issues described in section 1 but state the
science and current understanding impartially. There should be adequate material to set up section 3.
3. Synthesis of Information
The synthesis is not a review of available information; it should not repeat information stated in the
previous sections, but move forward using previously stated information to provided context for
recommendations. The synthesis section takes the available information (might include both scientific
and socioeconomic information) and distills from it the essence of what it all means, providing the setup
for the fourth section. Although not a literature review, it is also not opinion based and it will be
necessary to utilize citations in this section. This section should not provide recommendations, but the
foundation on which recommendations can be made.
4. Recommendations for Fisheries Science and Management
Recommendations should be specific, clear actions. Depending on the topic, they might include
management recommendations as well as detailed suggestions for future research. Proposed actions
should follow logically from the information you gather from sections 1-3 without reviewing or restating
that information. Each recommendation should be thoroughly explained in section 4 and supported by
the science and context provided in previous.
Grading: This assignment will follow the expectations for formal writing and the general grading
policies. The Marine Fisheries Group Project will be graded as follows:
• Quality of Individual Version of the Final GMP: 25%
• Overall quality of the Final Version of the GMP (cohesion, organization, rigor of management
recommendations, etc.): 40%
• Quality of Feedback for your team members: 20%
• Revision participation (Discussion Boards, google docs, comment responses, etc.): 15%
Tips and suggestions: This is a non-exhaustive list of suggestions that might help.
• This project will be a major impact on your final grade to this course. Be sure to give adequate
attention to your efforts.
• Do not wait for a deadline to get involved; Start this project right away and work on it every
week.
• Check in regularly with your team by creating Discussion Boards in your group spaces.
• Use WebEx, Google Hangout, or Skype to schedule live planning meetings with your team. This
can help with assigning tasks throughout the process.
• Be prepared to revise your work again and again throughout the term. This is part of the writing
process and the expectations for this project.
• After submitting your individual version, consider starting a collaboration with your group for an
annotated bibliography. Sharing links to the journal articles and reviewing papers suggested by
your team may help you revise and contribute substantive comments.
• Similarly, consider generating a detailed outline to organize the transfer of material from the
“Feedback” document, where you will share your individual versions, to the “Final version”
document.
• Delaying writing, feedback, or revision until the last few days before a deadline means you will
not be able to produce a quality project, and you will make your group members cranky. DO
NOT expect your teammates to pick up slack if you are unable to produce; documentation of
your efforts will ensure you receive the grade you earn. Note that a lack of collaboration will
result in forfeiting the Final Version portion of this project.
• Ultimately, everyone is expected to participate in managing the team and contributing to final
edits. The final weighting of your grade accounts for the high proportion of time you should
invest in this project.
• ASK QUESTIONS to the instructor through the Live Q&A WebEx Sessions or the Q&A Discussion
Board.
• More information on topic selection will be available on that Discussion Board.