You must make arrangements with the ESRM100 TA's (eschelp@u.washington.edu) to complete the extra work required to meet the W-credit criteria. We require that you ask to do this along with your project proposal.  The TA's must approve your W-credit topic before you start writing. Unapproved topics will not be reviewed, and if you do not meet all requirements as outlined here, you cannot receive W credit.

Choose an environmental topic/issue that interests you, and do a literature search on it. This research project should involve some environmental science topic which is important to human society.

• Contact TA's at eschelp@u.washington.edu by the third week of the quarter with a topic proposal for your paper.

• Students are required to submit a 10 page rough draft by the date on the syllabus. Drafts that are less than 10 full pages will not be reviewed for W credit. No exceptions. It is your responsibility to read and understand the requirements.
  
  The paper must be double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font with 1.25 inch (or less) margins.  Figures, tables, bibliography, captions, names, material within quotes, etc. are not part of the length requirement. Anything that is not your own prose does not count. Do not add excess spacing between paragraphs, and do not use excessively short paragraphs (most paragraphs should have at least 3 sentences in them) to make the paper appear longer than it is. Even if the paper is 9.9 pages it is not long enough to meet requirements, so it is best to make it substantially longer than this minimum. Submission must be by attached MS Word file by email to eschelp@u.washington.edu.
  

• Rough drafts must be complete with an introduction, body, conclusion and a bibliography so that TA's can review your writing and add comments. 
  

• Your report will be reviewed based on content, research effort, organization and writing (including English, grammar, spelling etc.). 
  
  
• We will review your draft, include comments in the body for improvement, and return it to you. It is your responsibility to contact us and show us that you submitted (keep copies of email acknowledgements) if there is any question that deadlines were met. Keep copies of your original draft and the marked-up draft.
  
  
• You must have a minimum of 8 sources, only 4 of which may be from websites.  Make use of the library scientific literature research databases to find the other 4+ sources.
  

• Remember to reference all your sources and be careful not to plagiarize (see plagiarism-policy.html for a description of plagiarism and how to avoid it). Directions on how to cite your sources are given on the Project Information page near the end, see project.html


• Taking a paper from another course and rewriting it with an environmental science slant is encouraged so long as we first review and comment on the paper used as the initial basis of the composition. 
  

• The final draft of the paper is due by the due date on the syllabus for your project. This is the same day as the rest of the optional projects. If you do not meet all deadlines, we can't offer W credit.