In this, the “written pieces” refer to the literature review, research highlight and reflective summary.

3.1. Structure and Page Limits

3.1.1. Summary of Limits

Table 2 below summarises the lengths of each section you should include in your report. Page limits refer to A4, subject to the formatting constraints outlined in the next section.

Table 2. A summary of page limits for aspects of the written reports.

3.1.2. Further Details on Each Section

The main written document should contain the following items in this specific order.

1. Cover page including: your CHEM0027 code (e.g. CARMALT1), name of your supervisor, title of the dissertation and date of submission. Please DO NOT include your name or student ID number since the reports must be marked anonymously.

2. Table of contents, listing all sections and headings of the dissertation together with page

numbers. This table can be created automatically in Word if heading styles are used correctly.

3. Research Highlight/Press release. Maximum two pages on one of the primary research

articles including one figure, addressed to an audience at the level of the readership of the RSC magazine Chemistry World. This means a general audience who will not be familiar with the

intimate details of processes or technicalities. You should also try to make the article exciting and engaging. For good examples, please have a look at articles in Chemistry World, New

Scientist or Education in Chemistry and find out more in the research highlight

lecture/workshop. Apart from the article that is highlighted, the research highlight/press release does not need to contain additional references.

4. Reflective Commentary. Approximately ½-1 page describing your thought process behind the selection of the core papers. A brief explanation should be provided if the decision was taken   to not include the paper from the oral presentation in the literature review.

5. Literature Review. This should be 10 pages excluding the list of references. The literature

review must describe the research from at the very least three selected papers from the

primary literature. We expect five core papers will be the average, but the number will vary

according to your topic. The other references identified in the tutorials can be used but this is not a strict requirement. Additional references beyond the three core papers can be used but only to back up more general scientific statements in the text. The additional references can   include review articles.

o To help you with your conclusions, you might like to format the title of the literature

review as a question, although this is not a strict requirement. For example, a

traditional literature review might have “Dispersion of carbon nanotubes in water” as

the title, you could use a question instead like “What is the best way to disperse carbon nanotubes in water?” .

o The review should then start with a general introduction to the area of research outlining its importance and relevance.

o The introduction should be followed by coherent summaries and critical analysis of the research articles and concluding remarks. Many students lose marks because they only  describe the articles and do not discuss, compare and contrast the methods used. It is    important that the concluding remarks link back to the original question asked in the

title. Please note that there may not always be straightforward answers. This is the

nature of scientific research – things are often complicated. For example, the best way to disperse carbon nanotubes may depend on what you would like to do with the

dispersions afterwards (e.g. medical applications, new computer displays or high- performance tyres).

o The literature review should be written in accordance with the “ Building Text” section in CHEM0006 by Dr Bains. These guidelines are universal and reflect how the human

mind takes up written information. In short, there should only be one main idea per

paragraph, which is front-loaded at the start of the paragraph. Furthermore, the

paragraphs should interlink to form a coherent story line. More details are found in the lesson on Building Text.

6.   The list of references comes at the end. Make sure the references are under the title

“References” .

A penalty of 10% of the marks will be applied if the various pieces of text are significantly outside the page limit.

An abstract is not required, as this is a relatively short review.

3.2. Formatting

.    The page size must be A4.

.    Use 1.5 line spacing and a minimum 11 point font for the main text. This makes your files easier for markers to annotate and read.

.    Use styles for your headings which will enable you to generate the table of contents automatically.

.    Headings can have larger font sizes.

.    Margins must be a minimum of 1.5 cm.

.    The text can be single or double-column.

.    Number pages in one unbroken sequence.

.    All figures, tables and schemes must be labelled and have captions. Avoid phrases such as “Plot showing …” .

.    Run the spell-checker and be very critical of the words which you add to the database.

.    Read through the written work (or better still, get a friend to read it) before you hand it in. Microsoft Word has a “read aloud” feature under the review tab, which can make the file   easier for you to review.

.    Be critical of your use of grammar.

.    Plagiarism is NOT allowed and will be heavily penalised. In the past, students have failed the entire module as a result of submitting other people’s work as their own. For avoidance of

doubt, you must write in your own words. If you need to lift text word for word from a paper, you are limited to 200 words (take this as a maximum for the whole written report, i.e. all

parts altogether), which must be inside quotation marks and due reference must be given.

.    Self-plagiarism is also not allowed. Students who submit substantially the same work for any other assessment will be penalised. The exception is if you wish to incorporate the written

summary of your seminar paper into your review. We are counting that as a draft.

.    All documents will be analysed with Turnitin. It is a good idea to check your Turnitin score before submitting. You can do this on UCL’s Plagiarism & Academic Writing Moodle page.

3.3. Figures

.    Figures, tables, equations, reaction schemes etc. and their captions are included in the page limit.

.    Diagrams must be big enough to be read clearly.

.    Diagrams may be used from articles (copied from the PDF) making sure your figures are properly referenced (e.g. you might say “Figure from reference 9”).

.    Avoid hand-drawn figures wherever possible. Draw your chemical diagrams using ChemDraw or similar software.

.    If you scan diagrams, then ensure that you produce good-quality results. Magnifying diagrams on the computer screen and using the print screen button can also give good results.

.    Every year students lose marks for wonky and/or poor-quality diagrams.

.    Write the figure captions yourself.

.    If you have drawn a figure or table yourself, state this (“produced by the author”).

.    Lastly, and importantly, if you include a figure, table, equation, reaction scheme etc., it must be mentioned at least once in the main text. Otherwise, why are you including it?

3.4. Referencing

When you refer to a publication in the text, the reference should be superscripted after the punctuation, like this,1 and the list of references should appear in as a section at the end of the literature review.

When you list the articles in your list of references, you must use the Royal Society of Chemistry journal styles (i.e., F. Bloggs, B. Jones and K. Smart, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1999, 120, 1234). Bloggs    comma Jones and Smart comma, italic journal, year, bold volume, starting page number. Please refer back to the preparatory work for further detail.

You will find that journals from publishers other than the RSC each have different styles and place the reference in the main body of the text in different ways. We strongly recommend you use the

RSC style. However, whichever style you use – keep it consistent. There is nothing worse than a  mixture of styles in one report. Ensure that the year, volume and page number are correct. Also, the journal names must appear in the abbreviated forms. Citation managers such as Mendeley    (recommended) or EndNote can be very helpful for organising your references.

3.5. Submitting Your Work

You need to submit an electronic copy of your complete collection of written reports (one PDF file containing all parts described above) on Moodle by 4 pm on the deadline day (see summary of timings). Late submissions will be penalised according to UCL regulations :

.    Up to 2 days late: overall mark reduced by 10%.

.    2–5 days late: a cap at a pass mark of 40%.

.    More than 5 days late: a cap at 1%.