Principles of Pharmacology with Research Methods

LS5003: Principles of Pharmacology with Research Methods

Summative essay

Essay Titles Set By Pharmacology Personal Tutors

Discuss the clinical use(s), mechanism(s) of action, efficacy and side effects of the drug safinamide.  You should also include data concerning the efficacy and safety of the drug that has been demonstrated in clinical trials.

1. Assignment Guidelines

Module Learning Outcomes Assessed:

• Appreciate the importance of experimental design in pharmacological research, and select, apply and interpret appropriate statistical tests for data analysis.
• Locate, analyse and critically evaluate research papers, and demonstrate an awareness of ethical issues relating to biological and pharmacological research.
• Present concise, analytical and objective scientific information relating to pharmacology in the form of essays, reports, posters and/or oral presentations.

Assignment Brief

This assignment is designed to help you gain experience of writing an essay using concise, scientific writingand correct referencing style.You are required to write an essay of 1,500 (± 10%) words primarily based on the published scientific literature on the subject assigned to you. You should use information from journal articles and books.  A small number of reliable web sites such as those from universities, national and international organizations may be used when the information is not available from published sources. You are expected to include a minimum of 10 references. The word count does not include the title, subtitles, tables and figures and their titles and the references list.

Format

All essays must:

• be written in UK Oxford English
• be 1.5 line spaced
• have margins not less than 2.5 cm
• be typed in 12 point Arial or Times Roman (ask your personal tutor for their preference)
• be formatted as a Word document with numbered pages
• Word count should be given at the end of the document

Do not include a title page and table of contents and avoid elaborate layouts.

Plagiarism, citing and listing references

Plagiarism will not be tolerated.  Marks will be deducted for plagiarism and may result in academic misconduct proceedings.  Write in your own words, although retain scientific terminology.  Each reference source should be cited in the text and listed in the references section so that they correspond in terms of author(s) and date of publication.  Do not use a bibliography as this includes uncited, background reading.  The citing and reference listing style must exactly follow the guidelines given in the Citethemright on-line referencing guide, using the Harvard referencing style, which can be found on this module’s Canvas site. Do not use numerical referencing or bullet points in your references list.  Note that if you spell the subheading References incorrectly, Turnitin will include this section in the plagiarism search which will increase your similarity score.

Guidance from your personal tutor

The title for the summative essay will be set by your personal tutor and emailed to you at the beginning of week 3 of teaching block 1.  You will then have a group tutorial meeting to provide guidance on the essay during that week.  Start work on the essay as soon as you can. There will be an opportunity to discuss your essay draft with your personal tutor in teaching week 7 of teaching block 1.  You should not expect electronic feedback or a predicted mark. It is your responsibility to take notes from the meeting to act as feedforward to improve your essay.  Please do not email your tutor multiple drafts of your essay for checking, bring your draft with you.

B)   Further Guidance

Practice in writing essays

You will receive a lecture in teaching week 3 of teaching block 1which will give you guidance on how to write an essay at university-level.

What makes a good essay?

A good essay has a logical structure and organization (see marking criteria).  Ask your personal tutor whether they would like you to use sub-headings and other organizational methods.  Remember that you are writing to facilitate understanding on the part of the reader.  Ideas should flow clearly and coherently with appropriate use of paragraphs.  The introduction should provide some background information to place the subject of the essay into context and indicate the main aspects to be addressed.  There should be a link to the first paragraph.

The content of an essay should be relevant to the title, whether the title is expressed as a statement or a question.  Information should be substantiated with evidence mainly from journal articles and books. When you make a point, substantiate it with explanation and evidence. You should show some critical evaluation and interpretation of the evidence. What is the quality of the evidence? Is the evidence weak or strong?  Do other authors support the evidence or is there a difference in research findings? Use examples where appropriate. Diagrams and tables can be informative, but ensure that you refer to them in the text and give them consecutive figure and table numbers.  The conclusions should sum up the key points in relation to the essay title and state general conclusions.  Finish with the significance of those conclusions in terms of wider implications such as future research, trends or policies.

The writing should be fluent, precise and focused on the question without use of slang, personal pronouns or conversational contractions (e.g. isn’t).  Grammar, spelling and punctuation should be free of errors.Remember that you can use SASC (SEC Academic Success Centre in Sopwith1019) to check your work before submission. Be aware that they are not a proof-reading service.  The SASC staff work with you to improve your work and increase your confidence with writing and presentation.

Essay Titles Set By Pharmacology Personal Tutors

Joan Jarman: Discuss the clinical use(s), mechanism(s) of action, efficacy and side effects of the drug safinamide.  You should also include data concerning the efficacy and safety of the drug that has been demonstrated in clinical trials.

Marking Scheme &Feedback

Module code:                                                                          Personal tutor:

Deadline:midnight 22 November 2020

For further specific comments please see the written document

NOTE that plagiarism will result in deduction of marks from the understanding and analysis and presentation sections and may lead to academic misconduct proceedings.