Student Support

The Undergraduate Academies announce two great programs for summer 2013

[The following has been posted on behalf of the University at Buffalo Undergraduate Academies.]

Announcing two great programs for summer 2013 . . .

Summer Opportunity:Explorations of Health & Science
Translational Research in Multidisciplinary Teams: From Bench to Bedside
May 19-24, 2013, Greiner Hall, University at Buffalo

The Extension Learning Experience “Explorations of Health & Science” will be a unique faculty-led experience that will allow students to explore translational research in multidisciplinary teams over a six-day period at UB over the summer. Through a variety of excursions, tours, discussions and participation in the program, University at Buffalo faculty will lead students on an exploratory experience where they can learn more about the role of research and its importance when applying for programs.

You will explore health science careers within the framework of translational research and multidisciplinary teams in the area of substance abuse and addictions. The experience will help you find the appropriate major, graduate programs, and career for your passions. You will have the opportunity to learn first-hand the potential of health and science related disciplines as pathways to interesting and fulfilling careers. Students will earn an opportunity to work directly in a small-group format with faculty in health science departments.

Why Should You Participate?

Work closely with faculty in the health sciences fields
Develop a clear path to educational programs that includes hands-on research training
Gain new insights into how a career in health science research can be pursued while completing your degree at UB
Learn about career pathways that are being developed today and will be “jobs of the future”
Appreciate how undergraduate research experiences may strengthen your application to research-oriented undergraduate and graduate programs

Registration Cost:$590.00 (residential) & $450 (commuter | Registration Deadline: May 1, 2013

Registration deadline extended!! You now have until May 8^thto register.

To Register and for more information: https://www.ubevents.org/event/2013extensionlearning

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Summer Opportunity: Lawyers as Agents of Social Change, Extension Learning Experience
July 28-August 4, 2013, Chautauqua Institute

The Extension Learning Experience “Lawyers as Agents of Social Change” will be a unique faculty-led experience that will allow students to explore how different communities and belief systems influence laws and legal institutions over a six-day period at the Chautauqua Institution over the summer. Through a variety of excursions, tours, discussions and participation in the program, University at Buffalo faculty will lead students on an exploratory experience where they can learn more about the role of lawyers, jurists, and staff and their importance in local, national, and international forums.

Participants will explore the role of lawyers as counselors and agents of social change in local, national, and global contexts. Our focus will be on both the socio-historical context of the Nuremberg Trials and current legal issues. Students will observe court proceedings, dissect primary legal documents, and read context narratives to prepare them for their experiential learning modules. We will explore how different communities and belief systems influence laws and legal institutions. We will also take time to recognize the achievements and impact of Justice Jackson, a local lawyer who became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, on the national and global scale and discuss how each person has the ability to advocate for, and participate in, social change.

Excursions Include

The Chautauqua Institute lectures on the state of our criminal justice system — what works, what doesn’t, how effective it is, and how it compares to others around the world.
Tour of the Robert Jackson Center: learn about Justice Jackson, an upstate New York lawyer who rose to prominence as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and served as the Chief Counsel for the U.S. at the first Nuremberg Trial in 1945 and 1946.
Tour of the NYS Supreme Court courthouse located in Chautauqua, New York, where participants will observe court proceedings, interact with court personnel, and discuss the roles and duties of different actors in the judicial process.

Why Should You Participate

Opportunities to gain an understanding of the role jurists, practitioners, and support staff play in local, national, and global forums.
Identify and describe how local, national, and international laws are influenced by different communities and belief sets.
Develop an understanding of the role of the United States in the wider global community and the ability to critically evaluate legal issues and assess potential outcomes.

Registration Cost:$1,050 | Registration Deadline: May 1, 2013

To Register and for more information: https://www.ubevents.org/event/2013extensionlearning

What is plagiarism? How do I avoid it?

As students, you hear a lot about plagiarism. A statement is typically listed on your syllabus telling you not to plagiarize and if you do, what the consequences will be. However, many students are not exactly sure what plagiarism is or how they can avoid it. To learn more about plagiarism, we’ve compiled a number of resources available to you:

Academic Scholarship and Plagiarism (a self-paced PowerPoint tutorial)
Resources by Subject: Plagiarism (a guide to define and understand what is and what is not considered plagiarism)
Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Avoid It (a Shockwave tutorial)
Research Tips: Writing Your Paper (a guide to writing your paper and citing sources)
University at Buffalo Academic Integrity (defines academic integrity, how to avoid violations, etc.)

If you have additional questions about plagiarism, be sure to utilize the resources available on campus.

Plagiarism: the Do’s and Don’ts of College Writing

[The following post was written by University at Buffalo librarian Cindi Tysick.]

Writing a research paper for a course can be a stressful exercise for many. Finding the right resources to use, synthesizing it all in to a coherent structure, and assuring your argument flows and is logical. Added to that is the often confusing convention of citing your sources. Your sources are those books, articles, websites, and data you’ve found that assisted you in stating your case. In college level writing those sources need to be cited correctly or you could unknowingly be committing plagiarism.

What is plagiarism? To quote from the UB Libraries’ Research Tips website, “Plagiarism is the act of using another person’s ideas or work without acknowledging the original source and giving proper credit. It is unethical and, in some cases, it is illegal. Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty, and is considered by the University at Buffalo to be a serious offense. University policies related to plagiarism are available on the University’s Academic Integrity web site.”

How do you avoid plagiarism? Always provide proper citations for all quotations, summaries, paraphrases, or any other work or idea that is borrowed from others. The UB Libraries’ Research Tips website, listed above, has a lot of very useful information, samples, and tutorials on how to cite your sources and recognize when you may be plagiarizing, so check it out.

Step One: Don’t Panic (A guide to legal research for non-law students)

[The following post was written by Christine Anne George, faculty services and reference librarian at the Charles B. Sears Law Library.]

There’s no way to sugar-coat it—legal research can be scary. (Even law students will back me up on that one.) Even if you’ve never stepped foot in the Law Library, follow the steps below to get a jump on your research.

Step One: See blog post title

Step Two: Consider your Topic

As with any other subject, if your legal research topic is too broad, your results are going to overwhelm you. Interested in the First Amendment? Prepare to be buried. It’s the equivalent of saying that you want to research World War II. If possible, try to narrow down your topic with what you know. Don’t know what you know? Not a problem…

Step Three: Double Check the Assignment Details

Your professor may have given you a couple of instructions to narrow down your search. Reread the assignment instructions and look to see if there’s any mention of:

Case Law or Statutes: In the legalverse, case law and statutes are our primary sources. If you need to find case law, that means you’re looking for opinions that were issued from courts. If you need to find a statute, that means you need to find the law that came from the legislature. Both case law and statutes are explained through secondary sources such as treatises (books that explain a particular area of law in depth), legal encyclopedias (think the legalverse’s answer to Wikipedia), and law review articles.
Jurisdiction: The American legal system is complicated. There are a lot of different courts and a variety of different legislatures. But if you know where the law you’re interested in came from, that can help narrow your search. Did your professor mention the Supreme Court of the United States? Or that you only need to be concerned with New York law? Those are ways to cut down the results.
Parties: Think about the people affected by the law you’re researching. Is there a particular group that you’re going to be writing about? Students? Teachers? Prisoners? If you know that you are trying to find something about journalists and the First Amendment, you’ll run a better search.

Step Four: Think Basic

What do you do when you don’t know something? The answers I hear most often are either Google it or go to Wikipedia. We’ve got a legal equivalent. Legal encyclopedias—American Jurisprudence, for example—provide a quick overview to different areas of law. You can read an entry and find direction towards more resources, like another entry or law review articles. American Jurisprudence is available online through LexisNexis Academic or in print at the Law Library.

Step 5: Don’t be Afraid to Piggy-Back

Legal scholars don’t just like to footnote—they love it. So if you find an article on your topic, congrats, you just struck research gold. Check the footnotes and you’ll find the different statutes, cases, and articles the author used for his or her research. Don’t be afraid to use those sources to direct your research. You can find law review articles through LexisNexis Academic, JSTOR, or legal specific databases such as HeinOnline and Legal Trac.

Once again, I cannot stress enough—don’t panic. If following these steps doesn’t work for you, the reference librarians at the Law Library are more than happy to help. Just stop by—or call, email, and IM—the reference desk. For the sanity of all involved, it’s probably best to do that at least a week before the assignment is due.