To complete the University's Writing Requirements for an undergraduate degree, a student must satisfy a Tier II Writing in the Major requirement after having completed the Tier I First-Year Writing (ATL) course. For physics majors the Tier II requirement will be satisfied by completing all courses in one of the three clusters of courses listed below. All students enrolled in these courses will be required to complete the writing activities. A student may choose either a laboratory cluster, a research and thesis cluster, or a lecture course cluster. In each of these clusters the nature of the writing style is appropriate to what physicists are expected to present as professionals and the writing is an integral part of the course and the material presented.
In each course the student's laboratory notebook will be graded for writing style and format. In addition, at least one laboratory report, written as a journal article, will be graded for style, grammar, and form, as well as for content and presentation, and there will be at least one return with feedback of the journal style paper with suggestions for revisions.
In the junior course the students will concentrate on library research, written reports, and oral presentations. The senior thesis will require some laboratory research on the part of the student which normally will take two semesters of enrollment and effort. The completed thesis will be graded not only on the basis of its physics content and accomplishment, but also for style and grammar. It is expected that in both courses there will be several iterations of submitted material with feedback from the instructor about the content and the writing. Taking both PHY 390 and Phy 490 will also satisfy the Tier II Writing in the Major requirement.
Associated with these two senior-level courses the students will receive the capstone culmination of most twentieth-century physics. In each of these courses the student will be expected to choose a particular aspect of twentieth-century physics and present a written essay of twenty to thirty pages which will be judged not only on the basis of scientific content and effort, but also on the basis of style, grammar, and structure. There will be feedback and revisions will be expected.