Policy Paper

A policy paper advocates   What   to   Whom   for   Why

• What. A specific action. This could range from same age limit on voting, driving, drinking, etc. to paying fees for poorly designed buildings and other student services.
  In the course, you must pick topics for which the Why will be scientific (more to come).
• Whom. The person who will adopt/implement policy. In many cases, the initial audience is others who may join you in advocating policy.
  In the course, the class members are "the whom" you are persuading.
• Why. The reasons for the action.
  In the class, these are reasons based on largely scientific facts and arguments.

Long paper

• Write a longer (than medium length) paper about a science-based policy.
• The paper must advocate, attack or defend some specific policy or point of view that leads to an action (or argues against such action) using science-based arguments.
• The audience of the paper is your classmates. The technical level is that of the talks. In particular, equations are acceptable. But specially prepared figure and tables are better.
• The length of the paper should be 6-8 pages of text.
• The paper must have a title and an abstract; start text directly below abstract.
• The paper must have appropriate figures and table with original captions. The figure may be embedded in the text or attached at the end.
• The paper must have citations to all source material. Papers must use at least two (generally more) independent sources and cite each source.
• References should be listed at the end of the paper in the order of appearance in the paper. Use a consistent style of references; see Guide to Scientific Referencing handout on Journals and books and Internet references
• Deadlines: see assignment schedule (or history) for
  1. topic selection
  2. instructor meeting on topic for long paper
  3. sentence outline for long paper
  4. instructor meeting on long-paper sentence outlines
  5. draft long paper
  6. referee report on another's long paper
  7. final, revised long paper.

Some examples

sample old topics

===========================================
The case for genetically engineered crops

Genetically Engineered Crops: A Safe Way to Increase Quantity
    and Improve Quality of Our Food Supply

Scientists are not designing killer plants. They are simply
finding ways to make crops pest resistant and increase yield.  
In this technological age it makes sense to apply our knowledge
in as many ways as possible to improve our quality of life

===========================================
The case against Star Wars II 

Star Wars II: unreliable, ineffective, destabilizing and illegal

Not only is Star Wars II based on unreliable technology,
even if it were reliable, it would be ineffective in stopping
missiles from nations such as North Korea and, at the same time,
it could destabilize the Russians as a result of US abrogating
the 1972 ABM treaty
========================================

Medical advances require testing on humans and animals 

US should rely on solar power developed elsewhere 

The case for high-speed rail 

Nuclear fuel reprocesssing 

US Nuclear power should replace fossil fuel 

Animal testing should avoided for all products for which 
   the law does not require such testing 

Animal testing is important for medical research and should continue.  

FDA should regulate dietary supplements as it regulates food additives 

Breast implants are safe

Genetic manipulation of agricultural crops should be stopped. 

Emission trading, a part of the Kyoto agreement, is a bad
   idea; the success in the US with sulfur trading cannot be achieved in
   an international system.

In the generation of electrical energy, nuclear fission should replace
   coal to achieve lower cost, less pollution and fewere

International Space Station is $21 billion tinker toy and PR stunt.

rradiation of produce is safe and effective

US should lead the way in decreasing emissiions from vehicles and utilities. 

Federal governement and private agencies should support SETI.

The use of nuclear imaging in emergency treatment of chest pains would 
   improve diganois and treatment with considerable cost savings. 

Internationally enforced zero population growth is necessary both for
   protecting and restoring the biosphere and to portect current
   population from self destruction.

Regarless of signed treaties, US should develop and
   deploy anti-ballistic-missile system.

Global Positioning Systems can develop (?) enhanced
   capabilities to track environmental changes.

Automatic highways could enhance the capacity and safety existing 
   highways; car-platoon grouping enable connectivity to other highways.

Explosive devices (for terror or warfare) can be detected remoting:
   one laser evaporate small quantities of explosive molecules then
   detected with another laser.

Fusion power is the only viable source for future power needs both
   on economic and environmental grounds.

To attain practical fusion: (i) reduce turbulence preventing
   sustained, controlled fusion; (ii) repair/replace reactor walls
   continuously eroded; (iii) remove alpha particles & impurities killing
   fusion; (iv) develop advanced materials to harvest fusion energy;
   and (v) develop testing procedures under prolonged fusion.

Monte Carlo simulation provide backgrounds (from known physics) to
   substract from experiments to find new particles or properties of
   known particles.

In the unlikely event of LHC at CERN creating a micro Black Hole, it
   would not grow but rather quickly decay by emitting harmless particles.

Exploring Mars is now possible if international collaboration 
   provide more powerful rocket to quickly construct vehicle 
   in space and techniques for harvesting energy, water and
   oxygen can be harvested on Mars.

Moving from magnetic disk drive memory to digital solid state memory 
   already increase speed of data access and read/write 
   with decreased power consumption; further advances
   should erase cost disadvantage.

The billard ball's finite radius and ability to spin dramatically 
   alter the kinetic and dynamics of billards,

Brain- Machine interfaces can effectively use existing brain function 
   to control robotic parts in paralyzed patients.

Gravitational microlensing dramatically increase the range of detecting
   new planets, regardless of their mass or brightness.