School/university essays and notes

Here are some of the essays I wrote and notes that I compiled, while studying at Gairloch High School and the University of Edinburgh.

I've decided to put this stuff on the Internet in case it happens to be of use to anyone. However, please bear in mind that some of the information may be inaccurate or out-of-date.

If you use material from these essays in your own coursework, please acknowledge the source properly. I say this for your own good: most universities have extremely strict policies on plagiarism, and cheats who try to present material copied from the web as their own work are very easily caught.

 

5th year of high school

Higher English

On top of the world
Swearing in English

 

1st year of university

Business Studies

Mergers and acquisitions
Motivating employees
RFID tagging in supermarkets

Thanks to a weird feature of the Scottish education system, I actually skipped the first year of university. However, these essays were written as part of a course that is normally taken by first-year students.

 

2nd year of university

Animal Biology

Shell loss in molluscs

Human and Mammalian Physiology

The role of experience in the development of vision

 

3rd year of university

Behavioural Ecology

Are pigeons ideal free foragers?
Behavioural Ecology revision notes

Plant Science

Starch synthesis and its manipulation
Plant Science revision notes

Population and Community Ecology

Population and Community Ecology revision notes

 

4th year of university

Animal Evolution

Animal Evolution revision notes

Animal Orientation

Animal Orientation revision notes

Arthropod Biology

Queen replacement in honey bee colonies
Arthropod Biology revision notes

Carnivores and Behaviour

Carnivores and Behaviour revision notes

Evolution of Sex and Breeding Systems

Evolution of androdioecy
Inherited microorganisms and sex determination of arthropod hosts
Influence of somatic mutation on lengths of haploid/diploid stages in life cycles
Evolution of Sex and Breeding Systems revision notes

Host-Parasite Interactions

Parasite damage and host responses: the example of Plasmodium

Quantitative Zoology

Quantitative Zoology revision notes

Zoology Honours project

Modelling the impact of immunisation upon the progress of a disease epidemic
View the project report (Microsoft Word document)
Download the epidemic simulator accompanying the project (75 KB zip file)

 

 

See also...

Biology teachers' notes