DAIT Assignment #4

A Seminar Invitation in Analytical Chemistry


Overview
This data analysis and information management assignment will provide your company with an opportunity to research topics and people working in an area of analytical chemistry.  Ultimately the assignment will result in your company sending a memo to upper management making the case for allocating resources to make the invitation happen and crafting a letter of invitation to a scientist to present a seminar at St. Olaf College on a topic related to analytical chemistry.   To assist you with this assignment, consider the introduction to analytical chemistry that we discussed during the first day of class; you may wish to craft your search based on where an analytical chemist works, the general activities of an analytical chemist, or a topic of current research in the field.  In each case, SciFinder Scholar, Web of Knowledge, and Science Direct will be valuable search tools.

Places of Employment -Industries
3M Eastman Chemical IBM Novartis Valspar
Agilent Technologies Ecolab Kimberly-Clark Pace Analytical Varian Inc.
Aveda Eli Lilly Kodak Pfizer  
Cargill General Mills Land O Lakes Pharmacia  
CIMA Laboratories Goodyear LucentTechnologies PPG Industries  
Dow Chemical H. B. Fuller Medtronic Procter & Gamble  
Dupont Honeywell Merck & Co. St. Jude Medical  

Places of Employment -Education, Government, Others....
Colleges & Universities MN Dept of Natural Resources Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Federal Bureau of Investigation MN Pollution Control Agency Smithsonian Institution
Getty Conservation Institute National Aeronautics & Space Administration US Dept of Agriculture
Mayo Clinic National Gallery of Art US Environmental Protection Agency
Metropolitan Council National Institute of Standards & Technology US Food & Drug Administration
MN Bureau of Criminal Apprehension National Institutes of Health US Geological Survey
MN Dept of Agriculture National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
MN Dept of Health National Science Foundation

Assignment
Find a scientist doing analytical work that interests members of your company so much that you would like to invite him/her to give a seminar at St. Olaf College sometime in the future.  A recommended first step is to browse the on-line editions of Analytical Chemistry, Environmental Science & Technology,and Journal of Chromatography A (Science Direct), to discover contemporary research topics in analytical chemistry prior to doing a SciFinder Search.  Simply click on the underlined name to take you to the appropriate website.  Once you have identified a possible topic of interest, use SciFinder Scholar and Web of Science to find publications on that topic and scientists doing the work.  You might wish to refine your search to target specific organizations/places of employment of interest.  Use SciFinder, Web of Science, Bridge, and EndNote to build a custom bibliography for this analytical topic.
 

Memo to upper management
The first written part of the assignment is to compose a memo to upper management that outlines the case for allocating resources to invite your selected scientist to speak to Norway Valley Laboratories (i.e., St. Olaf College Chemistry Department).  The memo will briefly describe the significance of the scientist's work, his/her educational background if available, and current place of employment; furthermore, it should articulate what topic this scientist will be asked to present at Norway Valley Laboratories.  To adequately convince upper management that this person should come speak on the topic you've selected, include a bibliography as part of the memo.  That bibliography must contain at least 6 journal or book citations, formatted in the style found in Analytical Chemistry,and the title of journal articles should be included.

Ferrer, I.; Thurman, E. M.; Barcelo, D. "First LC/MS Determination of Cyanazine Amide, Cyanazine Acid, and Cyanazine in Groundwater Samples" Environ. Sci. Technol. 2000, 34, 714-718.
 

Invitation to the speaker
The second written component of this assignment is a formal letter of invitation from your company to the scientist asking them to come to St. Olaf College and present on the specified topic.  To assist you in crafting a suitable letter, an example is available; click here to download it.  Use this example as a template and remember to include the topic on which you wish to have him/her present.
 

 



Last Updated on 30 Sept 2008
By Paul T. Jackson
Email: jackson@stolaf.edu

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