Finally, after becoming very familiar with grasping and communicating about primary articles, students get to write their own primary article.  As explained earlier, in the laboratory and before midterms students worked in pairs to complete a multi-week investigative lab. The student pairs now co-author a formal manuscript designed to mimic a primary research article to be submitted to a real peer-reviewed journal (for formatting purposes, I usually choose Cell).  In addition to discussing primary articles already published (in Cell) as examples, peer teachers and I provide detailed instructions on content and format. Before student pairs submit their completed manuscript, I encourage them to writing consultant. When completed manuscripts are initially submitted, peer teachers and the writing consultant grade them and provide comments with particularly strict rigor. As such, initial grades are usually quite low and allow for significant improvements for the final draft.  Students are given at least three additional weeks to make all revisions (typically the paper is due the last week of the semester).  The incentive for revised final submission is purposely substantial: up to 30 points (three letter grades) can be made up on this project based on the quality of revised efforts. The writing consultant and peer teachers recommend the final grade, for which I reserve final responsibility.