This page is designed to give you some references that can help you throughout your school career. Feel free to use these resources as often as possible. Some will refer specifically to science classes, some are good for all classes.
Presenting
A short TED talk that briefly talks about how you should present scientific information, but it works for all disciplines.
Citing Work
The button below is a link to a good website that will help you create references for a paper. In science, us APA formatting.
More information about correctly citing works can be found below.
Guidelines and Help for Writing Lab Reports
Verbal communication is temporal and easily forgotten, but written reports exist for long periods and yield long-term benefits for the author and others.
Scientific research is a group activity. Individual scientists perform experiments to test hypotheses about biological phenomena. After experiments are completed and duplicated, researchers attempt to persuade others to accept or reject their hypotheses by presenting the data and their interpretations. The lab report or the scientific paper is the vehicle of persuasion; when it is published, it is available to other scientists for review. If the results stand up to criticism, they become part of the accepted body of scientific knowledge unless later disproved.
In some cases, a report may not be persuasive in nature but instead is an archival record for future generations. For example, data on the distribution and frequency of rabid skunks in a certain year may be of use to future epidemiologists in deciding whether the incidence of rabies is increasing. Regardless of whether a report is persuasive or archival, the following guidelines apply.
General Requirements
Format
A scientific report usually consists of the following:
Title
The title should be less than ten words and should reflect the factual content of the paper. Scientific titles are not designed to catch the attention of the reader. A good title is straightforward and uses keywords that people will recognize.
Introduction
The introduction defines the subject of the report. It must outline the scientific purpose(s) or objective(s) for the experiment and give the reader enough background to understand the report. Limit the background to whatever is relevant (important) to the experiment. A good introduction will answer several questions, including the following:
First:
Materials and Methods
As the name implies, the materials (what is needed) and methods (how you did it) used in the experiments should be reported in this section. It is important in writing this section is to provide enough detail for the reader to understand the experiment. Describe special pieces of equipment and the general theory of the assays used. This can usually be done in a short paragraph, possibly along with a drawing of the experimental apparatus. Generally, this section attempts to answer the following questions:
Results
The results section should summarize the data from the experiments without discussing them, focusing on general themes and not trivial details. There are two sub-sections of the Results: I. Tables and Figures (presentation of data in properly structured graphs and tables) and II. Description of Data (this is a paragraph-structured description of the data, essentially narrating to the reader)Do not include data tables if you will later describe the information in a graph or picture, choose one or the other- graphs are often the better choice. All figures and tables should have descriptive titles and should include a legend explaining any symbols, or abbreviations. Figures and tables should be numbered separately and should be referred to in the text by number, for example:
Discussion
This section should not just be a restatement of the results but should emphasize interpretation of the data, relating them to what you already know and what you learned. Suggestions for the improvement of techniques or experimental design may also be included here. In writing this section, you should explain the logic that allows you to accept or reject your original hypotheses. You should also be able to suggest future experiments that might clarify areas of doubt in your results.
General Comments on Style
References:
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/maderinquiry/writing.html
Scientific research is a group activity. Individual scientists perform experiments to test hypotheses about biological phenomena. After experiments are completed and duplicated, researchers attempt to persuade others to accept or reject their hypotheses by presenting the data and their interpretations. The lab report or the scientific paper is the vehicle of persuasion; when it is published, it is available to other scientists for review. If the results stand up to criticism, they become part of the accepted body of scientific knowledge unless later disproved.
In some cases, a report may not be persuasive in nature but instead is an archival record for future generations. For example, data on the distribution and frequency of rabid skunks in a certain year may be of use to future epidemiologists in deciding whether the incidence of rabies is increasing. Regardless of whether a report is persuasive or archival, the following guidelines apply.
General Requirements
- 12 pt Times New Roman or Garamond font
- Double Spaced
- 1 inch margins
- Always write in third person
- Write in Full Sentences
- Important Reminders for a Lab Report Check Spelling
- Do not copy verbatim (word for word) from the lab handout or any other source. This is plagiarism and would result in a zero mark and possible further consequences.
Format
A scientific report usually consists of the following:
- Title
- Introduction
- Materials and methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Literature cited
Title
The title should be less than ten words and should reflect the factual content of the paper. Scientific titles are not designed to catch the attention of the reader. A good title is straightforward and uses keywords that people will recognize.
Introduction
The introduction defines the subject of the report. It must outline the scientific purpose(s) or objective(s) for the experiment and give the reader enough background to understand the report. Limit the background to whatever is relevant (important) to the experiment. A good introduction will answer several questions, including the following:
- Why was this study performed?
- What knowledge already exists about this subject? This is the background information that provides a base for the rest of the report.
- What is the specific purpose of the study? The specific hypotheses and experimental design important to investigating the topic should be briefly described.
First:
- Why a nonscientist would be interested in the topic.
- How the topic relates to human concerns.
- The type of organism used in the study and why.
- Background information on topics the reader should know to understand the basis for the experiment and its results.
- The variable tested and why it may have an effect.
- What previous investigations have found.
Materials and Methods
As the name implies, the materials (what is needed) and methods (how you did it) used in the experiments should be reported in this section. It is important in writing this section is to provide enough detail for the reader to understand the experiment. Describe special pieces of equipment and the general theory of the assays used. This can usually be done in a short paragraph, possibly along with a drawing of the experimental apparatus. Generally, this section attempts to answer the following questions:
- What materials were used?
- How were they used?
- Where and when was the work done? (This question is most important in field studies.)
Results
The results section should summarize the data from the experiments without discussing them, focusing on general themes and not trivial details. There are two sub-sections of the Results: I. Tables and Figures (presentation of data in properly structured graphs and tables) and II. Description of Data (this is a paragraph-structured description of the data, essentially narrating to the reader)Do not include data tables if you will later describe the information in a graph or picture, choose one or the other- graphs are often the better choice. All figures and tables should have descriptive titles and should include a legend explaining any symbols, or abbreviations. Figures and tables should be numbered separately and should be referred to in the text by number, for example:
- Figure 1 shows that the activity decreased after five minutes.
- The activity decreased after five minutes (fig. 1).
Discussion
This section should not just be a restatement of the results but should emphasize interpretation of the data, relating them to what you already know and what you learned. Suggestions for the improvement of techniques or experimental design may also be included here. In writing this section, you should explain the logic that allows you to accept or reject your original hypotheses. You should also be able to suggest future experiments that might clarify areas of doubt in your results.
General Comments on Style
- All scientific names (genus and species) must be italicized. (Underlining indicates italics in a typed paper.)
- Use the metric system of measurements. Abbreviations of units are used without a following period.
- Be aware that the word data is plural while datum is singular. This affects the choice of a correct verb. The word species is used both as a singular and as a plural.
- Numbers should be written as numerals when they are greater than ten or when they are associated with measurements; for example, 6 mm or 2 g but two explanations of six factors. When one list includes numbers over and under ten, all numbers in the list may be expressed as numerals; for example, 17 sunfish, 13 bass, and 2 trout. Never start a sentence with numerals. Spell all numbers beginning sentences.
- Be sure to divide paragraphs correctly and to use starting and ending sentences that indicate the purpose of the paragraph. A report or a section of a report should not be one long paragraph.
- Every sentence must have a subject and a verb.
- Avoid using the first person, I or we, in writing. Keep your writing impersonal, in the third person. Instead of saying, "We weighed the frogs and put them in a glass jar," write, "The frogs were weighed and put in a glass jar."
- Avoid the use of slang and the overuse of contractions.
- Be consistent in the use of tense throughout a paragraph--do not switch between past and present. It is best to use past tense.
- Be sure that pronouns refer to antecedents. For example, in the statement, "Sometimes cecropia caterpillars are in cherry trees but they are hard to find," does "they" refer to caterpillars or trees?
References:
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/maderinquiry/writing.html