Download - Writing Scientific Papers
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Writing Scientific Papers
Manuscript ContentsProf. Steve Leharne
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What do you want from your published scientific paper?
• You want:– To report scientific findings– Recognition at work– Peer recognition– Recognition by a wider (global) audience
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• Paper must be published!• Paper should reach a wide
audience
Report scientific findings
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• Enhance reputation.• Help promotion prospects• Help career prospects
Recognition at work
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Peer recognition
• High quality paper leads to enhanced reputation and external esteem.
• High quality comes from well written paper and high quality data.
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Recognition by a wider audience
• Paper must be of high quality• Paper must be readily found
using an electronic search engine.
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What to include
• Title• Abstract• Introduction• Materials and Methods• Results (with Tables and Figures)• Discussion• Acknowledgments• Literature Cited
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• Make the title specific:– A good title should describe the contents of the
paper in the fewest possible words.– Keep to 12 words or less.
• The title should be appropriate for the intended audience.
• It should make people want to read the paper.
Choosing a Title
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Compare
• A study of the effects of chaos as a source of complexity and diversity in evolutionary processes.
• Chaos as a source of complexity and diversity in evolution
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Title Guidelines
• Titles may contain several key words or phrases.
• Some are more important than others.• Put these near the start of the title in order to
make it easier for the reader to determine what the paper is about.
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Title Guidelines
• Insert searchable keywords in your title.• This makes it easier for your work to be found
using web-based engine.
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• An Interim Report from the Myers Project.
• The Myers Project Interim Report into the Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Memory Retention.
• The second title is likely to picked out by a search for any of the highlighted phrases
Compare
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• Suit the title to your audience.
Title Guidelines
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Compare
• Fat Rats: What Makes Them Eat?
• The Relationship of Luteinising Hormone to Obesity in the Zucker Rat
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The Keyword List
• The keyword list provides an opportunity to add keywords, which are used by the indexing and abstracting services.
• These are additional to those already present in the title.
• The right choice of keywords should increase the ease with which your article be can located.
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The AbstractWhat did I do in a nutshell
• The abstract should provide a very short summary of your work.
• It should stand on its own and it should not be too technical.
• It should state your main findingsand conclusions.
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• Very briefly write:– What you did,– Why you did it– Whom you wrote it
for (if appropriate)
The Abstract: What it should contain
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Why we did the work.
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Background information
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What we did
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Results and conclusions
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The Introduction
• The purpose of the introduction is to:– Establish the context of the work being reported. – This is accomplished by discussing the relevant
primary research literature (with citations) and– Summarizing current understanding of the
problem you are investigating.
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• State the purpose of the work in the form of the hypothesis, question, or problem you investigated.
The Introduction
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• Briefly explain your rationale and approach and, whenever possible, the possible outcomes your study can reveal.
The Introduction
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Experimental Details
• This section of the paper ought to contain the following details where appropriate:– Materials used;– Organisms used– Instruments used– Experimental protocols
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• These experimental section should contain enough details that a competent researcher could repeat your experiment.
• The cornerstone of good science is reproducibility and repeatability.
Experimental Details
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Materials
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Experimental Methods
Instrument used
Manufacturer
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Use tables where they might help clarify the narrative
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Use diagrams to help clarify experimental
details
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• When giving details of measurements such as the temperature of the oven be precise.
• Which is better?– The oven was hot!– The oven was kept at 350 ± 1°C
Be precise
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Grammar : Use the third person
past passive voice.
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Results
• Present your results clearly• When necessary use tables and figures
effectively
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Results
• Do not repeat all of the information in the text that appears in a table or figure; but do summarize it.
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Using Tables
• For example, if you present a table of temperature measurements taken at various times, describe the general pattern of temperature change and refer to the table.
• "The temperature of the solution increased rapidly at first, going from 50º to 80º in the first three minutes (Table 1)."
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Using graphs
• Make graphs clear and provide them with a suitable caption.
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Discussion
• It is not enough to simply present your data (you have already done that), you must now discuss their significance.
• Discuss the meaning of individual results in this section; but wait until the conclusions section to tie everything together.
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Issues that need discussion
• Were the results consistent with your expectations?
• Does experimental error account for any deviations between the results and your expectations?
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• What underlying patterns or relationships exist in your results?
• Do these results support the hypothesis that you were testing?
• Do these results support the predictions in the literature?
Issues that need discussion
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Don’t try to gloss over problems in your results.
• If your results show a smooth curve with an unexpected dip in the middle, avoid the temptation to gloss over the unexpected deviation – it may turn out to be the most important part of your data.
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Discuss data treatment
• There are times when you have may developed a novel way of treating your data. This can go in the discussion section. Though sometimes it may go into a separate section.
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What has been found
and achieved?
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Acknowledgements
• If you received any significant help in thinking up, designing, or carrying out the work; or received free materials from someone you must acknowledge their assistance and the service or material provided.
• Although usual style requirements (e.g., 1st person, objectivity) are relaxed somewhat here – “Acknowledgments” are always brief and never flowery.
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References
• All the citations in the corpus of the text need to be identified in the reference list placed at the end of the paper.
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References
• Ensure that the formatting of the citations in the text and reference list conform with the style of the journal your article will be sent to.
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Name and date
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List in alphabetical order
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List in numerical order
Numbered references
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• Bates College• Colorado State University• Columbia University• WHO• Scribe Consulting
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