Note: Charlene D'Avanzo is the editor of Ecology 101. Anyone wishing to contribute articles or reviews to this section should contact her at the School of Natural Sciences, Hampshire College, 893 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002. E‐mail: cdavanzo@hampshire.edu
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 334, Ramaley Hall, Boulder, Colorado, 80309 USA
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 334, Ramaley Hall, Boulder, Colorado, 80309 USA
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 334, Ramaley Hall, Boulder, Colorado, 80309 USA
Undergraduate guide to writing in the biological sciences
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 334, Ramaley Hall, Boulder, Colorado, 80309 USA
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 334, Ramaley Hall, Boulder, Colorado, 80309 USA
For many, this pattern occurs because we focus almost exclusively on the scientific process, all but neglecting the scientific writing process. Scientific writing is often a difficult and arduous task for many students. It follows a different format and deviates in structure from how we were initially taught to write, or even how we currently write for English, history, or social science classes. This can make the scientific writing process appear overwhelming, especially when presented with new, complex content. However, effective writing can deepen understanding of the topic at hand by compelling the writer to present a coherent and logical story that is supported by previous research and new results.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 334, Ramaley Hall, Boulder, Colorado, 80309 USA
In the conclusion, summarize everything you have already written. Emphasize the most important findings from your study and restate why they matter. State what you learned and end with the most important thing you want the reader to take away from the paper-again, your vision statement. From the conclusion, a reader should be able to understand the gist of your whole study, including your results and their significance.
Of all the sections, the methods section is simultaneously the easiest and the most important section to write accurately. Any results in your paper should be replicable based on the methods section, so if you've developed an entirely new experimental method, write it out in excruciating detail, including setup, controls, and protocols, also manufacturers and part numbers, if appropriate. If you're building on a previous study, there's no need to repeat all of those details
Armani often coaches students through the process of writing their first scientific paper. Her 10-step formula for writing a scientific paper could be useful to anyone who has concluded a study and feels the dread of the blank page looming.
A classic organizational approach used by writers is "storyboarding" where all figures are laid out on boards. This can be done using software like PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote. One approach is to put the vision statement on the first slide, and all of your results on subsequent slides. To start, simply include all data, without concern for order or importance. Subsequent passes can evaluate consolidation of data sets (e.g., forming panel figures) and relative importance (e.g., main text vs. supplement). The figures should be arranged in a logical order to support your hypothesis statement. Notably, this order may or may not be the order in which you took the data. If you're missing data, it should become obvious at this point.
6. Write the Conclusion
When conducting scientific research, Armani believes it’s important to test a hypothesis—not prove it. She recruits students who are willing to adopt that “testing” mentality, and are excited to explore the unknown. “I want them to push themselves a little bit, push the field a little bit, and not be afraid to fail,” she says. “And, know that even if they fail, they can still learn something from it.”
The methods section is one example of where knowing the journal is important. Some journals integrate the methods section in between the introduction and the results
The first thing that any new writer should do is pick a good electronic reference manager. There are many free ones available, but often research groups (or PIs) have a favorite one. Editing will be easier if everyone is using the same manager.
Figures are the best place to start, because they form the backbone of your paper. Unlike you, the reader hasn't been living this research for a year or more. So, the first figure should inspire them to want to learn about your discovery.
If you do decide to do a metanalysis and are anywhere near your campus, go to the school’s library. There will be, almost without exception, a point where you are knee deep in research and cannot find information on one obscure subtopic that’s absolutely critical to your paper, and that’s when you need to go speak to a librarian. Unlike what many people think, these workers are not just people who really like the Dewey decimal system or organizing books. Most of them hold at least Masters degrees and are research machines, being able to help one student with the economic impact of Nordic coffee trade in Dublin, or how to find a paper on a very specific protein synthesis pathway for another. Get to know these people, you will essentially be getting research paper help from top-rated writers, and research in general will be much easier for you in the future.
When actually writing these sections, there are a few general rules you should keep in mind. First, writing must be accurate and precise, and word choice in terms of variation comes in a far second. If at any point you find yourself repeating a key term, don’t worry about it too much. However, if you find yourself using a non-essential term time after time, it’s okay to switch things up. Other general rules for research (at least according to APA standards) includes using non-gendered language, using the proper time tense (dependent on specific requirements, but typically seen in past-tense), and using as exact measurements as possible.
Regarding citation methods, a vast majority of those reading this will be using a standard APA format, which also has a full style guide to go along with it which was summed up above in the “Word Choice and Paper Construction” section. For the citation side of things, if you aren’t terribly interested in memorizing formatting, both Bibme.org and the Purdue Online Writing Lab (often shortened to OWL) have great tools to make formatting easy. For those using MLA or Chicago/Turbian, Bibme is going to be your best resource.
The last, but certainly not least important step of constructing a research paper is making sure all your information is properly sourced. This means two things: Cite your facts, and cite them in the method that your professor or field require.
Step Two: Research
F. Discussion – This is the previously discussed “How” section, as well as the “How is this relevant or important”. What does this experiment have to say about the topic, and what conclusions can be drawn? Keep in mind, the statement “this experiment did not produce valid results” is still a valid answer, research isn’t always about finding a hard answer, sometimes it’s about pointing others towards experiments which may lead to more concrete answers as more evidence is uncovered. A final statement, usually one to two sentences long is customarily seen as a “conclusion”.
For most cases, formatting and paper construction will be outlined in a course syllabus, but you may have a professor or class that assumes knowledge a bit more than it should. In this case, the formatting should go as follows:
A. Title Page
1. Title – Use a title that accurate describes your investigation. This can either state the investigation or the results (for example, Effect of a Weighted Blanket on Behavioral and Axis II Disorders, or Weighted Blankets Reduce Positive Symptoms of Axis II Disorders), but should give the reader a good idea of what is contained within.
2. Author – Obviously, your own name should be here, and below that the class (if needed), University you are in, and date (again, if needed) should be on their own separate lines below.
B. Abstract – This section should be a small preview of what the paper is, usually in less than 200 words. As such, see this as an extremely small summary, and don’t worry about citations or footnotes. Do avoid abbreviations outside of industry standard, though.
In this data analysis section within the methods, I break my question down into smaller questions that help guide my analyses. Then under each part, I bullet the types of analyses that I need to do. Here’s an example:
Right away if you are leading a study (the first author). I highly recommend you start your writing when you are collecting data. I am really bad at doing this (do as I say, not as I do!). If you write your methods as you are actually doing them during the data collection process, everything will be fresh and you will thank yourself later when you go to start the rest of your paper and realize you are already done with your methods.
3. I then copy and paste those questions into my results section. As I am doing my data analysis, I write the results in very simple, often incomplete sentences. I write them under the questions that I am answering that I just copied and pasted from the methods analysis part.
7. After analysis is finished, I think about what figures I want to put in my paper. I know other people do this backwards
When Should You Start Writing a Scientific Paper?
Publications are not only vital for progressing science, but will likely help your career too. For many jobs, you need a publication record. Typically, the more publications you have, the more competitive you are for a job, but employers also look at things like the quality of journals that you publish in and whether you are a first author or not (more on that next week).
Other scientists! These include other professors, graduate students, or professionals in the government, nonprofits, and other places. You start getting asked to review papers once you publish a paper yourself and most people who review have graduate degrees.
In the discussion, you will discuss your results in the context of what has already been published. Are they what you expected? Do they contradict or support the literature? What do they mean for future studies.
One common mistake when writing a methods section is the inclusion of results. The methods section is simply a record of what you did.
Figures are the best place to start, because they form the backbone of your paper. Unlike you, the reader hasn't been living this research for a year or more. So, the first figure should inspire them to want to learn about your discovery.
In a few journals, results and discussion are separate sections. However, the trend is to merge these two sections. This section should form the bulk of your paper-by storyboarding your figures, you already have an outline!
The first thing that any new writer should do is pick a good electronic reference manager. There are many free ones available, but often research groups (or PIs) have a favorite one. Editing will be easier if everyone is using the same manager.
When conducting scientific research, Armani believes it’s important to test a hypothesis—not prove it. She recruits students who are willing to adopt that “testing” mentality, and are excited to explore the unknown. “I want them to push themselves a little bit, push the field a little bit, and not be afraid to fail,” she says. “And, know that even if they fail, they can still learn something from it.”
A classic organizational approach used by writers is "storyboarding" where all figures are laid out on boards. This can be done using software like PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote. One approach is to put the vision statement on the first slide, and all of your results on subsequent slides. To start, simply include all data, without concern for order or importance. Subsequent passes can evaluate consolidation of data sets (e.g., forming panel figures) and relative importance (e.g., main text vs. supplement). The figures should be arranged in a logical order to support your hypothesis statement. Notably, this order may or may not be the order in which you took the data. If you're missing data, it should become obvious at this point.
2) To support statements that are not common knowledge or may be contentious. For example: "Previous work has shown that vanilla is better than chocolate." You need a reference here. Frequently, there are several papers that could be used, and it is up to you to choose.