Presenting Scientific Work

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Presenting Scientific Work - Written-
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Generally- two types of work
Scientific Paper ( Lab Report) Title Abstract Key
wordsIntroduction Materials and
Methods Results Discussion Conclusions Literature
Cited
Essay -less structured
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Types of Writing
Scientific writing is more structured and
economical than non-scientific (e.g. writing for
Arts/Humanities courses)
e.g. this is from an essay in a Biology course at
Mt. A.
When most people think of algae, they either
think of the slimy green stuff in a lake, or
the masses of seaweed that float aimlessly in the
sea. Chlorine companies make millions a year
producing products that would prevent the build
up of alge in a swimming pool. However algae,
although it might seem as a nuisance to some,
undoubtedly is very important to the ecosystem.
It is also of substantial economic use to human
society. We have learned to exploit algaes
natural properties and use it for our own
beneficial needs., Throughout this paper,
several areas of algae will be covered, which
will include physical characteristics,
reproduction, types of algae, and their economics
uses in society.
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Types of Writing
Scientific writing is more structured and
economical than non-scientific (e.g. writing for
Arts/Humanities courses)
e.g. this is from an essay in a Biology course at
Mt. A.
A gentle critique
When most people think of algae, they either
think of the slimy green stuff in a lake, or
the masses of seaweed that float aimlessly in the
sea. Chlorine companies make millions a year
producing products that would prevent the build
up of algae in a swimming pool. However algae,
although it(?) might seem as a nuisance to some,
undoubtedly is very important to the ecosystem.
It is also of substantial economic use to human
society. We have learned to exploit algaes
natural properties and use it for our own
beneficial needs., Throughout this paper,
several areas of algae will be covered, which
will include physical characteristics,
reproduction, types of algae, and their economics
uses in society.
Too diverse for one essay
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Scientific Paper
Title Titles should be informative but not
overly long OR overly cute.
Good title The effects of three levels of
cadmium on the production of thyroid stimulating
hormone in Richardsons ground squirrel,
Spermophilus richardsoni,
Too long a title The effects of levels 13, 27
and 40 nmol of cadmium on the pre- and
post-lactation production of thyroid stimulating
hormone in small fuzzy mammals as exemplified by
studies on captive populations of Richardsons
ground squirrel, Spermophilus richardsoni.
Too cute a title Mate choice in hermaphrodites
you wont score with a spermatophore
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Scientific Paper
Abstract
An abstract is a précis of the entire paper and
should be about 5 of its length. This means
that for a 3000 word paper the abstract is about
150 words (or 10-15 typed lines) Every section
of the paper (Introduction, Materials and
Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions) should
be represented by at least one sentence in the
Abstract.
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Scientific Paper Keywords
Keywords are something that are relatively new in
the literature (perhaps the last 25 years or so).
They serve as locators for topics when
researchers are search for papers in a particular
area. For example, a recent paper with the
title Mechanisms of reproductive isolation
among sympatric broadcast spawning corals of the
Monastrea annularis species complex Has the
keywords Coral reef, fertilization,
hybridization, mass-spawning, speciation
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Scientific Paper Introduction

• one of the hardest sections to write
• should present historical and/or theoretical
  precedents to the problem or subject
• should outline the main areas of the arguments in
  the field
• should end with a statement of the objectives or
  hypothesis of the work to follow

Literature review
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Scientific Paper Materials and Methods

• should allow exact duplication of the experiment
  or field study
• can be tricky to decide this - how much detail is
  too much??

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Scientific Paper Results

• Should be very well organized
• Should present data so that the relevance of the
  results to the hypothesis is clear
• Present data once - either in a table or in some
  figure but NOT both
• Use the text to highlight important trends or
  results but not as a written restatement of the
  results

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Scientific Paper Results Some presentation hints
1. Use an appropriate graph
For continuous data
For discrete data
And generally - use a graph instead of a table
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Scientific Paper Results Some presentation hints
2. Write the results from a biological point of
view not a statistical one
Bad An unpaired t-test with a t value of 4.56,
23 degrees of freedom and a p of .001 of the
number of days that nestlings spent in the nest
showed that offspring of older birds left their
nest later than offspring of younger
birds Better The number of days that nestling
spent in the nest was significantly lower for
young parents (unpaired t-test, t .456, df 24,
p.001)
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Scientific Paper Discussion

• should analyse in words what you think your data
  mean
• should show the relevance of your findings to
  other literature in the field
• should show how your findings contribute to any
  controversies or ambiguities in the field
• should BRIEFLY suggest avenues for further
  research

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Scientific Paper Literature cited
Few people appreciate that there is a difference
between a Bibliography and Literature (or
References) Cited Bibliography is all the
reference material you looked up on a subject
whether you cited it in the text of your paper or
not Literature (or References) Cited are ONLY
those references that appear in the text of your
paper
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Scientific Paper Literature cited

• There are a great number of stylistic differences
  in how references are cited but there are a few
  general rules that apply to most papers
• All cited literature goes in alphabetical order
  of first author at the end of the paper.
• All references used in the paper must be cited at
  the end.
• References from the non-professional literature
  (e.g. National Geographic, newspapers, popular
  magazines) are generally frowned upon
• Websites are terrible reference material. Never
  use them!
• The only exception to (4) is electronic
  peer-reviewed journals

For a summary of ways to cite various kinds of
articles http//www.mta.ca/raiken/Courses/4401/c
itation.html
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A final sneaky little trick My own preference
when writing a scientific paper is to write the
sections in the following order
Working title Materials and Methods Results Discus
sion Conclusions Introduction Literature
Cited Title Abstract Keywords
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Essays
Essays are more difficult to assign rules (beyond
style and grammar) but a few things to keep in
mind

• An essay should have a well-defined theme to it.
  Its not just an arbitrary collection of facts on
  a topic.
• An essay should have a fairly narrow theme to it.
  If you wanted to do an essay on The behaviour
  of beavers, youre already in trouble. An essay
  on Maternal behaviour in beavers and its
  consequences for offspring survival would be
  much better because you have already focussed the
  topic.
• Avoid extraneous, off-the-topic material. You
  would not put information on how beavers build
  dams or the effect of beaver dams on farmland in
  the essay above.
• Generally, follow the rules for writing
  introductions and discussions of scientific
  papers. The only thing to keep in mind is that
  the data you use in support of whatever
  arguments you are making comes from the
  literature and not from your own experiments

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Essays
Essays are more difficult to assign rules (beyond
style and grammar) but a few things to keep in
mind

• Avoid dramatic, cute or flowery writing
• e.g. In our maternal behaviour in beavers
  example
• A really bad introduction is
• Beaver mothers, like all other mothers in the
  animal kingdom, give their babies a great deal of
  care and affection
• A really bad conclusion is
• So we have seen how beaver mothers work hard to
  make sure their babies will have a successful
  life. Perhaps we, as humans, can learn from
  their example and build a better societies for
  all of us to live in.

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Aikens Use-These-Words-Incorrectly-And-Youll-Di
e List
Effect and affect - effect is a noun, affect is
a verb Impact - its a noun - dont use it as
a verb (better still, dont use it at
all) Amount and number - amount refers to
continuous quantities, number refers to discrete
quantities (i.e. number of people not an
amount of people) Varying - it means
changing or fluctuating - it does not mean
different Basically - overused and drifting
to being meaningless Data - its plural -
data are not data is Compare to - the
proper expression is Compare between Between/am
ong - between refers to two objects, among to
more than two Which/that - this is tricky but
that is restrictive, which means it tells you a
necessary piece of information about its
antecedent. Which is non-restrictive it does
not limit the word to which it refers.
http//andromeda.rutgers.edu/jlynch/Writing/index
.html
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Aikens Use-These-Words-Incorrectly-And-Youll-Di
e List
AND JUST FOR BIOLOGY Genus - the plural is
genera not genuses Species -singular and
plural are the same word Italics - either
underline or put in italics the genus and species
name ( the binomial) for any organism - e.g.
Homo sapiens or H. sapiens Methodology --ology
on the end of a word means study of. For
example, Biology is the Morphology study of
life. Methodology is the study of methods and
morphology is the study of Etc. structure.
Use methods and structure
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Aikens Use-These-Words-At-All-And-Youll-Die
List
quite, very, extremely, as it were, moreover,
it can be seen that, it has been indicated
that, basically, essentially, totally,
completely, therefore, it should be remembered
that, it should be noted that, thus, it is
imperative that, at the present moment in time.