Science Writing for CHEM 8152

1
Science Writing for CHEM 8152

• 09/09/2011

2

• The learning objectives for this course are
• Critically consume scientific literature and
  talks in the area of analytical spectroscopy.
  Pose meaningful questions and present significant
  comments while exploring a new topic.
• (2) Identify appropriate spectroscopic techniques
  for the analysis of any sample. Recognize the
  strengths and limitations of each technique.
• (3) Formulate a novel research project addressing
  an important unanswered question by exploiting
  analytical spectroscopic methods. Recognize the
  critical early work and identify current
  state-of-the-art work in the chosen area.

3
Why is this relevant?
The point of doing doctoral work is to advance
science from the current state of the art using
knowledge and creativity. You must first know
whats been done and what the next steps are
before making a contribution. When I surveyed
faculty on the topic of generating original
research ideas, most responses centered on 3
major actions attend seminars in a wide
variety of areas read scientific literature
broadly practice formulating questions and
looking for the gap Writing is a critical and,
yet, underdeveloped in science Ph.D.s, according
to post-graduation employers.
4
Common Writing Errors

• PROOFREAD!!!  You should check your paper to
  catch and correct these and other common errors. 
  
• Abbreviations  You should avoid abbreviations by
  writing out the full word  (minimum, October,
  Virginia, first, temperature, with...). 
  Exceptions include common scientific terms like
  ATP and DNA, units of measure (m, g, cm, C), and
  mathematical or chemical formulas.  Sentences
  should never begin with an abbreviation or an
  acronym.
• Acronyms  You may wish to introduce an acronym
  for a term that is repeated often.  If you are
  writing a paper about tidal freshwater marshes,
  the first time the terms appear, you can
  introduce an acronym  "Tidal freshwater marshes
  (TFM) are important transitional zones in the
  landscape."  Throughout the rest of your paper,
  you would refer to TFM.
• Chemical elements are not proper nouns, so do not
  capitalize them.  Only the first letter of the
  symbol is a capital letter nitrogen (N), carbon
  (C), calcium (Ca).  
• Contractions  In formal writing, you should never
  use contractions (didn't, can't, haven't...).
• Data  The word "data" is plural, as in "the data
  were collected on January 21, 2001."

5
Common Writing Errors

• Direct quotes should be avoided, unless you are
  presenting another author's specific definition
  or original label.  You can usually paraphrase
  the writing effectively and more concisely,
  taking care to properly attribute the sources of
  your statements.
• Fluff  It is obvious when students do not
  understand what they are writing about, and their
  grades suffer as a result.  Read and re-read your
  references.  Consult a textbook or another
  reference to help you resolve any aspects of the
  paper you do not understand before you start
  writing.
• Run-on sentences   You should review your writing
  to make sure that each sentence presents one or
  two clear ideas.  This will also help you
  organize sentences within paragraphs in a logical
  order.
• Significance  In science, the word "significant"
  implies the result of a statistical test.  It
  cannot be used to say, "the number of root
  nodules on red clover plants increased
  significantly when nitrogen was added," if you
  did not perform a statistical test to determine
  significant differences. 
• Slang  Do not use slang.  Try to use accurate,
  scientific terms where possible (without
  unnecessary jargon) and avoid colloquialisms and
  figures of speech "somewhat" rather than "sort
  of," "many" or "a great deal" instead of "a lot."

http//classweb.gmu.edu/biologyresources/writinggu
ide/PracticalTips.htm
6
Plagiarism

• According to the Merriam-Webster Online
  Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means
• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words
  of another) as one's own
• to use (another's production) without crediting
  the source
• to commit literary theft
• to present as new and original an idea or
  product derived from an existing source.
• In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It
  involves both stealing someone else's work and
  lying about it afterward.

http//www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/what_is_
plagiarism.html
7
Plagiarism
All of the following are considered
plagiarism turning in someone else's work as
your own copying words or ideas from someone
else without giving credit failing to put a
quotation in quotation marks giving incorrect
information about the source of a quotation
changing words but copying the sentence
structure of a source without giving credit
copying so many words or ideas from a source
that it makes up the majority of your work,
whether you give credit or not
http//www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/what_is_
plagiarism.html
8
Quotation
What is quoting? Taking the exact words from an
original source is called quoting. You should
quote material when you believe the way the
original author expresses an idea is the most
effective means of communicating the point you
want to make. If you want to borrow an idea from
an author, but do not need his or her exact
words, you should try paraphrasing instead of
quoting. How often should I quote? Quote as
infrequently as possible. You never want your
paper to become a series of connected quotations,
because that leaves little room for your own
ideas. Most of the time, paraphrasing and
summarizing your sources is best (but remember
that you still have to cite them!). For the most
part, it is quite unusual to find direct
quotations in scientific writing.
http//www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/printabl
e_docs.html
9
Citation
Follow the American Chemical Society Citation
Style (1) Ho, M. Pemberton, J. E. Anal. Chem.
1998, 70, 4915-4920. (2) Bard, A. J. Faulker,
L. R. Electrochemical Methods, 2nd ed. Wiley
New York, 2001. (3) Francesconi, K. A.
Kuehnelt, D. In Environmental Chemistry of
Arsenic Frankenberger, W. T., Jr., Ed. Marcel
Dekker New York, 2002 pp 51-94.
10

• Is This Plagiarism?
• Source
• "The joker in the European pack was Italy. For a
  time hopes were entertained of her as a force
  against Germany, but these disappeared under
  Mussolini. In 1935 Italy made a belated attempt
  to participate in the scramble for Africa by
  invading Ethiopia. It was clearly a breach of the
  covenant of the League of Nations for one of its
  members to attack another. France and Great
  Britain, as great powers, Mediterranean powers,
  and African colonial powers, were bound to take
  the lead against Italy at the league. But they
  did so feebly and half-heartedly because they did
  not want to alienate a possible ally against
  Germany. The result was the worst possible the
  league failed to check aggression, Ethiopia lost
  her independence, and Italy was alienated after
  all." 1
• 1 J.M. Roberts, History of the World (New York
  Knopf, 1976), p. 845.
• Version A Italy, one might say, was the joker in
  the European deck. When she invaded Ethiopia, it
  was clearly a breach of the covenant of the
  League of Nations yet the efforts of England and
  France to take the lead against her were feeble
  and half-hearted. It appears that those great
  powers had no wish to alienate a possible ally
  against Hitler's rearmed Germany.
• Version B Italy was the joker in the European
  deck. Under Mussolini in 1935, she make a belated
  attempt to participate in the scramble for Africa
  by invading Ethiopia. As J.M. Roberts points out,
  this violated the covenant of the League of
  Nations.1 But France and Britain, not wanting to
  alienate a possible ally against Germany, put up
  only feeble and half-hearted opposition to the
  Ethiopian adventure. The outcome, as Roberts
  observes, was "the worst possible the league
  failed to check aggression, Ethiopia lost her
  independence, and Italy was alienated after
  all."21 J.M. Roberts, History of the World (New
  York Knopf, 1976), p. 845.2 Roberts, p. 845.
• Version C Much has been written about German
  rearmament and militarism in the period
  1933-1939. But Germany's dominance in Europe was
  by no means a forgone conclusion. The fact is
  that the balance of power might have been tipped
  against Hitler if one or two things had turned
  out differently. Take Italy's gravitation toward
  an alliance with Germany, for example. That
  alliance seemed so very far from inevitable that
  Britain and France actually muted their criticism
  of the Ethiopian invasion in the hope of
  remaining friends with Italy. They opposed the
  Italians in the League of Nations, as J.M.
  Roberts observed, "feebly and half-heartedly
  because they did not want to alienate a possible
  ally against Germany."1 Suppose Italy, France,
  and Britain had retained a certain common
  interest. Would Hitler have been able to get away
  with his remarkable bluffing and bullying in the
  later thirties?1 J.M. Roberts, History of the
  World (New York Knopf, 1976), p. 845
• The activity above was created by Michael D.
  Santos, Ph.D. with passages cited from The
  Random House Handbook, 2nd ed., Frederick Crews
  (New York McGraw-Hill, 1977), pp. 223-225. See
  Plagiarism - The Fast Track to an "F" by Michael
  Santos (2002).

11
Minute Papers (from our syllabus)

• The minute paper should be grammatically correct,
  written in your own words, and no longer than 500
  words.
• You should emphasize the technique that was used
  and the major findings of the work.
• A great addition to any minute paper would be
  your ideas about other experiments that could be
  done to continue or improve the presented work.
• As the semester progresses, your original
  experiment ideas should be featured more
  prominently in your minute paper.

12
Minute Papers

• 1st Identify an analytical spectroscopy/spectrom
  etry paper of interest in the ASAP alerts
• 2nd Read the paper, examine the figures/data,
  and identify the core conclusion
• 3rd Identify the strengths and weaknesses of
  the scientific work and more experiments that
  should be done (using the same or other
  techniques)
• 4th Compose your paper and upload it to the
  class blog (deadline 5 pm each Friday)
• 5th Read you classmates minute papers to
  quickly review a lot of literature

13
A Ratiometric pH Reporter For Imaging Protein-dye
Conjugates In Living Cells Junyan Han, Aurore
Loudet, Rola Barhoumi, Robert C. Burghardt and
Kevin Burgess