Why in the $

1
Announcements and Such
Comments on the Midterm Assignment Peer Review
Draft
2
Outline for the Day
How to Write a Scientific Paper Lecture
(Reminders of Expectations) Reproduction and
Early Life History 2nd Half of Wisconsin Fishes
3
Read the handout!!!!
4
Why Write?

• It is important to gain experience articulating
  thoughts
• Writing is a learning experience
• It is the currency of science

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Why outline?

• Two ways of thinking
• feedback

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Peer Review?

• Criticism is importantconstructive criticism
  is best!
• Two types Internal and External. Point of
  internal review is to make external review go
  well
• Reviews need to be taken seriously

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Order of a scientific paper (see handout!)

• Title
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Methods study site, data analyses
• Results graphs, tables, analyses
• Discussion
• Literature Cited

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Think before you write

• Analysis ? results figures numbers
• Search the literature ? context

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WritingStart with what you know

• Methods two parts
• Sampling site description and sampling
  techniques relevant to your hypothesis
• Statistical analysis
• Results (example)
• Report the findings
• What did your analyses reveal?
• FIGURES SHOULD STAND ALONE!!!!

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WritingWhy does it matter? What does it mean?

• Introduction
• What is the context of the study
• Set up the experiment
• Discussion
• What do the results mean?
• Was your hypothesis correct?
• What is interesting/exciting about your findings?

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WritingThe last step

• Abstract
• for most, the hardest part of writing a
  scientific paper
• Short summary of the important points of the
  paper
• Title
• Short, sweet, descriptive
• Literature Cited