Your Science Paper

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Your Science Paper

• The First Draft

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Powerpoint Includes

• General paper guidelines
• Title page format
• Background information discussion
• Parenthetical documentation discussion.

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What is Included in the First Draft

• Title Page
• Introductory paragraph (thesis and purpose)
• Background information (research)
• Final paragraph with hypothesis
• Works Cited page

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GENERAL GUIDELINES

• Double-space your entire paper.
• Type in 12 pt Times New Roman
• Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all
  sides.
• Create a header that numbers all pages
  consecutively in the upper right-hand corner,
  one-half inch from the top and flush with the
  right margin. (Note do not number the title
  page.)

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GENERAL GUIDELINES

• Do not skip extra lines between paragraphs
• When beginning a paragraph, use your own words
  for the first and last sentences. Do not cite
  someone in those two sentences.
• No part of the paper has a title or header. It
  should all flow from one paragraph to another
  with good transitions.

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TITLE PAGE

• Center your title in the middle of the paper,
  double spaced.
• Capitalize each word in the title. This rule does
  not apply to articles, short prepositions, or
  conjunctions unless one is the first word of the
  title or subtitle.
• Do not underline any word and make the title
  14-16pt font size.

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TITLE PAGE

• In the bottom right hand corner, double spaced,
  print your name, your full home address on two
  lines, your school name, and your grade. Write
  out tenth instead of using a number. Use 12pt
  font.

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Background Information

• Starts on a new page.
• Includes introductory paragraph with thesis
  statement and purpose, background information
• Ends with summary paragraph that includes the
  hypothesis.
• You must cite your sources correctly. Failure to
  cite your sources will result in a zero for
  plagiarism.

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Background Information

• This section should explain what prompted your
  research and what you hoped to achieve.
• It should include previous research as well as
  your own experiences.
• Review the literature (books, websites, journals,
  etc.) and summarize essential information so that
  we can understand it.

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Background Information

• Include information about your independent and
  dependent variables.
• Establish a strong rationale for the study by
  emphasizing unresolved issues or questions.

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The First Paragraph of Your Paper..

• This starts on a new page, right behind the title
  page.
• This is the paragraph that sets the tone for your
  whole paper.
• It includes your purpose and your thesis
  statement.
• It introduces your topic.

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The First Paragraph of Your Paper..

• Your purpose should NOT read The purpose of this
  project is
• State your thesis and the purpose of your
  research paper clearly. What is the chief reason
  you are writing the paper?
• State also how you plan to approach your topic.

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The First Paragraph of Your Paper..

• Explain briefly the major points you plan to
  cover in your paper and why readers should be
  interested in your topic.
• Do some critical thinking and write your thesis
  statement down in one sentence.
• Your thesis statement is like a declaration of
  your belief. The main portion of your essay will
  consist of arguments to support and defend this
  belief.

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The First Paragraph of Your Paper..

• Your thesis may change as your paper matures
  through its many drafts.
• Make sure your thesis is in the form of a
  statement, not a question. "Can we save the
  Amazon rain forest?" is an ear-catching question
  that might be useful in the introduction, but it
  doesn't express an opinion or perspective.

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Thesis Examples

• The Amazon rain forest can be saved by limiting
  tourist presence, boycotting goods made by
  companies that deplete the forest's resources,
  and generally educating people about the need to
  preserve the rain forest in order to preserve the
  earth's ecological systems."
• "The Amazon rain forest cannot be saved since the
  companies that deplete its resources in their
  manufacturing are so widely-spread throughout the
  world, so politically powerful in their
  respective countries, and wealthy enough to fight
  the opposition fully."

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The First ParagraphAn Example

• The tartness that distinguishes Lycopersicon
  esculentum, the tomato, from other vegetables is
  produced in part by acids. Practically all foods
  contain acids, either naturally or added later
  during processing (Gould 268). There are several
  important factors that seem to have an influence
  on the acidity of tomatoes. These include
  variety, maturity, handling and holding
  procedures prior to processing, and the
  processing itself (Gould 273). Does the pH of
  roma and plum tomatoes change once they are
  canned?

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The First Paragraph An Example

• Most people notice that low-powered light bulbs
  are dimmer than light bulbs with high power.
  They probably also see slight variations in the
  color of differently powered light bulbs. These
  everyday observations lead one to question what
  effect a light bulb's power has on its spectrum.
  Spectrum, according to Kurt Nassau's
  Experimenting With Color, is the pattern of
  colors in the visible part of the electromagnetic
  spectrum (120). This experiment is designed to
  discover quantitatively what happens to the
  spectrum of a light bulb as its power source, in
  this case batteries, is gradually diminished.

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Background Information

• This is your research.
• This is where you talk about different aspects of
  your project.
• This is where you write about what you have been
  researching.

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Background Information

• When I read your hypothesis at the end of this
  section, I should already know what it is going
  to say because you have set it up through your
  research. What you write about leads to your
  hypothesis.

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For Example

• The hypothesis
• If begonia plants are given Coca Cola, they will
  grow taller than plants that are given just
  water.
• So what should you discuss in your background?

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You Should Write About

• 1. What is a plant
• 2. How plants grow
• 3. What they need to grow
• 4. Information about the specific plant you are
  using.
• 5. What is in Coca Cola that you think will
  help plants.

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Final Paragraph of Background Information

• This final paragraph sums up your background
  information and includes your hypothesis.
• The hypothesis is not set apart or listed
  separately.

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Sample Last Paragraph

• When one, two, or three batteries of a
  four-battery flashlight are replaced with foil,
  the flashlight still works, but the voltage
  traveling to the incandescent bulb decreases.
  The light keeps working because the foil acts
  like a wire, allowing the remaining batteries to
  power the flashlight. The decreased voltage
  causes the bulb to have a lower temperature, and
  the lower temperature should affect the spectrum
  of the light bulb in a way similar to that
  described in the above research. This leads to
  the hypothesis that when the power of an
  incandescent light bulb is decreased, its
  spectrum will shift from having similar
  intensities for all colors to having greatest
  intensity in the red portion of the spectrum.

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Sample Last Paragraph

• Tomatoes have a sharp taste and are used in a
  variety of recipes. Some cooks choose to use
  canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Cooks are also
  concerned about microbial growth in their foods.
  Thus a lower pH is preferable. If plum and roma
  tomatoes are compared before and after canning, a
  canned plum tomato will be more acidic than a
  fresh plum tomato and both tomato varieties will
  display comparable acidity after canning.

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General Information

• Do not use first or second person.
• Do not put words in quotations unless your are
  quoting someone.
• Use metric at all times
• Spell out numbers 1-10
• Dont start a sentence with a non-spelled out
  number.

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General Information

• The first and last sentence of each paragraph is
  your own words.
• Integrate the hypothesis into the last paragraph.
• Hit the space bar twice after the end of each
  sentence.

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Questions?
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Parenthetical Documentation

• This is where you give credit to someone else for
  his/her ideas.
• Anything that is NOT common knowledge must be
  cited.
• If you cite it in your paper, it must appear on
  your Works Cited page and vice versa.

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Parenthetical Documentation

• MLA format follows the author-page method of
  citation.
• This means that the author's last name and the
  page number(s) from which the quotation is taken
  must appear in the text, and a complete reference
  should appear in your works cited list.
• The author's name may appear either in the
  sentence itself or in parentheses following the
  quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s)
  should always appear in the parentheses, not in
  the text of your sentence.

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Parenthetical Documentation

• If you are using a website, there are no page
  numbers unless it is a PDF file.
• You use par. or pars. - after the authors
  name. Count the number of paragraphs.
• If there is no author, then use an abbreviated
  form of the title in its place in the parenthesis.

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Parenthetical Documentation

• Wordsworth stated in his book The Prose Works of
  William Wordsworth that Romantic poetry was
  marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful
  feelings" (263).
• Romantic poetry is characterized by the
  "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"
  (Wordsworth 263).

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Parenthetical Documentation

• The tartness that distinguishes Lycopersicon
  esculentum, the tomato, from other vegetables is
  produced in part by acids. Practically all foods
  contain acids, either naturally or added later
  during processing (Gould 268). There are several
  important factors that seem to have an influence
  on the acidity of tomatoes. These include
  variety, maturity, handling and holding
  procedures prior to processing, and the
  processing itself (Gould 273). Does the pH of
  roma and plum tomatoes change once they are
  canned?

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Parenthetical Documentation

• Growing tomatoes at home is not complicated.
  According to William McGlynn, a horticultural
  food specialist, tomatoes may be harvested at the
  mature green stage,, semi-ripe (with different
  amounts of red pigmentation), or fully ripe,
  depending on marketing requirement (4). They are
  very perishable and subject to surface and
  internal damage, and must be handled accordingly
  (2). Tomatoes are sensitive to chilling injury,
  which differs with maturity of the fruit and
  proper temperature management for ripening and
  storage are critical to maintain quality (3).
  Tomatoes are dependent upon growing conditions
  and as the variety changes, so can the conditions
  required.

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Parenthetical Documentation

• Tomatoes have a tart taste. The most abundant
  natural acid in tomatoes is citric acid which is
  also found in oranges and lemons (Wahem 1). The
  pH of tomatoes runs between 4.0 and 4.5 (Wahem
  4). Tomatoes average a pH of 4.3 and an acidic
  product is considered to have a pH of 4.6 or less
  (Gould 273). Many vegetables go through the
  canning process. Food processing companies
  desire a lower pH to prevent microbial growth in
  their canned foods because the pH of a food is
  the controlling factor in the regulation of many
  chemical and microbial reactions (Gould 270).
  Tomato processors tend to use citric acid and
  fumaric acid as a chemical agent to lower pH
  (Gould 270). It would seem that canned tomatoes
  should have a lower pH.

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Questions?