HOW TO WRITE A SCIENTIFIC PAPER

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SCIENCE LAB REPORT FORMAT
Red Lion Area Senior High School
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PARTS OF A LAB REPORT

• 1. TITLE PAGE
• 2. ABSTRACT (Optional)
• 3. INTRODUCTION
• 4. METHODS (PROCEDURE)
• 5. RESULTS (DATA)
• 6. DISCUSSION (CONCLUSION)
• 7. LITERATURE CITED

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TITLE PAGE

• ON A SEPARATE SHEET OF PAPER
• Name of experiment or exercise
• Your name
• Name of lab partners
• Name of class
• Date experiment done
• Date report submitted

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• Color variation in MM?'s
• By Heather Fogell
• Lab Group 1 Olive Science, Itza Greatclass
• AP Biology
• Experiment Date February 1, 2004
• Write-up Date March 3, 2004

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INTRODUCTION

• The Introduction
• supplies background information needed to
  understand the study.
• may provide a theoretical basis and historical
  context for the work done in the lab.
• Specifies the problem and hypothesis.
• To write the introduction
• Give background information on your topic and
  more specific information on the exact areas that
  you are studying
• Cite information that has been published in
  research articles or books related to your study.
• Clearly SPECIFY THE PROBLEM being investigated or
  the objective of the study.
• Toward the end of this section you should
  EXPLICITLY STATE YOUR HYPOTHESES!!

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• INTRODUCTION
• MMs are a popular snack food made by MM Mars
  Company. First developed in 1941 and famous for
  Melting in your mouth and not I your hands each
  candy consists of chocolate covered with a hard
  colored coating (1). In the 1980s variations
  were added that contained peanuts, pretzels,
  coconut, and coating colors were added that
  mirrored traditional holiday colors (2). This
  study explores the allocation of coating colors
  within the king-size packages of peanut MMs.
  Specifically, are the same amount of each color
  candy in each package?. It is hypothesized that
  color assortment is random and the same amount of
  each color is not present in each king-size
  package.

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ABSTRACT

• WHAT IS AN ABSTRACT?
• a single, tightly written paragraph that briefly
  summarizes the major elements of the lab report
• a minimum of one sentence each describing the
  objectives, methods, results, and conclusion

HELPFUL TIPS This section is easiest to write
last and is done on a separate sheet of paper!!
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ABSTRACT

• If the different colors of MM?'s are equally
  distributed in each package, then the frequency
  of each color appearing within each bag will be
  the same. Ten bags of traditional MM?'s were
  purchased and the candy within each was
  separately divided by color. Results were then
  gathered and analyzed for variation of color
  frequency within the sample bags. The different
  colors of MM?'s were not equally distributed in
  each package. Therefore the frequency of each
  color appearing within each bag is not the same.

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METHODS (PROCEDURES)

• Describe the procedures that enabled you to
  collect your data
• DO NOT simply list the "materials"
• Include details that would permit someone to
  repeat your work based on their reading of this
  section
• For most labs, the methods will come from a lab
  manual handout. (The degree to which your
  manual/handout may be used for citing methodology
  is up to your instructor.)
• AVOID insignificant details such as the name of
  the company that made your pipette or the day of
  the week on which your lab occurred.
• The predominant verb tense in this section is
  past tense.

HELPFUL TIP This section is often the most
straightforward to write and is therefore a good
place to begin your report.
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• METHODS

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RESULTS (DATA)

• PRESENT FINDINGS
• usually in the form of numerical data
• Provide data that have been condensed to some
  degree rather than raw data.
• If you are presenting calculated means, include
  some measure of data variability (e.g. standard
  deviations).
• USE TABLES OR FIGURES
• DO NOT simply refer readers to tables and
  figures!! Results must be verbally expressed in
  this section.
• Draw the reader's attention to particularly
  noteworthy data or the presence of meaningful
  trends
• If possible, support this with statistical
  analyses, keeping in mind that statistical
  significance may conflict with your sense of
  biological significance.

HELPFUL TIP The text of this section should
summarize the data, but stop short of
interpreting their meaning or drawing major
conclusions about their importance.
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Results As seen in table 1, none of the bags
have the same amount of each color. Figure 1
shows brown is the most frequent in bag one and
orange is the least. Figure 2 shows blue is the
most frequent in bag two and green is the least.
Figure 3 shows red is the most frequent in bag
three and yellow is the least.
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TABLESMay be used to organize large groups of
numbers

• 1) Include a table heading at the top,
  summarizing the tables contents. It is usually a
  SINGLE sentence fragment and may lack a verb.
• 2) Use superscripts and footnotes to provide
  additional information about the contents of the
  table.
• 3) Each table should be on its own piece of paper
  or neatly integrated into the end of the results
  section.

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FIGURES (GRAPHS/PHOTOS)Can be particularly
useful to display trends in data.

• FIGURE LEGENDS
• 1) Every figure requires a separate figure
  legend at the bottom.
• 2) Figure legends should provide just enough
  information to allow the reader to interpret the
  figure. Unlike table headings, figure legends may
  consist of several sentences. The first sentence
  is often a sentence fragment (a conceptual
  title).
• FIGURES
• 1) Each figure should be centered on its own
  separate piece of paper or neatly integrated into
  the end of the results section.
• 2) All axes should be labeled. The letters and
  numbers on the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical)
  axes should be large enough to clearly read.
• 3) Include a key inside complex figures to
  identify symbols, lines, or bars.

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DISCUSSION (CONCLUSION)

• Interpret your data and evaluate the meaning of
  your results.
• The Discussion includes the following
• Briefly summarize trends or important results
• Was your hypothesis, as stated in the
  Introduction, supported by the data?
• Do your results contradict, reaffirm, or extend
  previously published findings?
• Answer the problem.
• When writing this section
• Don't be afraid to report "negative" data (e.g.,
  lack of relationships among variables).
• If your data seem unreasonable, provide reasons
  that might help explain this.
• If possible, connect your findings with the
  results from published studies by using
  literature citations.
• DO NOT discuss every aspect of your data and DO
  NOT provide every conceivable explanation for the
  obtained results.
• Speculation should be limited and clearly
  identified as your own speculation.
• The last paragraph should be a STRONG STATEMENT
  of the TAKE-HOME MESSAGE.

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• DISCUSSION

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LITERATURE CITED

• All citations that appear in the body of your lab
  report must be listed in this section.
• Use the author-year or numeric format to arrange
  the citations.
• There are many ways of formatting citations.
  Check with the course instructor.

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CITATIONS W/IN THE PAPER

• Appropriate literature can be cited in the
  Introduction, Methods, and Discussion sections.
• Citations most commonly appear at the end of a
  sentence inside parentheses as illustrated in the
  following examples
• Growth rates are positively correlated with
  rainfall (Jones 1993).
• Growth rates are positively correlated with
  rainfall (Jones 1993, Roy and Smith 1988).
• Growth rates are positively correlated with
  rainfall (Jones 1993, Roy and Smith 1988,
  Williams et al. 1937).
• et al. shows that Williams had two or more
  coauthors. All authors names should appear in
  the complete citation in the Literature Citation
  section.
• The above format is preferred although some
  writers will explicitly insert the cited author's
  name(s) into a sentence
• Jones (1993) found that growth rates are
  positively correlated with rainfall.
• A positive correlation between growth rates and
  rainfall was found by Jones (1993).
• Numeric internal citations can be done in the
  order they are cited and referenced by number in
  the literature cited section.

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FORMAT FOR VARIOUS SOURCES OF CITATION

• RESEARCH ARTICLES
• Booth, D.A. 1995. Cognitive processes in odorant
  mixture assessment. Chemical Senses 20639643.
• Drews, D., Vaughn, D.B. and Anfiteatro, A. 1992.
  Beer consumption as a function of music and the
  presence of others. Journal of the Pennsylvania
  Academy of Science 65134-136.
• Keeling, L.J. and Hernia, J.F. 1996. Social
  facilitation acts more on the appetitive than the
  consummatory phase of feeding behaviour in
  domestic fowl. Animal Behaviour 521 1-15.
• BOOK
• Schmidt-Nielsen, K. 1990. Animal Physiology
  adaptation and environment. 4th ed. Cambridge
  University Press, New York, NY.

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MORE CITATION FORMATTING

• EDITED VOLUME
• Hocutt, C.H., Baily, R. and Stauffer, J.R. 1992.
  An environmental primer for less developed
  countries, with an emphasis on Africa. Pages
  39-62 in Cairns, J., Jr., Niederlehner, B.R. and
  OIvos, D.R. (eds.). Predicting Ecosystem Risk.
  Princeton Scientific Publishing Co., Inc.
  Princeton, NJ.
• WORLD WIDE WEB DOCUMENT
• Basic information in the citation Author's
  name(s). Date of publication. Title of work.
  Available from Protocol address and path.
  Accessed date of visit.
• Example
• Collins, F. and Patrinos, A. 1996 August 16.
  NCHGR---DOE guidance on human subjects in
  large-scale DNA sequencing monograph online.
  Available from http//www.ornl.gov/TechResources/
  Human_Genome/archive/mchgrdoe.html. Accessed 1997
  January 6.

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MORE CITATION FORMATTING

• ELECTRONIC JOURNAL ARTICLE
• Basic information in the citation Author's
  name(s). Date of publication. Title of work.
  Title of serial serial online Volume number
  pages. Available from protocol, address, and
  path.
• Example
• Martin, E.P. 1996. Phylogenies, spatial
  autoregression, and the comparative method a
  computer simulation test. Evolution serial
  online 501-14. Available from Infotrac
  Expanded Academic Index.
• ELECTRONIC CORRESPONDENCE
• Basic information in the citation Author's
  name(s). Date of message. Title or subject line
  type of medium. Available from protocol,
  address, and path.
• Examples
• Smith, J. 1997 February 13. Re Scientific style
  email to Keck, A.. Available from ajkOO 1
  _at_alpha.momingside.edu
• Doe, J. 1997 February 13. Citation formats
  discussion online. Available from
  Bibliographic lnstruction List B1-L via
  listserv_at_bingvmb. cc.binghamton. edu