Scientific Journals: Paper Structure

A scientific paper has a specific layout that should be followed like this:

1. A title
2. An abstract
3. An introduction
4. Materials and methods
5. Experimental
6. Results
7. Conclusions
8. Acknowledgements
   
9. List of references
   

Titles are precises and clear

The abstract is the least formal part of the paper and is usually a summary of the main points of the project. It is almost an introduction to what you are about to unveil to the reader so there is a little "hook" required.

The introduction usually gives a "background" of the subject that is going to be experimented with.

Materials, experimental, results, and conclusion are strictly defined by what happened in the experiments. It is to be written as clearly as possibly mentioning every detail of what went on in the experimentation.

Acknowledgments gives a proper "thank you" to others involved in the work.

List of references:

1. Scientific textbooks.
2. Newspaper articles, articles on science subjects in popular journals.
3. On-line journals (not refereed).
4. Popular science journals, e.g. New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com
5. Review articles in scientific journals (e.g. Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews or in 'Trends' journals such as Trends in Plant Science). http://www.trends.com
6. Grey literature (i.e. information not readily available), for example, conference proceedings, research reports, annual reports.
7. Abstracting journals, e.g. Grassland and Forage Abstracts, Veterinary Bulletin http://www.cabi.org; Databases containing annotated bibliographies (e.g. by CABI).http://www.cabi.org ,On-line-searching of database titles; Current contents.
8. Science citation index.
9. Higher degree theses.
10. Scientific papers in scientific journals (including refereed on-line journals).
11. and.. The World Wide Web
    

Writing in Biology

After Adam Prowatzke, my chemistry professor, explained that writing in scholarly articles required a unique stand point, I searched to find a specific criteria. This is what I found:

-Avoid abbreviations
Unless it is a scientific acronym (DNA, RNA), units of measure or mathematical formulas. However, do not use them at the beginning of sentences.

-Acronyms
Establish an acronym early when using scientific terms like E. Coli is short for Escherichia coli. After you establish an scientific acronym you are free to use it through out the paper.

-Chemical Elements
Don't capitalize, only the first letter of the symbol (Ca or Na not CA or NA for calcium and sodium)

-Exactness
It is improper to use slang or any "fluff" in your scientific writing. It is supposed to be extremely formal and factual. Research is very crucial.

-Units
All units must be of the metric system (SI)

This information was found in V.E. McMillan's Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences

A major argument in Biology

While being in the class my professors were giving their lecture on Viruses. It was brought up in class whether viruses are alive or simply a strand of DNA inside a protein shell that wanders around on the cellular level. Viruses infect health cells but injecting their DNA into the host cell. The DNA is either going to make the cell make copies of the virus then destroy the cell or live within the cell until it decides to force the cell to make its copies. Biologists continue to argue their views on the matter even now, it has yet to be answered. You can look at the virus and compare it to what all living organisms need to be considered alive. Reproduce, get and use energy, grow,develop, and die, have DNA, and react to the environment. While viruses do have DNA and react to the environment, they cannot grow on their own.

AAAS

AAAS is a purely scientific way of writing, and even in the science fields it is not often used except in writing about genetics. It is a style of writing for only information that is expected to use in journals or for further research. It is very step heavy, meaning that each and every thing you do without exception must be recorded. Along with keeping a moment by moment record, you need to clean it up and write it in a professional style and look in your writing when it comes to writing in the AAAS Format. This style also works when you are demonstrating an excitement that has already been due to be sure you achieve the result that would expect and the other tester got. Finally, this is a trained style of writing that is learned in upper level college and so on, it is not something you can just look at and copy and have right, it is very complex.

APSA Writing and Citation

In the APSA Writing and citation style is used in any format that will be submitted for any of several things, including but not limited to legal documents, any professional paper work, or anything being shown to a governing body. This form of writing normally refers to writing that is sited from academic journals or other types of academia. This style is commonly used during radio, television, and spoken works, because it is easy to verbally site these types of works.

Ex. Of how it can be written.

(CBS News December 19th sixty Minutes)
(Albright, N 1999 announcement on china)
(Congressional Record October 20th 1997 H7)

Biology Degree

For a biology degree and career, you must take many different types of class in many different fields. For a biological degree, and in turn a career you will need to take many math and science class including biology 1 and 2, chemistry 1 and 2, physics, and Calculus. You might ask where this has anything to do with writing. But all of these require some amount of writing in order to pass the class. These along with Comp. 1 and 2 all require writing done in MLA citation methods, you must also take at least one upper level writing class where you will have to use either the MLA writing style and citation method or the APSA(American Political science organization) writing and citation method, or AAAS writing and citation method. These make up the different writing styles that you might have to demonstrate in order to attain a degree in biology and eventually use these different methods in a career.

Biology

I spoke with my biology teacher about the following:

1. For people who are studying and/or majoring Biology, something they should know before they begin:

Something important for students to know when entering the field of biology is to have a good idea and understanding of their high school biology class. Once in the class make sure to keep up with the material and when you do fall behind always seek the help of your instructor.

If you’re going on to study biology as a major study; make sure you have a passion for learning biology. Without that passion you will become bored with the endless information and details involved in biology.

2. What are some fields of work people with a degree in Biology could pursue?

Teaching, Medical, Dental, Optometry, Veterinary, Bio-technology, Agro-business, pharmaceutical.

3. What are the different regions of study within biology?

Biology can be divided up into three different areas of biology. Botany is the study of plants. Zoology is the study of animals. And microbiology is the study of microorganisms. While each of those can also be divided again into separate regions of study.

Eample and explination of APA Citation

APA STYLE: THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

In most social science classes, you will be asked to use the APA system for documenting sources, which is set forth in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed. (Washington: APA, 2001). APA recommends in-text citations that refer readers to a list of references.

An in-text citation gives the author of the source (often in a signal phrase), the date of publication, and at times a page number in parentheses. At the end of the paper, a list of references provides publication information about the source; the list is alphabetized by authors' last names (or by titles for works without authors.

IN-TEXT CITATION

Yanovski and Yanovski (2002) reported that “the current state of the treatment for obesity is similar to the state of the treatment of hypertension several decades ago” (p. 600).

ENTRY IN THE LIST OF REFERENCES

Yanovski, S. Z., Yanovski, J. A. (2002). Drug therapy: Obesity [Electronic version]. The New England Journal of Medicine, 346, 591-602.

An interview with an advanced undergraduate or graduate student in the field.

An interview with an advanced undergraduate or graduate student in the field.

Biology Undergraduate – PT Graduate student

Name: Michael Walters
Age: 27

1.Where did you complete your Undergraduate program?
A: Florida International University

2.How long did it take you to complete your Undergraduate program?
A: 5 ½ years

3.If you could recommend advice to a current biology undergrad, what would it be?
A: My advice for an undergraduate major is to research the jobs and programs that are available for Biology majors.

4.What graduate program are you currently in?
A: Doctorate of Physical of Therapy

5.What requirements did you have to meet for admission into graduate school?
A: minimuum of 3.2 GPA and a minimum of a 1000 on the GRE

6.How extensive is your coursework now, compared to coursework as an undergraduate?
A: It's A LOT more work!

7.How much time do you devote to your program, including class hours and study time?
A: I can’t give an exact answer, but I devote the majority of my time to school and the rest of my free time working. I am usually busy with either school or work.

8.How long is your graduate program?
A: 3 years

9.What are your plans after graduate school?
A: My plans are to find a job in physical therapy and start working as soon as I can.

Discussion of how writing is commonly organized in the field

As a biology major, I have yet to write any scientific papers. I do, however, know the specific guidelines to collecting data. KEY WORD: SCIENTIFIC METHOD.

Step 1: Introduction
1.STATE YOUR HYPOTHESIS
a.This will explain how you derived that hypothesis an how it connects to previous research; gives the purpose of the experiment/study

Step 2: Methods
1.TEST YOUR HYPOTHESIS
a.This will clarify why you performed your study in that particular way

Step 3: Results
1.DATA
a.provides raw, uninterpreted data collected
b.May express data in table form, as an easy-to-read figure, or as percentages/ratios

Step 4: Discussion
1.EXPLANATION
a.This will consider whether the data you obtained supports the hypothesis
b.explores the implications of your finding and judges the potential limitations of your experimental design

Some helpful hints when constructing a scientific paper:
1.Add purpose of the paper into introduction
2.Have a strong hypothesis! Use specifics! And Justify!
3.Organize research gathered
4.Detailed information about how hypothesis was tested and the basis for your procedure
5.Do NOT explain what the results were, but how you reached or recorded them
6.STAY ORGANIZED!!!!!!!
7.Results are the shortest and MOST IMPORTANT section of the paper
•Few sentences
•Data tables
8.Discussion section (last portion of paper):
•Explain whether the data support your hypothesis
•Acknowledge any anomalous data or deviations from what you expected
•Derive conclusions, based on your findings, about the process you're studying
•Relate your findings to earlier work in the same area (if you can)
•Explore the theoretical and/or practical implications of your findings

Source: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/lab_report_complete.html

Discussion about scholarly work on writing or argument in your field

In the field of biology or science, it is important to have strong writing techniques. Scientists must persuade their readers through factual information and making effective arguments. When researching “scholarly work on writing or argument in Biology,” I came across an article that observes the writing style of two famous scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick and compares similar research work to other scientists that were not as successful in rhetoric writing. Watson and Crick became famous for their work because of useful writing styles they used when developing their research work. The writings of these scientists can influence and help other scientists with biology and other science fields. In the writing that is being compared, one of the observations made between the two papers were the amount of words. Watson and Crick were very concise with their work; they only added important and crucial information that would explain their concepts. Concision is an important writing technique in biology writing. Their work was also easy enough to read and understand for other scientists and people to use as research. Confidence in scientific writing is also important because the more confident, the more excepted the idea. Finally, and the most important technique in scientific writing is persuasion! By using certain and key words throughout your work, the more likely of persuading your readers because of the confidence the paper reflects.

Source: http://acube.org/volume_26/v26-1p23-25.pdf

Interview with Adam Prowatzke

Adam Prowatzke is a Chemistry instructor at FGCU. This is what he had to say...

-What was the major you graduated with? (Your Degree)
I was a Chemistry undergrad. Later I attended graduate School at the University of North Carolina and earned a master's degree in Chemistry. My specialty is Organic Chemistry.

-How far did you take that degree?
I took it through my master's. I did not pursue a PhD.

-What style of writing is necessary for your field?
APA (American Psychological Association) which is unique to the sciences.

-Can you recall any major papers you had to write? What was significant?
Yes. I had to write a 8 paper research paper. It was a collaboration among students, professors, and a large research institute in Russia. Research took several weeks alone. I used a large amount of scholarly journals in the area of chemistry. The experiments took even longer! The Free Radical Electron Experiments and paper was published in a chemistry journal.

-What do you recommend to people pursuing a degree in the sciences such as biology or chemistry?
Find an area that you have excitement for, something you can be passionate about. Something unique. I recommend you publish as many of your works as possible to get your name out there. Read an unlimited amount of research paper in journals and article so that you can develop a style of writing that only comes with experience. You don't want to be looked at as an amateur in your publishing. Also, make close friends with your advisor because you will be seeing a lot of them through out your degree seeking years.