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