What is a Scientific Paper? (Definition)
Most papers also include tables, graphs, and figures (pictures)
to visually share important information. Journal articles are
strictly limited to only a few thousand words and a picture is
worth a thousand words! In addition, its often easier for readers
to see a picture demonstrating something like umbilical cord
blood collection than to read several paragraphs and try to
imagine the process. An introduction begins by introducing the
authors and their relevant fields to the reader. A common mistake
made is introducing their areas of study while not mentioning
their major findings in descriptive scientific writing, enabling
the reader to place the current work in context. If, in your
experiment, you received any significant help in thinking up,
designing, or carrying out the work, or received materials from
someone who did you a favor by supplying them, you must
acknowledge their assistance and the service or material
provided. Authors always acknowledge outside
reviewers of their drafts (in PI courses, this would be done
only if an instructor or other individual critiqued the
draft prior to evaluation) and any sources of funding that
supported the research. Although usual style requirements (e.g.,
1st person, objectivity) are relaxed somewhat here,
Acknowledgments are always brief and never flowery.
Scientific paper format - You must relate your work to the findings of other studies - including previous studies you may have done and those of other investigators. As stated previously, you may find crucial information in someone else's study that helps you interpret your own data, or perhaps you will be able to reinterpret others' findings in light of yours. In either case you should discuss reasons for similarities and differences between yours and others' findings. Consider how the results of other studies may be combined with yours to derive a new or perhaps better substantiated understanding of the problem. Be sure to state the conclusions that can be drawn from your results in light of these considerations. You may also choose to briefly mention further studies you would do to clarify your working hypotheses. Make sure to reference any outside sources as shown in the Introduction section.
Do not introduce new results in the Discussion. Although you might occasionally include in this section tables and figures which help explain something you are discussing, they must not contain new data (from your study) that should have been presented earlier. They might be flow diagrams, accumulation of data from the literature, or something that shows how one type of data leads to or correlates with another, etc. For example, if you were studying a membrane-bound transport channel and you discovered a new bit of information about its mechanism, you might present a diagram showing how your findings helps to explain the channel's mechanism.
Typically, there are more mistakes in the references than in any other part of the manuscript. It is one of the most annoying problems, and causes great headaches among editors. Now, it is easier since to avoid these problem, because there are many available tools. The scientific paper has developed over the past three centuries into a tool to communicate the results of scientific inquiry. The main audience for scientific papers is extremely specialized. The purpose of these papers is twofold: to present information so that it is easy to retrieve, and to present enough information that the reader can duplicate the scientific study. A standard format with six main part helps readers to find expected information and analysis: Throughout the body of your paper, include a citation whenever you quote or paraphrase material from your research sources. As you learned in Chapter 11 Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?, the purpose of citations is twofold: to give credit to others for their ideas and to allow your reader to follow up and learn more about the topic if desired.
Use the word count feature of your word-processing program to
make sure your abstract does not exceed one hundred fifty words.
Scientific papers, also called research papers or journal
articles, are a way for scientists to communicate knowledge
publicly. Because researchers often write these papers to share
their work with others in that field, they arent always easy for
non-scientists to understand.
2. Style: The Abstract is ONLY text. Use the active voice
when possible, but much of it may require passive constructions.
Write your Abstract using concise, but complete, sentences, and
get to the point quickly. Use past tense. Maximum length
should be 200-300 words, usually in a single paragraph. An
improperly titled scientific paper might never reach the readers
for which it was intended. Hence, mention the name of the study,
a particular region it was conducted in, or an element it
contains in the title. Furthermore, producing a letter-perfect
APA-style paper need not be burdensome. Yes, it requires careful
attention to detail. However, you can simplify the process if you
keep these broad guidelines in mind: Remember that "a figure is
worth a thousand words. " Hence, illustrations, including figures
and tables, are the most efficient way to present your results.
Your in-text citations provide basic information about your source; each source you cite will have a longer entry in the references section that provides more detailed information. Main Section Headings: Each main section of the paper begins with a heading which should be capitalized, centered at the beginning of the section, and double spaced from the lines above and below. Do not underline the section heading OR put a colon at the end. While all the formatting and citation styles have their own use and applications, in this chapter we focus our attention on the two styles you are most likely to use in your academic studies: APA and MLA. In the text, you must cite all the scientific publications on which your work is based. But do not over-inflate the manuscript with too many references it doesn't make a better manuscript! Avoid excessive self-citations and excessive citations of publications from the same region. Write an abstract summarizing your paper. Briefly introduce the topic, state your findings, and sum up what conclusions you can draw from your research.
As important as knowing the sections and how to read them is thinking critically about the paper youre reading. The article may have been peer-reviewed by experts, but there are still important questions to keep in mind. Alternatively, it is possible that the strong preference shown for green material may be a result of imprinting on the color of the nests they grew up in. It has been shown, for example, that parental plumage color has a strong effect on mate selection in male (but not female) zebra finches (Walter, 1973). All of the birds used in this study have been exposed to grass, green embroidery floss and white dog fur in nests. If as suggested by Morris (1954) males collect most of the nesting material, imprinting could have a strong effect on the numbers of colored strands collected in this study. This hypothesis could be tested by raising zebra finches in nests containing different colors of nesting materials and testing them in adulthood for preference in nest material color. When setting up this experiment, it was noted that zebra finches seem particularly apprehensive about new objects placed in the colony. It is also possible, therefore, that the preference for green nest material was simply due to its familiarity. There are many ways to approach the writing of a scientific paper, and no one way is right. Many people, however, find that drafting chunks in this order works best: Results, Discussion, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Abstract, and, finally, Title.