Sheet1
Variable DayLength
Control_A
Plant Initial Final change
1 2 19 17
2 3 18 15
3 4 17 13
GROUP A EXPERIMENTAL DATA HERE
Plant Initial Final
1 1 12 11
2 2 13 11
3 4 8 4
Control_B
Plant Initial Final
1 2 34 32
2 2 28 26
3 3 31 28
Experimental_B
Plant Initial Final
1 1 21 20
2 1 23 22
3 2 26 24
Sheet2
Sheet3
scientific writing
SCIENTIFIC WRITING
The ability to properly convey scientific findings is possibly the most important skill a scientist
must develop. Intellectual aptitude is worthless if you have no means to convey your knowledge.
The lab reports you will write in the BIOL 1441/1442 series at UTA follow generalized
formatting guidelines used by major scientific journals. A properly organized and written
scientific paper will be comprised of the sections below.
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Literature Cited
Read through the following information. Answer each of the bolded and italicized questions
in your lab Notebook.
Title
The title should fully cover the scope of the experiment. It should be as concise as possible and
should not exceed one sentence in length. Your title should be specific to your experiment. Do
not use the title of the lab exercise! Example: The effect of smoking on the sensitivity of sweet
eceptors in 35-55 year-old males rather than Taste sensitivity.
Key elements
• Concise, yet adequate description of the subject
Q1. What is the title of your lab report? Compare it with the titles of your literature sources. Is
it too long or too short? Does it address both the dependent and independent variables in your
experiment?
Abstract
Although it comes first in your paper, the abstract should be the last section you write. It is a
ief XXXXXXXXXXwords) summary of your experiment that gives the reader an understanding of
what was done, why, and a
ief synopsis of important findings and their significance. There
should be no references to figures or tables, or in-text citations in an abstract. An abstract should
provide the reader with enough information to quickly determine whether the paper is relevant to
their needs.
Key elements
• Short summary of why the experiment was conducted (background information)
• Very
ief discussion of methods
• Brief discussion of results and conclusions
• Brief implications of the experiment (why does what you found matter)
Q2. In your lab notebook, provide a four sentences, one for each of the key elements above,
that you would include in your abstract.
Introduction
The introduction provides the reader with the author’s hypothesis and objectives, as well as
ackground information needed to properly understand the reason for and scope of the
experiment. This section should be thorough and include references to other scientific papers that
help you “set the stage” for your hypothesis. This section answers the “WHY?” question
associated with the paper. Your hypothesis should be communicated to your reader in the last
paragraph.
Key elements
• Explanation of why your question is important and why you conducted the experiment
• What is already known about the question (include references to literature)
• What is unknown about this question (include references to literature)
• How will you investigate this question?
• Hypothesis
One way of approaching the introduction is to think of it in terms of Context and Need; You
should provide some context to help your readers understand your topic, then you should state
the need for this research as an opposition between what the scientific community cu
ently has
and what it is lacking. These two should work together to guide readers to understanding how
and why you conducted your research and determined the hypothesis. Combining the context and
the need together in a single sentence is a concise and elegant way of expressing this
information. Below are three examples of making these connections:
To confirm this assumption, we studied the effects of a range of inhibitors of connexin chanels...
on...
To assess whether such multiple-coil sensors perform better than single-signal ones, we tested
two of them.... in a field where...
To form a better view of the global distribution and infectiousness of this pathogen, we
examined... collected from... for the presence of...
Q3. In your lab notebook, develop a sentence that combines some context of your Arabidopsis
experiment with the need for your study.
Citations
Anytime you incorporate information into your report that does not come directly from your
findings, you need to provide credit to the author(s) by citing the source. The one exception to
this is if you are stating common knowledge. If you were to say “the sky is blue” or “The United
States of America used to be a British colony”, this is generally accepted knowledge that you do
not need to provide a citation for. This goes for basic scientific information as well. The fact that
“plants photosynthesize and respire” is accepted common knowledge, and you would not need to
cite the source. However, if you said that “Elodea is an invasive aquatic weed that does well in
stagnated water” you must give credit to the author(s).
In general, citations will appear in your Introduction, Materials and Methods (although not
always), and Discussion sections. Citations should be included within the body of the text. The
majority of citations for a scientific paper will come from primary sources. A primary source is
original, peer-reviewed research, published in a reputable journal (e.g., Science or Nature).
References should always come from established and accepted publishers of information
(e.g., .edu or .gov), NEVER from writings of unknown people or unestablished sources on the
internet (e.g., Wikipedia, about.com, yahoo answers, answer.com, or blogs).
Rules for proper citing of scientific sources
• When citing, it is not appropriate to describe the authors or discuss their affiliations. For
example:
CORRECT: Walsh and Post XXXXXXXXXXdescribe the relationship between….
INCORRECT: Dr. Matthew Walsh and Dr. David Post at Yale University describe in their
2011 paper titled “Interpopulation variation in a fish predator…
• Direct quotes are generally unacceptable and should not be used.
• All information you obtain from another source must be paraphrased and cited.
• If citing a source with one author, the citation should include the last name of the author
and the year the referenced text was publ For example: (Wostl 2015)
• In the case that there are two authors, the last names of each would appear before the year
in the order they are listed by your source. For example: (Walsh and Wostl 2015)
• For multiple (3+) authors, the last name of the lead author should be followed by “et al”,
which is Latin for “and others” and indicates that there are authors other than those listed.
For example: (Wostl et al. 2015)
• If you used more than one source for information, order them alphabetically by the lead
author’s last name For example: (Walsh 2015, Wostl 2013
Q4. Which of the following is NOT a co
ect example of in-text citations? Explain why?
a) Darwin XXXXXXXXXXexpressed the importance of………..
) …………was an important discovery (Darwin 1859).
c) In their 2017 paper titled "Tuned in: plant roots use sound to locate water," Gagliano et al.
found that...
d) ………therefore, re-establishing the genus Plestiodon (Brandley et al. 2005, Smith 2005).
Materials and Methods
This section describes how the hypothesis was tested. It provides a detailed account of what
materials and procedures were used to accomplish the goals set forth in the introduction. This is
NOT to be written in the style of a cookbook and should not include lists. Write your methods
out in paragraph form in past tense. Your methods section answers the “HOW?” question
associated with the paper. Do not include references to common laboratory procedures (e.g., do
not describe wearing goggles/gloves, types of glassware, or cali
ation of instruments).
In the case that your methods come from an established protocol (such as this lab manual), it is
still important that you paraphrase any information you incorporate into your work. NEVER
COPY. Always use your own words.
Key elements
• Explanation of how the experiment was conducted to a level that would allow the reader
to replicate it
• How your data was analyzed (what statistics/calculation/computer programs did you use)
• Citation of protocols when appropriate (e.g., your lab manual)
Results
The results section provides the reader with the findings of the experiment. There should be no
discussion of implication or meaning for the results you are presenting. All the information in
this section needs to come from your research, so you do not provide citations within your
esults. State your results in paragraph form with words and actual numerical comparisons. When
including tables and figures, you always introduce the table or figure before it appears in your
document. Reference tables and figures act to support the results, not vice-versa. In other words,
statements such as “Table 1 shows a significant change in abundance” should be replaced with
“Abundance experienced a mean change from 10 to 100 cm/year (Table 1)”. This section should
contain the results of your analyses (means, statistical tests, numerical comparisons, trends, etc.).
Do not be redundant – no table and figure should contain the same data.
Key elements
• Findings from the experiment
• Compare numbers, trends, statistical results
• Reference tables and figures
Q5. Write two sentences that describe your results: One sentence for each dependent variable
you measured.
Now consider how to make the above sentence more descriptive by including a numerical
comparison. For example, can you do a simple calculation that could provide more information
about your results such as “X was 20% longer than Y,” or “there was a two-fold increase in Z
from the initial measurement…”? Refer back to the analyses you completed in Part 1 of this lab.
Q6. Rewrite your sentences by either including a numerical description or by making
comparisons between the numerical results.
Tables and Figures
Tables and figures are meant to supplement the text. They should be computer-generated and
have labeled axes caption text that describes them. Tables present numbers for comparison with
other numbers. They can also be used to define specific terms or details of a study, such as
experimental design, location, or other context that better helps to convey results. Figures is
anything else that is not a table, including photographs, graphs, a
ays, etc.
Line graphs and bar graphs are the two most frequently used figures to display data. Line graphs
are best used to