WRITE LIKE A SCIENTIST BY THE WRITING CENTER

WRITE LIKE A SCIENTIST BY: THE WRITING CENTER

HOW TO APPROACH SCIENTIFIC WRITING • Ask questions • What are you interested in? Why? • What do you know and what do you want to know more about? • What is not known—or what has not been well researched? • Gaps in the literature • What kinds of resources do you have at your disposal? • Be realistic and start gathering information early

GOOD SOURCES • Scholar. google. com, Jstor, Pubmed, Stetson One. Search • There should always be an author listed • The publisher may be an organization different from the author • Recent information is usually better

STYLE OF SCIENTIFIC WRITING • Style varies depending on the journal and field you are writing for • Formal, factual tone • Do not use flowery language • Use appropriate scientific terms • Give Latin names • Limit 1 st person • Do not use quotes (paraphrase / use your own words) • Use symbols for numbers over 10

SCIENTIFIC WRITING: CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE • Always ask yourself who the intended reader is • Your professor • May adopt certain informalities, but this is a model of good scientific writing • Other scientists • Use academic language, assume your audience has a scientific basis • The public

PASSIVE VS. ACTIVE VOICE Active • The subject is performing the action. • Example: • We analyzed the data using a paired t-test. Ask your professor which to use! Passive • The subject is being acted upon. • Example: • A paired t-test was used to analyze the data.

Turbek, S. P. et al. (2016)

LAB REPORT: GENERAL FORMAT • Do not indent paragraphs • Section heading • Do not skip a line after heading • Use bold, capital letters, or both • Skip line at the end of each section

LAB REPORT: TITLE • At Stetson, a lab report will usually include: • A specific title that will mention results • Wolf spiders exposed to scent show decrease in predation

TITLE EXAMPLES • Dominance Behavior in Rhesus Monkeys • Adrogen-Induced Social Dominance in Infant Female Rhesus Monkeys Mac. Millan, V. E. (2016).

LAB REPORT: ABSTRACT • Summarizes the contents of the whole lab report • 1 -4 sentences summarizing each section

LAB REPORT: INTRODUCTION • An introduction that starts broadly and narrows to your topic (think, why is your topic relevant to someone in another discipline? ) • Introduction is your roadmap to the paper • Give background information on topic, summarize previous research • Build to why your research fills in gaps in the existing literature • Eg. High levels of chemicals in runoff over the last decade have been affecting marine life …. Decreased fertility rates have been observed in X snail species …. X snail species’ fertility is affected in Y way by Z chemical

LAB REPORT: METHODS • Methods written in past-tense • Give measurements and quantities • Include materials and species used—if you are using a sample of water, where was the water collected (ie, lake water from Beresford) • Unless your professor states otherwise, do not describe the individual steps of a common scientific procedure • Remember: Think about the audience • Describe data collection / data analysis

METHODS EXAMPLES • Each nest was checked frequently for signs of predation. • Each nest was checked twice daily (at 0800 and 1600) for signs of predation on eggs or nestlings. Mac. Millan, V. E. (2016).

LAB REPORT: RESULTS • A results section will not address the significance of the results or whether your hypothesis was supported

LAB REPORT: DISCUSSION • • Address whether results supported hypothesis Discuss results in wider context of current research What results were unexpected, and why does this matter? Discuss what remains unknown and what research should be done next

LAB REPORT: TABLES & FIGURES • Graphs and tables are at the end of the lab report • No title on top of the graph • Figure legend beneath the graph will describe the data being depicted • What do your error bars represent? P-value?

EXAMPLES • Figure legends • Below figure • Give relevant statistics • Ie, p-value • Example: • Figure 2. Mass (g) vs. standard length (cm) of Pterygoplichthys disjunctivus collected in Volusia Blue Springs, Fl between 2005 and 2013 (n = 1378). • How large was the sample size? • What is being measured? Gibbs, M. , Kurth, B. , & Bridges, C. (2013).

LAB REPORT: REFERENCES/LITERATURE CITED • Section heading at top—References • Alphabetical order by author’s last name • List all authors by last name, comma, first initial, period, comma, next author’s last name • Hanging indentations: what are they good for? • Shows authors’ last names and allows reader to scan literature quickly • Highlight citation right/control click paragraph indentation special hanging

LAB REPORT: MORE ON APA STYLE • Every time you reference previous research or findings, you need an intext citation • In ( ) at the end of the sentence, before the period: • Author’s last name & year of publication • If there are multiple authors, list the first author’s name followed by et al. • Birds have shown no difference in mobbing behavior when nesting or with young, and thus, mobbing cannot be viewed as a behavior that evolved solely to protect young (Chiver et al. 2017).

CONTEXT: SCIENTIFIC WRITING AS A NARRATIVE • Look at the big picture • What do the results mean? • Patterns? Relationships? • Why is it important? Why do we care? • Does it support/contradict your hypothesis? • Do the results of the study help you develop your research? Future experiments? Example: • Remember the citation at the end!

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY • Goal: Find research that will help you develop/design your experiment or support your research • How to start: • Do any of the articles interest you? • Where can you take the experimental knowledge a step further? • How will the article help you in your research? • Briefly summarize the authors’ intentions, methods, and findings

LAB WRITING TUTOR • Set up an appointment: • My. Stetson Resources Stetson SSC Get Help Tutoring Writing Tutoring • Sage Satellite Office Hours: • Monday @ 2 pm – 5 pm • Wednesday @ 6 pm – 9 pm • Located in the Natural History Museum • Email: writingcenter@stetson. edu

WORKS CITED Cody J Weinberger, James A Evans, & Stefano Allesina. (2015). Ten simple (empirical) rules for writing science. PLo. S Computational Biology, 11(4) Gibbs, M. , Kurth, B. , & Bridges, C. (2013). Age and growth of the loricariid catfish Pterygoplichthys disjunctivus in Volusia Blue Spring, Florida. Aquatic Invasions, 8(2), 207 -218. Mac. Millan, V. E. (2016). Writing papers in the biological sciences (6 th ed. ). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. Turbek, S. P. , Chock, T. M. , Donahue, K. , Havrilla, C. A. , Oliverio, A. M. , Polutchko, S. K. , . . . Vimercati, L. (2016). Scientific writing made easy: A Step‐by‐Step guide to undergraduate writing in the biological sciences. The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 97(4), 417 -426.