Writing Scientific Papers Generalities

4 points) Summarizes report in one paragraph. Write this section last. Boil down your intro, methods, results, and discussion sections to a sentence or two each and you’ll have a great abstract. (1 pt)-succinctly describes why research was conducted in the first place (1 pt)-succinctly describes methods (relative to all the possible methods in ecology did you do a field experiment? Did you reanalyze others’ data? In this large context, what did you do?) (1 pt)-succinctly summarizes results (1 pt)-succinctly describes societal or ecological implications of results Introduction (10 points) Provides background information on question. Describes hypothesis. Write this section as if you haven’t yet performed the experiment! Make NO mention of your results! This section sets the stage and lets the reader know why your question is interesting and worthy of pursuit. Part of that answer involves the scientific community and work that others have done on similar questions. At the end of this section, explicitly state your question and hypothesis. (2 pts)-explains why this line of research is scientifically interesting (4 pts)-reviews previous researchers’ work (a good review of a few papers in greater depth or a good review of many papers in less depth earns 4 points. Between the introduction and the discussion at least 3 papers should be cited. If you select this lower bound, be sure to discuss the papers in some detail.) (1 pt)-explains how student’s work amplifies, tests, or complements previous researchers’ work (2 pts)-explains theory behind hypothesis (1 pt)-clearly states question and hypothesis Materials and Methods (5 points) Explains what you did, why you did it that way, and what materials you used. Write this section with enough information so that a peer could replicate your experiment (but not in a “first do this, then do that” kind of way). Organize it logically (which will seldom end up being temporally!). Do not include extraneous information (it can be assumed that you recorded information properly and kept track of your experiment properly you don’t need to write this!). (2 pts)-explains and justifies experimental setup (2 pt)-explains and justifies what data are collected (1 pt)-explains and justifies statistics used in analysis (nothing beyond what we’ve learned in class is necessary) and any calculated values Results (text) (7 points) Presents all the data used to test the hypothesis. Summarizes important trends shown in tables/graphs (described below), and describes the results of statistical tests. Write this section without analysis. Just say what happened. Do not “interpret” the results or put any “spin” on them. (Imagine a researcher reads your paper years from now and has a radical new theory – one you’ve never dreamed of. She wants to see how your data conform to her new theory. She will use your results section to do this, and she does not want to be burdened by your interpretation (“spin”) of the results. So just say and depict what happened!!!) (3 pts)-properly describes in words the important trends depicted in figures and tables (failing to describe any important trend loses points) Writing Scientific Papers 21 (1 pt)-properly describes in words any important results that are not depicted in graphs (failing to describe any important results loses points) (2 pts)-properly describes the statistical significance of the results (1 pt)-does not discuss the implications of the results (save that for the discussion!) Results (tables/graphs) (8 points) Summarizes data visually (graphs) or “tabularly” (tables) along with appropriate statistical tests. Graphs and tables should be as clear as possible with a meaningful title, labeled axes, and a legend that describes the graph or table and any statistics that are depicted in it. Each graph should have an associated figure number; the first graph referred to in the text should be figure 1, the second graph referred to in the text should be figure 2, etc. Each table should have an associated table number in a similar fashion. Don’t imbed graphs or tables in your text; rather, include them at the end of your report. Note: it is permissible to print out a graph and then hand write on the graph: titles, axes labels, statistics, figure number, etc. Don’t waste time wrestling with the software to print all those things out! (1 pt)-all graphs/tables have a meaningful title (1 pt)-all graphs/tables have well-labeled axes/columns&rows (1 pt)-appropriate statistical information is included on graphs (p-value of test, R2 for regression) (4 pts)-graphs/tables summarize the principle results meaningfully (1 pt)“legends” (or “captions”) explain what each graph/table is depicting in complete sentences such that someone who just skimmed the main body text can understand the figure (might be slightly redundant with text, that’s ok). Look at any published paper and you will see legends accompanying every figure – do this. Discussion (10 points) Interprets the results presented in the Results section in the context laid out in the Introduction section. Compares actual results with expected results. Discusses possible implication of findings in a scientific or societal context. (1 pt)-discusses whether hypothesis was supported or should be rejected (5 pts)-interprets the results, and discusses what the results mean. If methodology is discussed, it is done so constructively. (What we don’t want is a discussion that reads “everything in our experiment was screwed up and so we can’t say anything, blah blah blah”. Something constructive can always be said.) (2 pts)-discusses results in the context of other scientific work (as mentioned in the introduction) do results support or contradict previous researchers’ work? Why? (2 pts)-speculates about greater ecological or societal implications of work and reasonably substantiates those speculations Literature Cited (2 points) List cited articles in the format used by the journal Ecology (use articles from Ecology as a template). Citations in the body of the paper list the author and year (Lane 1998). Papers authored by two people use both of their names (Lane and BassiriRad 1997). Papers authored by three or more people only use the first person’s name with “et al.” (Dybzinski et al. 2003). Multiple simultaneous citings are separated by commas without using the word “and” (Lane 1998, Lane and BassiriRad 1997, Dybzinski et al. 2003). Notice that the period for the sentence goes after the closing “)”. Dybzinski (2003) claims that citations that include the researchers’ name(s) in the sentence should have the year immediately following the name. Tilman et al. (2003) concur. (1 pt)-citations are used properly in the body of the text (1 pt)-the list of the papers cited follows the format of the journal Ecology. Overall impression (3 points) Lack of spelling errors, good grammar, good paragraph construction, and good overall organization. (3 pts)-The paper reads “transparently”. Poor grammar and organization do not obscure content. Note that poor writing will likely lower your points in the sections above simply because your meaning will be unclear. Write well! Have someone proof read for you. “Tighten up” sentences that don’t sit right. Modified by DNA 2007, L. Phillips (2006); Adapted by Ray Dybzinski (2005) from the work of Diana Lane.