Writing a Scientific Paper

What is a scientific paper?

• Generally a piece of peer reviewed scientific research

• Reviews

• Opinions

• PRESENTATION OF UNIQUE DATA

Presenting data

• Includes novel results from– Lab experiments– Field surveys– Theoretical models– Meta-analysis

What a scientific paper isn’t

• A collection of graphs and raw data

• Must include:– Background information– Previous studies– References– Conclusions

Structure of a scientific paper• Title• (Authors, institution, contact info)• Abstract• Key Words• Introduction• Methods (NOT Methodology)• Results• Discussion• Acknowledgements• References• (Rarely) Appendix

Title

• Think about this - rarely use the ‘title’ of the assignment

• Should be informative as to what paper is about

• Can - sometimes - use eye catching titles

Titles - examples

• The effects of desiccation on kinesis behaviour in woodlice

• Ink is a conspecific alarm cue in the Caribbean reef squid, Sepioteuthis sepioidea

• Scraping a living: a review of littorinid grazing

Abstract

• Often the hardest part

• Often written last

• Includes background, methods, results and a conclusion in around 200 words

Abstract

• The lunar cycle has been shown to affect the behaviour of a variety of marine animals. However, changes in the behaviour of seabirds and marine mammals and how they respond to the lunar cycle have been less well documented, principally because of the technical difficulties in long-term recording of their at-sea behaviour. Because seabirds generally rely on visual cues at small spatial scales, ambient light levels by moonlight may have a strong influence on their foraging and predator avoidance behaviours at sea at night. We used global location sensor loggers attached to wintering streaked shearwaters to examine whether the birds' at-sea behaviour varied with the lunar phase. The shearwaters migrated from Japan to the seas off northern New Guinea. Their activities at night changed synchronously with the lunar phase: birds flew for longer periods and landed on water more frequently on nights with a full moon than when there was a new moon. Our results indicate that at-sea behaviour of pelagic seabirds is closely associated with the lunar cycle.

Introduction

• In the same way as an essay:– Think ‘Egg Timer’– Start broad– Become more focused on topic– End Introduction with narrow focus –

normally a paragraph with your aims or hypotheses included

– Apart from final paragraph should be heavily referenced

Woodlice - revisited

Woodlice - revisited

• What are purposes of adaptive behaviours?

• What is kinesis?

• Brief description of kinesis in woodlice

• Acclimatisation

• Effects of acclimatisation on kinesis

• The hypotheses

Methods

• Purpose of methods is to allow replication of your work by a competent person

• Therefore no need for a huge description

• Methods may often only be a paragraph or two

Woodlice Example

• Twenty woodlice were haphazardly selected from each of two treatments. The first treatment involved being kept for 24 h in a damp environment – a plastic container with tissue paper soaked in water - prior to the experiment. The second treatment involved being kept for 24 h in a dry environment – identical other than the tissue paper was dry. Woodlice were placed into the centre either a wet or dry arena (a circle of tissue paper of diameter 200 mm that was either saturated with water or dry) and the time taken to reach the edge of the arena was recorded. Ten woodlice from each treatment were used in each arena – the order of the woodlice and arenas used determined randomly in advance. Each woodlouse was only used once. Differences in the mean time for each treatment and arena combination were analysed using a two factor ANOVA.

Too much detail

• A 30 m tape measure was used as a transect and random numbers were generated using the random number generator in excel. Quadrats of 50 cm x 50 cm were placed at the positions indicated by the random numbers until 25 replicate quadrats had been taken. The number of daises in each quadrat were counted and recorded using pen and paper and then transferred into Microsoft Excel

The right detail

• Daisy abundance was estimated using 25 randomly located 0.25 m2 quadrats along a 30 m transect.

Too much detail

• 58 g of sodium chloride (NaCl) was dissolved in a litre of distilled water by stirring with an automatic stirrer placed on a magnetic plate until all the solids had dissolved.

Too much detail

• 58 g of sodium chloride (NaCl) was dissolved in a litre of distilled water by stirring with an automatic stirrer placed on a magnetic plate until all the solids had dissolved.

• A molar solution of sodium chloride was added…

Referencing in methods

• Generally there are no – or few – references in methods sections. However, if you are using non-typical methods which other people have published you might cite these rather than going into a huge amount of detail in your methods

• E.g. Chlorophyll a was extracted using the cold methanol technique (Nagakar and Williams, 1999).

Results

• Normally the worst part of most people’s write ups

• It is NOT just a load of graphs and tables• Raw data should never be included• You should write at least a paragraph of

text for results in which you refer to any tables or graphs you have included

Tables and Graphs

• To be taught as part of BIO109 (Thursdays – 1.15 in Gloucester Suite – keep going up from the SU bar)

• Please apply what you have learned to other modules – incorrect tables and graphs will be heavily penalised after this year…

Tables and Graphs• In general:

• No 3D

• No Colour (unless really necessary)

• Label Axis (including units)

• No title – but…

• Figure legends describing what each figure is about without having to refer to the text

Tables and Graphs• Don’t include the same information in

tables and graphs – we only want to see it once…

• Please don’t include RAW data. We are not interested in it and it just costs you more to print…

• But do keep your raw data as an electronic file…

Example - Woodlice

• Both wet acclimatised and dry acclimatised woodlice spent longer in the wet arena than the dry arena (Table 1; Figure 1) indicating their preference for this environment. Dry acclimitsed woodlice spent less time in the dry arena than the wet acclimitised woodlice – rejecting our hypothesis (Table 1). However, dry acclimitised woodlice spent more time in the wet arena than the wet acclimisited woodlice (Table 1; Figure 1).

 • NOTE: In this example – Table 1 would be a table of a

statistical test – Figure 1 is likely to be a bar chart – in this case, the information in the table and figure will not be repetitive).

Referencing in results

• Normally there will be no references in results sections – however, there may be an opportunity for one or two occasionally.

Discussion

• Back to the ‘Egg Timer’• Discussion is the second part of the egg timer

– Starts off narrow– Puts the findings of the work in a broader context

• Discussion should be well referenced, not as much as intro, but still needs referencing

• Including references in the discussion IS hard, but it is what distinguishes good work from really good work…

Woodlice Example

• Results do not support hypothesis – dry acclimatised spend less time in dry

• Perhaps did not adapt to dry environment - stress of dry environment meant woodlice needed to find water asap. (references to dehydration limits – in woodlice if possible – but also consider other similar animals such as insects. References to woodlice having gills).

• Remainder of results coherent with adaptive behaviour – spending more time in favourable environments. Kinesis, therefore is adaptive behaviour.

• Stress (in this case desiccation) does alter kinesis behaviour – but not as predicted by acclimatisation.

• How organisms respond to unfavourable environments is unpredictable – acclimatise and reduce stress of new environment – or just get more stressed because of harsh environment and previous expose to similar harsh environments (many examples of references could be used here).

Acknowledgements

• Very brief – and often unnecessary

• In real papers – often indicate who funded the research, who did some of the basic lab work, who commented on drafts of the manuscript etc?

References

• The same as for essays

• For revision:

Referencing examples

• For citations in the text…

• Jones et al. (2002) demonstrated that the growth of onions was higher when nitrates were applied to the soil.

• When nitrates were applied to the soil, the growth of onions increased (Jones and Smith, 2004)

Journals

• Author’s Surname, Initials. (Year) Full title of article, Full Title of Journal, volume, page numbers of whole article.

• e.g.

• Stafford, R., Santer, R.D. & Rind, F.C. (2007) The role of behavioural ecology in the design of bio-inspired technology. Animal Behaviour. 74: 1813 – 1819.

From University Guide (via learning centre website)

• A (non-edited) book