…….to learn the art of a scientific writing style

Scientific Report Writing

Scientific Report Writing

• How scientific styles have evolved

• What characterises good scientific style

• The transition from ‘conversational’ writing to objective, focussed, logical writing

• The Extended Report – format and style

• Some common problems

Newton’s letter to the Royal Society 19 February 1671

“To perform my late promise to you…..”

A letter of rich, descriptive language – and of digressions…….

The reflecting telescope….

The Plague…

“..when I understood this (chromatic aberration)…I saw that the perfection of telescopes was hitherto limited..”

“Amidst thesethoughts I was forced fromCambridge by theIntervening Plague..”

A letter comprising Sections (but not explicitly identified or numbered)

His Introduction – musings, descriptions, digressions, observations

His “Doctrine” – the hypotheses, theories based on the previous observations

His Experimental invitation – instructions to those wishing to emulate/test his Doctrine

All written in the First Person (“I”) and in the style of a letter written to colleagues

The style of 1671

And now a modern scientific style………

Artist’s impression of a supernovaas seen from the coast of Turkey

Clearly labelled and numbered sections

and numbered figures – with figure captions

Note –Error bars!

Numbered, labelled tables…

…and references

Modern paper style is terse

factual

objective not subjective (Newton had to be in 1671) and self critical…

strictly sectioned in logical order

“Given the potentially revolutionary nature of this thirdconclusion, it is important to reexamine the evidence carefullyto find possible loopholes.”

“The data are strongly inconsistent with a = 0 cosmology, the simplest inflationary universe model. An open, = 0 cosmology also does not fit the data well : the data indicate that the cosmological constant is nonzero and positive, with a confidence of P( > 0) = 99%, including the identified systematic uncertainties.”

The Extended Report - styleCompare your current style…

“I did all the measurements and found that g was similar to the value in Young and Freedman. The equipment did not behave itself properly and soerrors crept in. My best value was 9.7 ms-2. I think I could have improvedthis value if I had more time”.

with the target style…

“The acceleration due to gravity, g, was measured and compared with the accepted value1. Systematic uncertainties were accounted for, yieldinga value of 9.7 0.1 ms-2. Further studies yielding a larger data set would clearly reduce the standard error on this result but accuracy would notimprove.”

The Extended Report - Format

• Introduction

• Title

• Abstract

• Experimental (methods)

• Results (and discussion)

• Conclusions

• Bibliography (numbered references)

Title

Study on the Art of Scientific Report Writing: Emulation of Style

descriptive enough to describe content

Bad example: “Report Writing” – too little info

Abstract“This paper presents a study on the art of scientific report writing and covers not only the format for reports but also some common grammatical mistakes that can be found in students’ written reports. We find that a good style of writing can be achieved by a simple method of emulation. Specifically, we report that regular reading of scientific papers from the peer reviewed literature can increase the average student report mark by 10 2 %. Our study reveals that this figure can be even exceeded provided the subject matter is of interest to the student. For the first time, to the authors’ knowledge, we report that papers on report writing itself are among the most effective in bringing about these advances.”

topics, findings,

Bad example: “I have carried out a study on report writing and show that various techniques can improve the marks of student reports.” – too short

Introduction“From the perspective of the assessor, the marking of student scientific reports often comprises one of the most frustrating aspects of the work experience. As an expert researcher, the assessor has undertaken the task of scientific report and paper writing many times1, has acted also as referee to others’ paper submissions and as a result has become accustomed to excellence in these endeavours. Despite……..”

1 For examples see: G.H. Cross, Nature (1995) 374, 307-308; M. Key, I.G. Hughes, W. Rooijakkers, B.E. Sauer, E.A. Hinds, D.J. Richardson and P.G. Kazansky, Phys. Rev. Lett. (2000), 84 (7), 1371-1373; T.P.A. Hase, E.M. Ho, J.J. Freijo, S.M. Thompson, A.K. Petford-Long and B.K. Tanner, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. (2003), 36 (10A): A231-A235

provides background, context, any relevant theory and what is to come….

and provides full proof of earlier relevant work - references

ExperimentalGood Example

“A class of students studying physics were required to sit within a large lecture theatre (the Calman Centre 013 theatre) having a capacity of no more than 200 students and exposed to a lecture on report writing for a period of between 45 and 55 minutes. Following this….”

past tense – factual and concise – equipment described with its capabilities and limitations, scope of the study - what was done and for how long (in this particular case)

Bad example: Sit a group of students in a lecture hall. Hand out an example paper.Empty the lecture theatre and leave to cool.Refill with students

- a list of instructions – no lists allowed

Newton: “In a darkened room make a hole in the shut of a window and there place a…prism to refract the

entering light which as I said…” confined to history

Results (discussion)“The average mark obtained by students in extended reports over previous years is shown in Table 1. Marks exhibit a general decline for the period shown and the exceptionally high mark (102 %) recorded for 1998 was traced to an administrative error in Student Planning and Assessment6.”

Year 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Mark (%) 75 2 70 2 65 2 102 2 62 2 59 2 57 2

Table 1: Average marks for Extended Reports achieved for students in the assessment period. The error shown relates to inherent uncertainties in the marking of experimental reports.

describes first impressions of results, presents tables, graphical figures and numerical data

Continued……..

Results (discussion)“This data is shown plotted (see Figure 2) with the theoretical expectation described by Hase5. Contrary to the theory, the observed marks do not decrease to a plateau but deviate significantly in later years where the theoretical curve lies outside of the error bar limits of the data.”

Figure 2: Annual average report mark for Level 1 students (solid diamonds). The solid line follows the predictions of Hase (reference 5). Error bars are set at 2 % and represent systematic error.

506070

8090

100

1994 1996 1998 2000 2002

Year of Assessment

Ave

rag

e M

ark

(%)

provides “figures” (not “graphs”) captioned and labelled

Discussion“The general trend towards reduced marks and disagreement with the Hase theoretical model gives strong evidence that teaching and learning (T&L) standards in report writing were in decline in the later years of the last century.”….

….“Our main finding, that the average report mark shows an exceptional improvement over those of previous years, therefore would not be expected to follow the Hase model which clearly underestimates what we have achieved.”

critical evaluation of results, comparisons, projections agreement/disagreement with past work

Conclusions

“We have shown that with some relatively minor changes to instructional style and the development of interest in the skills of scientific writing in the student, significant improvements in average mark can be achieved. We attribute this…”

provides brief summary of work, significance for future work

your one chance to become a little subjective with “what ifs” – but not too much!

“Future work aims to make further improvements and to test the validity of our model on data sets over the next ten years. We can hope that these methods will be applied more widely for the general benefit of student and assessor alike.”

•Read scientific work (published scientific papers, not text books)

•Copy the style – (the only time we ask

you to copy anything!)

•Criticise (and develop) your style

Simple Guidance to Improve Style (and marks!)