Young Writers

Writing an effective scientific paper is not easy. A good rule of thumb is to write as if your paper

will be read by a person who knows about the field in general but does not already know what

you did. Before you write a scientific paper read some scientific papers that have been written in

the format of the paper you plan to use. In addition to the science, pay attention to the writing

style and format.

Abstract: An abstract is a succinct (one paragraph) summary of the entire paper. The abstract

should briefly describe the question posed in the paper, the methods used to answer this question

the results obtained, and the conclusions. It should be possible to determine the major points of a

paper by reading the abstract. Although it is located at the beginning of the paper, it is easiest to

write the abstract after the paper is completed.

Introduction: The Introduction should (i) describe the question tested by the experiments

described in the paper, (ii) explain why this is an interesting or important question, (iii) describe

the approach used in sufficient detail that a reader who is not familiar with the technique will

understand what was done and why, and (iv) very briefly mention the conclusion of the paper.

Materials and Methods: The Materials and Methods section should succinctly describe what

was actually done. It should include description of the techniques used so someone could figure

out what experiments were actually done. The details of a published protocol do not need to be

reproduced in the text but an appropriate reference should be cited – e.g., simply indicate “were

done as described by Hughes et al. (4)”. Any changes from the published protocol should be

described. It is not appropriate to indicate volumes of solutions added – instead indicate the

relevant information about the experiment such as final concentrations used, etc.

Results: Begin each paragraph with an opening sentence that tells the reader what question is

being tested in the experiments described in that paragraph. Write the opening sentence in bold

font for emphasis. (Sometimes a complete sentence is used and sometimes a short phrase is used

– either style is OK but the style should be used consistently throughout the manuscript.) Any

results that include multiple data points that are critical for the reader to evaluate the experiment

should be shown in tables or figures. However, the results should be summarized in

accompanying text. When referring to a particular table or figure, they should be capitalized

(e.g., Table 1, Figure 6, etc.) The text of the Results section should be succinct but should

provide the reader with a summary of the results of each table or figure.

Not all results deserve a separate table or figure. As a rule of thumb, if there are only a few

numerical results or a simple conclusion describe the results in the text instead of in a table or

figure.

Your paper should focus on what worked, not things that did not work (unless they didn’t work

for reasons that are interesting and provide biological insights). Other things must be concerned:

-Tables and Figures                             -Discussion

-Citations                                            -Reference lists

-Format           -Flow.                          -Abbreviations.

-Past, present, and future tense.          -Third vs first person.

-Empty phrases.                                  -Specify.

-Parentheses.                                       -Proofreading.

For example if you want to write about Algebra for k-12, you need to study Algebra 1 and Algebra 2. provide Algebra 1 Help and  Algebra 2 Help as well as you provide Algebra 1 Answers and Algebra 2 Answers. Then you can do steps above.