How to write a scientific report PDF

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How to write a scientific report...

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Scientific reports Reference to these instructions is made throughout this prac manual. Why write a scientific report?

Facts don’t speak for themselves …nor do research results …you need to speak for them!

Before you communicate results of your scientific experiment or study to the world, you must run it past other scientists who are working on a similar topic. All scientists do this, and the process is called PEER REVIEW. The aim of peer review is to reduce the possibility for false information and low quality science becoming part of our vast pool of knowledge. This is important because each experiment is built on the knowledge learned from previous experiments, so mis-information can send science into a spin by wasting time, money and effort barking up the wrong tree. During peer review other scientists check the detail and rigour of your work. The ability to clearly and concisely communicate your work to other scientists, and for you to understand their work, are important skills for you to learn. Your BIOL1030 course aims to teach you some of these skills.

How to write a scientific report Report sections: Reports usually consist of the following sections: TITLE, QUESTION, HYPOTHESIS (these two are often combined as AIMS or INTRODUCTION), METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION and REFERENCES Title. Make this as informative as possible, but not too long. The worst title I can think of is “Report on BIOL1030 practical”. Titles such as “Amazing insect diversity” are also bad because they provide no information about the content or purpose of your report. There are a few different ways you can write an informative title as shown below. Choose one that best suits your experiment and results... a) Incorporate reference to the major finding of the work e.g. “Sublethal effects on seabirds after the Prestige oil-spill are mirrored in sexual signals”, OR

b) Tell the potential reader what the report is about e.g. “Evaluating cleansing effects on trace elements and stable isotope values in feathers of oiled birds”, OR

c) incorporate the purpose of the research e.g., “ Combining vessel-based surveys and tracking data to identify key marine areas for seabirds ”, OR

d)

incorporate the question you asked/addressed e.g., “Effects of Hurricane Katrina on the urban resident land birds of New Orleans, Louisiana” (see also p14 of Prac 2 for notes about writing a title for a scientific report)

Hypotheses and Questions. You must clearly state the question(s) that you aim to address in your report, AND your hypothesis for each question. Remember – the experiment you are doing has never been done before, so your hypothesis is your “educated guess” or “prediction” of what the outcome will be based on prior scientific findings or theories. It is OK if your results do not agree with your hypothesis. Remember an hypothesis should be written as a statement e.g. “There will be a higher diversity of birds in parks than in gardens” rather than “If you go to a park you will see more birds”. Methods. Methods should be written in 3rd person and past tense. This section should contain precise instructions on how the work was carried out such that it could be repeated by someone else and results would be comparable. Do not forget to include details such as quantities, any specific tools or ingredients (refer to by brand name) and place (eg lat-long co-ordinates) Results. In this section, only describe your results, do NOT interpret them (interpretation belongs in the discussion section). There are two key aspects to the results 1. A concise written description of your most important findings that include some data where relevant, and 2. Table(s) and/or figure(s) of the data that illustrate these findings. The written text must refer the reader to the table(s) and/or figure(s). For example, you might note in a paragraph in the results section that “the most abundant species of dung beetle was Dungus stinkyus (Table 1)”. Following the paragraph would be a table that includes a list of species and the abundance of each species. In that sentence you should not add “surprisingly” before Dungus stinkyus (even though that would be a great surprise!) because that is a point of the Discussion and it belongs in the next section of your report. If you choose to include a figure or table, make sure it has an informative caption. For example the caption “Table 1” tells the reader

nothing to explain the content of the table, whereas “Table 1: Abundance of dung species found in rainforest leaf litter from Mt Nebo” is much more informative. In general, a table has a caption above it, whereas a graph has a caption below. When presenting your data in a table or figure (figure = science-speak for graph) you should: 1) present the data once only e.g., do not create 5 different graphs of the same information – choose the graph/format that best illustrates the information you want to show. Do not present the same data in a graph as well as in a table. 2) Where possible, do not include raw data in your report. Raw data refers to the numbers you collect before you analyse your data. Your results should show the analysed data. For example, an average, median or range is often more appropriate that showing exactly how many species were found in each sample collected by the class. In some cases it is not possible or appropriate to analyse the data e.g., a list of species names. In these cases, presenting the raw data is permissible. 3) Figures and table should be simple and clear. This usually means avoiding those fancy presentation tools in MS Excel and MS Word. For your report you should conform to the conventions for biological publications as follows: (See the example report also) • do not use colour. Instead rather use black and white or different shades of grey or stippling. • do not present 2-dimensional data in 3D. • remove gridlines from graphs. • do not enclose the graph in a border. • do not put a title inside the graph. Instead, provide a caption at the bottom of the figure. (see also p16- appendix 2 of Prac 2 lab notes) Tip: The separation of Results and Discussion is an effective method in communicating science to other scientists, but it is not entirely natural. It is often tempting to comment on the data in the results section and it is often tempting to restate the results in the Discussion section. Try to avoid doing this. The Discussion section should be about ideas and the Results section about data.

Discussion. The purpose of the discussion is to interpret your results and provide support for all of your conclusions using evidence from both your experiment and generally accepted knowledge, if appropriate. A discussion must also describe the significance of your research i.e., how your results change or do not change current ideas/knowledge about the topic. Interpret your data in the discussion in appropriate depth. This means that when you explain a result or conclusion you must describe mechanisms that may account for the observation. For example, if your results differ from your expectations, explain why that may have happened. If your results agree, then describe the theory that the evidence supported. It is never appropriate to simply state that the data agreed with expectations, and let it drop at that.

Follow these steps to write your discussion... • Decide if each hypothesis is supported, rejected, or if you cannot make a decision with confidence. State this in your discussion. Tip: When you refer to • Draw what conclusions you can, based information in your upon the results that you have, and treat discussion, distinguish the study as a finished work. Describe between data generated by each of these in your discussion and your own studies and data explain them (see next point). from published information • Explain all of your results as much as (verb tense is an important possible, focusing on mechanisms (ie, tool for helping to make focusing on the biological process or that distinction). rationale for why you got those results). • Try to offer more than one explanation for your results if reasonable alternatives exist. • One experiment will not completely answer an overall question, so keep the big picture in mind. Following on from your results describe what questions remain unanswered or what questions your results raise. • Describe whether your results have changed the way biologists think about the topic e.g. have our ideas about the topic changed in light of your results, or do they remain the same? • You may suggest future directions, such as how the experiment might be modified to be improved or to better answer the question you posed. Your discussion should end with a concluding statement about your findings and their implications. Refer back to the information you received in your second video tutorial about how to construct a scientific argument and where to find reliable sources of scientific information. The biggest mistake that students make in discussions is to present a superficial interpretation that more or less re-states the results. It is necessary to suggest why results came out as they did, focusing on the biological mechanisms behind the observations, and to include evidence from other studies on a similar topic. References: You need to supply (credible) references at the end of your report. The reference style guide we want you to use is the Harvard style guide and is accessible on the web at libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm Or https://www.library.uq.edu.au/_/sites/default/files/storage/webfile_read/files/referencing/harvard_6_July2014_0. pdf

Please also see Library 101 on-line Tutorial https://www.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/library-101-online-tutorial

Keep these notes. You can refer back to them in other courses, including 2nd year....