This pre-lab will present some of the general concepts related to writing a scientific paper.
General Purpose
Effective communication is a basic necessity in all professions. The most successful members of our society are those who communicate effectively. Scientists prepare research papers and publish them in scientific journals in standard formats. It is vital that you learn how to construct a well-written scientific paper. The techniques involved in organizing your thoughts and presenting them clearly will be an advantage in many different career paths. Effective communication should include sentence structure, grammar, spelling, and punctuation that are all correct and clear.
A scientist should also be able to use words in a precise and powerful manner to communicate clearly, correctly, and effectively. Above all, a scientific paper ought to be accurate, concise, and well organized.
Scientific writing does not come easy to many students because they often think that the end of an experiment is the end of the research; scientists know that this is not true. Scientific papers are written to communicate research findings and to provide other scientists with enough information to repeat and verify the work. This provides continuity in the scientific process, which is necessary to make advances. The writing and publishing of results is as much a part of science as the underlying research.
Typically, scientific papers or lab reports are divided into the following sections:
Title
Abstract
Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
Literature Cited
The following pre-labs will provide a description of each section of a laboratory report plus a sample section followed by additional comments. Before writing a full or partial laboratory report, read the material to gain an appreciation of the goal.