University of the Ozarks Biology

Guidelines for Writing Scientific Journal Articles

An important part of the scientific process is sharing your results with your peers. Scientists must be able to clearly state their results and convince the reader of its scientific relevance.

There are two objectives for a scientific paper: The first is to describe the methods and the results obtained and secondly, put those results in perspective by relating them to the existing state of knowledge and by discussing their further significance for future investigation.

The standard scientific format includes: Abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion in that order. References and figures are usually attached following the discussion. Each section contains specific information about the research being described. The following document outlines much of what needs to be included in a scientific research article.

All formal papers should be typed, double-spaced and checked for spelling and grammatical errors.

Several important factors that must be covered in every scientific journal article:

1) Trace the scientific origins of the research problem (Introduction).

2) Summarize the state of knowledge on the subject (Introduction).

3) State the critical hypothesis being tested in the research project (Introduction).

4) Interpret the results of the study in relation to these hypotheses and to the general state of knowledge (Discussion).

5) Identify the scientific questions and procedural weaknesses that need to be addressed in he future (Discussion).

6) Be concise (Everywhere).

Title:

The first chance to grab the reader’s attention is the title. The title should be concise yet descriptive, really only a single sentence. The title should accurately reflect exactly what you did in your study.

Example:

1) “Cloning of glutamate decarboxylase” is too concise and not descriptive enough.

2) “Cloning of glutamate decarboxylase, genome analysis, growth properties and oxidant profile in Saccharomyces cerevisiae” too descriptive and not concise.

3)“Expression of a glutamate decarboxylase homologue is required for normal oxidative stress tolerance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae” concise and descriptive.

Author’s line:

This is where your place your name, that of any collaborators and finally the principle investigators name. Usually done in order of o did the most work or if work was equal then in alphabetical order. The principle investigator’s name goes last (often the individuals lab where most of the work was done). Also includes the places where the work was done

Example:

Coleman S.T., Fang T.K., Rovinsky S.A., Turano F. J. and W.S. Moye-Rowley. Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242.

Abstract:

An abstract summarizes your paper or presentation in one concise paragraph (usually less than 250 words). The abstract should state the object of the study, methods employed, summarized results and primary conclusions. It is usually easiest to write the abstract after completing the other sections of the paper. Example follows.

Example (Senior Research project):

Abstract

Saccharomyces bayanus is a yeast commonly used in making wines. To test temperature affects on fermentation, percent sugar, percent alcohol, and cell density were followed throughout the fermentations on a daily basis. Four duplicate one-liter fermentations of Chardonnay juice at 10˚C, 20˚C, and 30˚C were used to see how these variables of fermentation would be influenced. It was found that the temperature differences did have a significant impact on these three fermentation variables. The 30˚C experimental group completed fermentation the fastest, taking only 5 days, whereas the 20˚C group took 9 days to complete and the 10˚C group did not complete fermentation after 12 days. The 10˚C fermentations took 9 days to reach their peak cell density, whereas the 20˚C fermentations peaked in 3 days and the 30˚C fermentations reached there peak cell density the fastest, taking only 2 days.

Abstract Necessities:

1) Abstract introduces topic

2) Abstract mentions techniques used without going into experimental detail

3) Abstract mentions most important results

4) Abstract summarizes results.

Introduction:

The most important aspect of the introduction is to take the reader from the broad area of a discipline to the specific topic that the research dealt with. The introduction uses several transitions to lead the reader to the logical specific question you hope to answer. Finally the last paragraph briefly reintroduces your method and major result (very little detail).

The introduction accomplishes the above by using background material necessary for the reader to understand your research area and your specific question. At least 3-5 relevant citations should be used to generate an introduction. Remember, you should be careful to restrict background material to information that is directly pertinent to the problem at hand. Always ask yourself whether this information is pertinent for the reader in order to understand your research.

Depending on the professor or journal the last paragraph from above is omitted.

Introduction Necessities:

1) Why did the author undertake this study? The best initial statement is often a description of an observation in nature, or a conclusion drawn from a survey of the literature, that stimulated the interest of the author.

2) What is the existing state of knowledge of this topic? The author should synthesize information from the literature into an account that traces the development of the problem and summarizes its current state. In particular, gaps or inadequacies of current knowledge should be identified.

3) What is the author going to do? He or she must indicate specific objectives or hypotheses that will be tested. These should be clearly spelled out and in the case of hypotheses, should be statements that are capable of being either supported or refuted by the planned work.

Citations:

Citations are used to indicate the original source of information. When you paraphrase someone elses ideas you must cite the source of the idea. Quotations have to be cited. It is not necessary to cite every sentence, and if an entire paragraph came from one source it need be cited only once in the paragraph, although a long paragraph may need a citation at the beginning and the end for clarity.

Only the author and year are cited in the body of the paper. If shorter than a paragraph, a reference may be paraphrased and no quotation marks are used. The expression "et al." is used when there are more than two authors. If more than one paper by an author are cited, they are listed in chronological, then alphabetical order if published in the same year, as below. If two papers have the exact same citation (same author(s) and year), they are lettered, 1982a, 1982b, etc., as are Anderson et al. below. Quotations have to be cited. Quotations of more than 4 lines must be indented and single spaced, with no quotation marks, and cited. The citation in the body of the paper may be as follows:

It was concluded that the Ph of sandstone glades was highly influenced by the substrate of the surrounding elevated community (Jeffries 1985).

Several authors have reported a respiratory burst in poikilohydric cryptogams (AIF 1984, Link et al. 1984, Jeffries 1989).

Jeffries and Klopatek (1987) concluded that grazing by cattle rapidly diminished the cover of cryptogamic crusts in blackbrush communities.

The recovery of respiration of cyanobacteria crusts "was longer than that of most other organisms" (Jeffries 1995).

Literature Cited or Reference, [not Bibliography]:

This section is an alphabetical listing of articles that were actually cited in the body of the paper. Citations are listed by the first author's last name. Single author papers with the same last name are listed before multiple author papers of that name. Multiple author papers are alphabetized by the 1st, then 2nd, then 3rd, etc. author's last names. If an author has more than one paper cited, they should be listed in chronological order with the oldest paper first. An abbreviated example would be:

Smith, J. 1991.

Smith, J. 1993.

Smith, J. and M. Jones. 1992.

Smith, J. and P. Thomas. 1991.

Smith, J., T. C. Adams, and D. K. Moss. 1995a.

Smith, J., T. C. Adams, and P. Thomas. 1995b.

Notes:

1) The two listings above are lettered "a" and "b" even though they have slightly different authors because the citations (Smith et al. 1995) are otherwise identical. They would be cited as Smith et al. 1995a and Smith et al. 1995b.

2) Journal articles are listed as author(s), year, title, journal name, and then volume number:pages. A period separates each part. The title is written like a sentence with only the first word and proper nouns capitalized. If a journal has no volume number, then the date of publication may be used, as in Maliszewsky (1995) below.

3) Internet articles are listed like journal articles using the web owner as the journal name and the web address as the volume:pages. It is important to actually find the web owner [try hitting the "home" button] and not just listing the abbreviated web address. Articles that are reprinted on the internet (i.e. Lexis-Nexis) should be cited by the original publication title, volume number, etc., and not by the web address. [See Jeffries 1997 below].

4) Books (and most pamphlets) are listed as author(s), year, title, publisher and place of publication (city and state). The title is capitalized.

5) No underlines or quotation marks are used in the literature cited section for titles. In the body of the paper a book title should be underlined, and a journal title placed in quotation marks.

6) Scientific names must be underlined or italicized. The first time used in a paper a scientific name should be written out in full (i.e. Quercas alba L.) [L. is the author and should be included], and then can subsequently be abbreviated as Q. alba.

7) If a book or article has no author, the editor may be used as the author with (ed.) after their name. If there is no author or editor, then the publisher may be used as the author (i.e. AIF 1981). Anonymous may be used if no other identification is possible.

8) A book that is a compilation of articles by various authors will be listed by author(s), date, title of article/chapter (written like a sentence), pages, "IN:" editor, book title (capitalized), publisher and place of publication, as in Link et al. below.

9) Books or articles published by an organization (i.e. United States Forest Service) may be cited by the abbreviation of the name if the abbreviation is commonly used for that organization. The abbreviation must be given in the literature cited section in parentheses. The book below would be cited as (USFS 1937).

Examples: Literature Cited.

Anderson, D. C., K. T. Harper, and R. C. Holmgren. 1982a. Factors

influencing development of cryptogamic soil crusts in Utah deserts. J. Range Manage. 35:180‑185.

Anderson, D. C., K. T. Harper, and S. R. Rushforth. 1982b.

Recovery of cryptogamic soil crusts from grazing on Utah winter ranges. J. Range Manage. 35:355‑359.

Atomic Industrial Forum (AIF). 1984. Uranium: The Facts. Atomic

Industrial Forum, Washington, DC.

Bard, Y. 1974. Nonlinear Parameter Estimation. Academic Press,

NY.

Jeffries, D. L. 1987. Vegetation analysis of sandstone glades in Devil's Den State Park, Arkansas. Castanea. 52:9-15.

Jeffries, D. L. 1997. The history of H.E.L.P. University of the

Ozarks. www.ozarks.edu/~HELP/history.html

Jeffries, D. L. and J. M. Klopatek. 1987. Effects of grazing on

vegetation of the blackbrush association. J. Range Manage. 40:390-392.

Link, S. O., M. F. Driscoll, and T. H. Nash III. 1984. CO2

exchange in lichens: Towards a mechanistic model. p. 77-91. IN: Brown, D. H. (ed). Lichen Physiology and Cell Biology. Plenum Press, NY.

Maliszewsky, S. 1995. Are term papers cruel and unusual

punishment? Time. June 6:12-15.

Mish, F.C. (ed). 1976. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.

G. & C. Merriam Co., Springfield, MA.

National Institutes of Health (NIH). 1997. The risk of breast

cancer. National Institutes of Health. www.nih.org/~health/ breastcancer.html

USDA Forest Service (USFS). 1937. Range Plant Handbook. U.S.

Gov. Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

Literature Cited Necessities:

1) Required number of references in each category

2) Each reference is relevant to the topic

3) Correct citation style (e.g. author and year)

4) Correct style for listing references (e.g. the journal Ecology)

5) All references cited included in the Literature Cited section

6) Only references actually cited included in the Literature Cited section

7) Authorship of all ideas, facts, etc. properly acknowledged

8) Quotations avoided

Materials and Methods:

In writing a materials and methods section, you need to describe what you did in such a way that a fellow scientist can follow and duplicate your experiment.

1) Use the third person and past tense.

2) Describe what you did.

3) Give enough information to tell the reader how you did the experiment but not so much as if you were writing a cookbook or lab manual.

4) In field studies it is important include the locations and times that data were collected.

5) Avoid the use of slang or jargon.

Good Examples:

1) Twenty-five µl of each sample were loaded onto a 10% polyacrylamide gel and subjected to electrophoresis for one hour at 120V.

***Note that the number 25 is spelled out because it begins a sentence and the abbreviation for microliters is used; everything is in third person and past tense.)

Bad Examples:

1) Take 25 µl of each sample and load them on a 10% polyacrylamide gel. Do not tell the reader what to do, tell them what you did

2) Next I would take 25 µl of each sample and load them on a 10% gel. Avoid the first person; write in third person and past tense.

3) Load 25 µl of each sample on a 10% polyacrylamide gel. Run the gel at 100 V for 30 minutes. Transfer the gel to nitrocellulose for one hour at 70V. Don’t make lists; describe what you did in a sentence.

4) 25 µl of each of the 3 samples were then loaded on a 10% polyacrylamide gel. Don’t start sentences with numbers or abbreviations; also spell out numbers less than 10.

5) Then we ran the proteins on a gel. (Slang)

Too much detail can make this section excessively long. You should try to be concise, but complete.

Twenty five µl of each sample was drawn up and loaded onto the top of a 10% polyacrylamide gel. Buffer was then added to the upper and lower chambers and the electrodes were connected. The samples were then subjected to electrophoresis for one hour at 120V. Factually correct, but three times the length necessary.

Materials and Methods Necessities:

1) Written in third person and past tense

2) Correct use of numbers and abbreviations

3) Concise but complete

4) No use of slang or jargon

5) Accurately described what you did, without giving instructions

Results:

The Results section of a paper presents a written description of the results of your experiment or investigation along with a summary of representative data in tables and figures. If tables and figures are used, you should provide the reader with an interpretation of what a table or figure illustrates.

Keys to a good results section:

1) Present the results in an orderly sequence, using an outline as a guide for writing and following the sequence of the Methods section upon which the results are based.

2) If tables and figures will be used to summarize your data, then construct these first (at least in draft form) and use them as a basis for writing the Results sections. Make sure that they are numbered and in the same sequence as they will be used in the text.

3) Use good topic sentences for your paragraphs (a reader should be able to gather the main points by reading just the first sentence of each paragraph).

4) Avoid redundancy and only present representative data from the tables and figures. Do not repeat, but summarize the information in tables and figures

5) Avoid full sentence citation of tables and figures.

BAD: Results of the water quality analysis are shown in table 1.

GOOD: Nitrogen concentrations in the stream increased during 1999 (Table 1).

6) Avoid repeating methods in the results section.

7) Avoid discussion of results. In other words, present the facts but save interpretation of the significance of the results for the Discussion section.

8) Use results of statistical tests as background material to support more general statements.

9) Raw data are not usually included in scientific papers; however, your instructor may ask you to include these data in an appendix to your paper.

Figures and Tables:

Figures or tables should be used in order to present data that would be lengthy or ambiguous if written out. Regardless of the format you use, do not present the data in more than one way within a paper (e.g., in a table and a figure). Condense data as much as possible, presenting means, ranges, and standard deviations, no raw data. Present only essential data.

Figures

Figures include graphs, maps, photos and technical diagrams. Presentation of data in graphs is generally more desirable than tables because they aid the reader in visualizing trends in the data. There are many different types of graphs, but the most common graphs used in scientific writing are scatter plots, line graphs and vertical bar graphs. Regardless of the type of graph you use, all contain similar elements.

1) Axes. A graph consists of a horizontal axis and a vertical axis. Typically, values of the independent variable (the cause or what you manipulated) are plotted on the horizontal axis and values of the dependent variable (the effect or the outcome you measured) are plotted on the vertical axis.

2) Labels. Both axes should be clearly and briefly labeled. Labels should include variables and units of measure.

3) Tick marks. The axes should be evenly incremented.

4) Figure legend. There should be a figure legend below the graph that briefly describes the information in the figure. It should be clear, concise, and informative. The figure legend should be understandable without reference to the text and answer, if appropriate, the questions “what”, “where”, “when” and “why”. Figures are numbered in order of reference in the text.

Tables:

In contrast to figures, tables allow precise numerical presentation of data. As with figures, they should be concise and organized such that relations and trends in the data are evident without reference to the text. All tables contain similar elements.

1) Title. Tables are numbered (Arabic numerals are generally used) in order of reference in the text. The title briefly describes the information presented in the table and is presented at the top of the table.

2) Column and row headings. Column headings identify variables or data in each column below the heading. They contain variable names and units of measurements. Row headings identify entries in the rows to the right of the heading. Note that only the initial letter of words or phrases in column and row heading is capitalized.

3) Body. The body contains the data presented in the table. Data should be presented so that similar elements read down (i.e., in columns). When presenting numbers, give only significant figures; within columns, align the decimal points of the numbers, the hyphens of ranges (e.g., 25-67) and plus/minus signs, place a zero before the decimal point of numbers less than 1 (e.g., 0.1, not .1) and enter numbers in a column under the column heading.

4) Horizontal lines. Horizontal lines separate the table title from the column headings, the column headings from the subheadings, the column headings from the body, and the body from the footnotes. Do not use vertical lines in tables.

5) Footnotes. Footnotes contain explanatory information.

Results Necessities:

1) Figure legends below figure, figure axes are properly labeled.

2) Table title on top, columns and rows are properly labeled.

3) Results are displayed graphically and also explained in text.

4) Use past tense.

5) Data is analyzed, no raw data is presented.

Discussion:

There are fewer restrictions in the discussion section of a paper, it is the section of the paper in which you interpret your data and draw conclusions regarding your hypothesis. In some respects, this is the most difficult section of the paper to write. You should not repeat the results section, but rather place your data in a broader context (i.e. why should anyone care about what you found?).

Key parts of a discussion:

1) An analysis of whether the hypothesis was supported by the results of your experiments. Your key findings should be emphasized first.

2) A comparison of your results and your interpretation to the results and interpretations previously obtained by others. Integrate your data with what has been written previously in the appropriate literature. Does your data agree with current models or refute them? How have your experiments added to our knowledge of this phenomenon/ organism/ system?

3) If your hypothesis was refuted, you must provide an explanation. You should also provide explanations of any unexpected results and describe any problems encountered during the experiment

4) If you had problems during the experiment or if you are not satisfied with your results, tell how the methods could be altered to provide more definitive results

5) Describe future experiments suggested by your results. You may wish to speculate on the broad meaning of your results to the field of biology.

Discussion Necessities:

1) Stated if hypothesis was supported or refuted

2) Compared results to previous observations using appropriate literature

3) Explained unexpected results or provided an alternative hypothesis if hypothesis was refuted.

4) Described or suggested future experiments.

5) Clear and logical flow of ideas.

Parts of this document were borrowed from Dr. Doug Jeffries and also the UWL Biology Guidelines for Scientific Writing (www.uwlax.edu/wimp/dept/samples/bguidelines.doc)