Transcript WAS template - Write About Science

The Scientific Paper
Types, structure and logic
There is no one way to write a paper
Paper types:
Research reports
Reviews
Progress reports
Hypothesis articles
???
ALL have a role to play
Some papers are short and concise
(2.5 pages in Nature)
Small
World
Networks
Some papers are long and rambling
Some papers are just weird
Nature, 15 January 2014
Some papers aren't research papers at all,
but essays offering valuable perspective
Why don't YOU write one!!
BUT... all papers have structure
Long, short, research, review, all papers have:
1. An introduction (first or several paragraphs)
2. Description of methods and results
(several paragraphs to many pages)
3. Discussion of the relationship of this work
to previous work, and potential implications
4. A short conclusion
This stereotyped structure – AGAIN! -- helps avoid confusion
by meeting the reader's expectations.
Methods and Results
These sections should:
State very clearly what you've done and how
you've done it, with enough detail so that
other scientists could, in principle, reproduce
your results.
Journal of Colloids and Interfaces:
“Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be
reproduced”
Be complete – trust
your judgement!!
Discussion
If it's not introduction, methods, references, ...
then it's probably “discussion”!
Don't hold back – this is your opportunity.
Just remain within the frame of your overall
argument
Key Points:
1. Have you established some specific result?
Almost established it, yet with caveats? What are
they?
2. Do your findings contradict/support earlier studies?
Some of both?
3. Why should the reader care? What are the implications?
Can your method be extended? Have you raised
surprising questions?
4. Are there key shortcomings of method, data,
assumptions. How might they be overcome?
5. Conjectures? How to demonstrate?
Introduction
This section should do several things:
1. Describe the background or problem in
more detail than the abstract; introduce!
2. Describe briefly what you've done that is new,
how you've attacked the problem, preparing
the reader to move to the methods
3. Tease the reader, promise a later pay-off with
a taste of the results to come.
In Good Health?
Thank Your 100 Trillion Bacteria
By GINA KOLATA
(13 June, 2012)
For years, bacteria have had a bad name. They
are the cause of infections, of diseases. They are
something to be scrubbed away, things to be
avoided. … No one really knew much about them.
… what do they look like in healthy people, and
how much do they vary from person to person?
… the Human Microbiome Project… sequenced
the genetic material of bacteria taken from nearly
250 healthy people.... They discovered more
strains than they had ever imagined — as many
as a thousand strains on each person. And each
person’s collection of microbes, the microbiome,
was different from the next person’s. To the
scientists’ surprise, they also found genetic
signatures of disease-causing bacteria lurking in
everyone’s microbiome. But instead of making
people ill, or even infectious, these diseasecausing microbes simply live peacefully among
their neighbors.
The “teaser” paragraph
Introduction
This section should do several things:
1. Describe the background or problem in
more detail than the abstract; introduce!
2. Describe briefly what you've done that is new,
how you've attacked the problem, preparing
the reader to move to the methods
3. Tease the reader, promise a later pay-off with
a taste of the results to come.
This section should introduce the WHOLE
PAPER and promise the reader a pay-off
if they keep reading.
A good introduction...
.....
PNAS, 9 September 2008
Background, of course...
.....
Brief detail on methods, of course...
.....
AND some results/conclusions...
.....
Another effective introduction
.....
First paragraph
1. Introduction
.....
Recent investigations have uncovered large, consistent
deviations from the predictions of the textbook presentation
of Homo economicus. One problem appears to lie in
economists' assumption that individuals are entirely
self-interested; in addition to their own material payoffs,
many experimental subjects appear to care about fairness
and reciprocity...
Second paragraph
Fundamental questions remain unanswered. Are the
deviations from the canonical
model evidence of
.....
universal patterns of behaviour, or do the individuals'
economic and social environments shape behaviour?...
Third paragraph
Existing research cannot answer such questions because
virtually all subjects have
..... been university students.
... To address the above questions, we and our collaborators
undertook a large cross-cultural study... in twelve countries
on four continents...
Fourth paragraph
We can summarize our results as follows. First, the
canonical model is not
..... supported in any society studied.
Second, there is considerably more behavioural
variability across groups than had been found in previous
cross-cultural research and...
Comparably, not so good...
.....
Nature, 3 September 2009
Background, yes...
But not even a hint about results/conclusions...
.....
This is a missed
opportunity
Are these divisions
fixed and inflexible?
NO!!
Only one fixed
rule:
ANYTHING goes as long as it works to your
advantage in getting your points across
Constructing a working draft:
An exercise
Using topic sentences to your advantage
Writing has a fractal nature
It's all parts within parts
Write as you would build a house
First, construct (outline) the main structure
Then elaborate each main structure into key parts
Then elaborate those parts into smaller parts
Continue down to the level of sentences
Write as you would build a house
First, construct (outline) the main structure
Then elaborate each main structure into key parts
Then elaborate those parts into smaller parts
Continue down to the level of sentences
Expect the initial result to be horrifically ugly!!
Outlining the entire paper
Introduction
Para.1
para.2
..
Description of methods/work
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
References
Introduction
1. Topic sentence
[notes on what to put here]
2. Topic sentence
[notes on what to put here]
etc
Methods
1. Topic sentence
[notes on what to put here]
etc
For example:
Introduction
P1. The Vlasov-Poisson equations describe plasma physics
in the so-called “collisionless” regime. [Add details of background
and history].
P2. Smith and Rogers recently discovered new solutions to these
equations by exploiting advances in non-linear mathematics. [Add
detail; what advances? What solutions?]
P3. Here we show how this new class of solutions can be
extended by using symplectic methods. [Add detail; how and to
what effect?]
Methods
P1. Symplectic methods allow... [Add detail on ...]