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NOTES ON STYLE

Citations of References within the Text - Footnotes are not used for citation in scientific papers.

Appropriate credit must be given to the author(s) of any reference material you use in your paper (and notebook writings) whether you quote the information directly or give it in your own words. Citations are given in the body of the text in parentheses. The surname(s) of the author(s) and the year of the reference should be given as illustrated in the following examples. Please do not use numerals to designate the references; although this is done in some review or short articles it makes reading the paper more difficult.

Indirect citations: name(s) and date are in parentheses

e.g. Although intracellular digestion has been recognized in brachiopods (Yonge, 1931) the possibility of the lophophore acting as a major site of intracellular digestion has only recently been suggested (McCammon and Reynolds, 1976).

Direct citations: name(s) are in text and date is in parentheses

e.g. Haber and Luippold (1960) studied the effects of gibberellin on the growth of wheat seedlings in which cell division was completely suppressed . . .

If a reference has two authors, give both names as in the second citation in the first example. When there are more than two authors for a reference, all the names need not be listed. The first author is listed and the term et al. ("and others" in Latin) is used to indicate that there are also other authors. "et al." should either be in italics or underlined.

e.g. Tiffon et al. (1974) reviewed intracellular digestion in lower metazoans....

Use of a secondary source: include both original author and author of the secondary source

e.g. Daniel (1968, cited in Jones, 1977) found . . .

or . . .( Daniel, 1968 cited in Jones, 1977).

Note: you must cite both Daniel (1968) and Jones (1977) in the References Cited section.

Using text from published works:

Do not use direct quotations or paraphrasing in scientific papers. You should describe the work of others in your own words and cite the work properly in text and in listed references. Relying on close paraphrasing of other's work does not constitute "in your own words". Should you choose to paraphrase, any close paraphrasing must be placed in quotes with square brackets showing those words you have added or altered (as per English standards). See Student Handbook for quidelines on Academic Honesty and plagiarism. [Note that because scientific writing is concerned with data/results and not with analysis of text as is often the case in English criticism for example, the need to quote text of others is not necessary nor desired in scientific writing. However, as with any field of endeavor, anytime one does use another's words they must be in quotes.] It is the intent in science to use the data (not the text) and ideas from others' works to support your own arguments or to assist you in explanation. This is true for all scientific writing whether it be a paper on your own research or a summary or analysis of a research topic on another's research.

Scientific Names Use italics or underline the genus and species names. Capitalize the genus name but not the species name. For example, the laboratory mouse is Mus musculus. Mus is the genus name; muscles the species name. Once used, the generic name can be abbreviated (e.g. M. musculus).

Format Your paper must be word processed (double spaced with reasonable margins), have all words correctly spelled, and be grammatically correct. It should be carefully proofread with corrections neatly made.

Commonly Misused Terms in Biology

Significantly (significant) carries a statistical connotation in scientific writing. It means that the difference is statistically significant (p< 0.05). Use this term only when the things being compared have been subjected to appropriate statistical tests. When you indicate a difference is not significant it also implies that the data has been statistically analyzed and p>0.05.

Correlation (correlated) carries a statistical connotation in scientific writing. If two variables are correlated then there is a predictable relationship between them that has been tested using a correlation analysis (p=0.05). Correlation does not imply cause-and-effect, but rather indicates that the two variables change in a predictable fashion.