BIOL 385; Fall, 2011

Last update Dec. 4, 2012

The final report should be a detailed description of your research project progress. This paper should be written in the standard format of a scientific manuscript.  Sections should include:

(1) A General Description of the project written for the general public. This statement, limited to 350 words, should describe the goals, rationale, and outcome of the project in language understandable by any high school graduate. Use particular care to place your individual experiments in the context of the "bigger picture" that would appeal to the taxpayers funding your research.
(2) An Introduction that presents the background and significance of the project,
(3) A Materials and Methods section that describes how the experiments were conducted,
*(4) A Results section that presents the data, and
*(5) A Discussion section that interprets the data in light of expectations and the published findings of others,
(6) A section listing the References cited, and
(7) An Acknowledgments section that details sources of assistance or funding.

*Depending upon issues of style and content, it may be appropriate to combine the Results and Discussion into a single section.  Many journals now allow this format, and I have no objection, if it strengthens your paper.

Each section should begin on a new page.

It is strongly recommended that you have your faculty mentor read a draft of the final paper before submission.
 

Frequently Asked Questions:

(1)  How long should the paper be?
 I expect that it should be easy to craft a paper 6-10 pages long, excluding figures and legends.

(2)  I find it difficult to place figures and legends in the text so that it looks good.  What can I do?
 When you submit a manuscript for publication, figures and legends are attached to the back, not embedded in the text.  I encourage you to do this for your Research in Biology paper as well.

(3)  I did not get any data.  How can I write the Results and Discussion sections?
 What you may not have is definitive data.  However, if you did experiments, you have data.  Just as in your presentations, I am very interested in the experiments that "didn't work" and how you interpreted them in crafting your subsequent experiments.  These issues provide great fodder for both sections.  Just because the data aren't ready for prime time doesn't mean you can't "write them up" effectively for a BIOL 385-386 paper.  You will just be concentrating on a level of experimental detail that exceeds what you normally read in published work.
 If you lack data because you failed to do any experiments, then you do have a problem, and it runs deeper than how to write the paper.

(4)  Way back in BIOL 109, we learned a great deal about formatting papers, figures, figure legends, and tables.  Am I permitted to ignore these important conventions for this paper?
 At your peril.

(5) I have taken this course and written a final paper before. Must I start a new paper from scratch? Should I include only data from this semester or should I write a comprehensive report of my project to date?
Feel free to write a comprehensive report. This is a good opportunity to edit the writing you've already done as well as add the new information to it. This is the mechanism by which you can grow a thesis or a mansucript.

(6)  I love doing the experiments, but I find writing difficult, and I'm not very good at it.  Where can I get help?
Check with me and/or your mentor. Whether you struggle with writing or not, please read the following article:

    Gopen GD and JA Swan (1990)  The Science of Scientific Writing.  American Scientist 78:550-558.

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