Writing a Research Paper

1. Why a Scientific Format?

The scientific format may seem confusing for the beginning science writer due to its rigid structure which is so different from writing in the humanities. One reason for using this format is that it is a means of efficiently communicating scientific findings to the broad community of scientists in a uniform manner. Another reason, perhaps more important than the first, is that this format allows the paper to be read at several different levels. For example, many people skim Titles to find out what information is available on a subject. Others may read only titles and Abstracts. Those wanting to go deeper may look at the Tables and Figures in the Results, and so on. The take home point here is that the scientific format helps to ensure that at whatever level a person reads your paper (beyond title skimming), they will likely get the key results and conclusions.

2. The Sections of the Paper

Most journal-style scientific papers are subdivided into the following sections: Title, Authors and Affiliation, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, and Literature Cited, which parallel the experimental process.

The sections appear in a journal style paper in the following prescribed order:

Experimental process	Section of Paper
What did I do in a nutshell?	Abstract
What is the problem?	Introduction
How did I solve the problem?	Materials and Methods
What did I find out?	Results
What does it mean?	Discussion
Who helped me out?	Acknowledgments (optional)
Whose work did I refer to?	Literature Cited
Extra Information	Appendices (optional)

3. Section Headings

Main Section Headings: Each main section of the paper begins with a heading which should be capitalized, centered at the beginning of the section, and double spaced from the lines above and below. Do not underline the section heading OR put a colon at the end.

Example of a main section heading:

Introduction

Subheadings: When your paper reports on more than one experiment, use subheadings to help organize the presentation. Subheadings should be capitalized (first letter in each word), left justified, and either bold italics OR underlined.

Example of a subheading:

Effects of Light Intensity on the Rate of Electron Transport

A) Title, Authors' Names, and Institutional Affiliations

Function: Your paper should begin with a Title that succinctly describes the contents of the paper. Use descriptive words that you would associate strongly with the content of your paper: the molecule studied, the organism used or studied, the treatment, the location of a field site, the response measured, etc. A majority of readers will find your paper via electronic database searches and those search engines key on words found in the title.

The title is not a section, but it is necessary and important. The title should be short and unambiguous, yet be an adequate description of the work. A general rule-of-thumb is that the title should contain the key words describing the work presented. Remember that the title becomes the basis for most on-line computer searches – if your title is insufficient, few people will find or read your paper.

Format

• The title should be centered at the top of page 1 (DO NOT use a title page – it is a waste of paper for our purposes); the title is NOT underlined or italicized.

• The authors' names and institutional affiliation are double-spaced from and centered below the title. When more than two authors, the names are separated by commas except for the last which is separated from the previous name by the word "and".

For example: