Anatomy of a Science Paper

 

Writing the paper

The following sections explain, in great detail, how to put together a science paper. Please read them carefully. This format is very common in science writing and will help you present your thoughts in an organized and clear way.

 

This description is specific to the plate tectonics paper. The other writing assignments will follow the same format and principles, but will vary in some details, so be sure to carefully read each assignment.

 

General writing tips:

1) The paper should be organized carefully.  Follow the structure discussed below. 

2) Each section of your paper will be composed of paragraphs.  Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence which states the point you will make in that paragraph. Every sentence after that should support the topic sentence.  Paragraphs are typically four to eight sentences long and each sentence should address only one point.

3) Make your sentences simple but vary their lengths to make the paper interesting.

4) Avoid the passive tense.  It is boring.  An example of the passive tense is: "It was shown that......."  An example of the active tense is:  "I have shown that ........."

5) Avoid contractions.  These are for more informal writing, like that in this workbook.  Say "can not" instead of "can't."

6) Be careful with ÒReplace AllÓ on your word processor.  You may replace words that you don't intend to replace. 

 

Visual Presentation: 

The online EarthEd writing software makes it easy for you to write your paper by providing the basic topic headings and guiding you regarding what each section should contain. Your printouts will have a consistent format. Printing is meant mostly for proofreading and as backup in case something goes wrong. Your paper should be thoroughly proofread.  The paper is entered into the Writer module of the EarthEd software. Spellcheck is not available (sorry).

 

All figures are linked from your personal storage area, or from the common graphics library accessible to all students. Getting figures into your storage area is extremely easy with the EarthEd software. You can upload figures from any source, or draw your own using the graphics drawing tool.  Do not scan in figures from the book. Your work must reflect your own thinking and the book may provide beautiful images but a crude sketch that shows that you understand the material is preferable.

 

Figure 1. This diagram shows the headings that must be used for this science paper. Please pay careful attention to the boxes with arrows pointing at each elliptical heading box. These boxes are reminders of the content that belongs with each heading.

 

Headings

Technical writing follows a specific format.  This format varies, depending on the subject and requirements of the magazine or journal publishing the article.  However, there are common features to all formats.  The format described here is the basis for your writing assignments.

 

Each writing assignment may have different headings, but the standard headings are listed below:

 

á      Abstract

á      Introduction

á      Methods

á      Observations

á      Interpretation

á      Discussion

á      Conclusions

á      Figures and Captions

á      References

 

 

 

Abstract:

The abstract is a short summary of your paper, including the conclusions.  It should be self-contained, meaning that there are no references to the paper or to figures in the paper.  The reader who wants to see whether the paper is of interest will read the abstract first.  Different journals and publications vary in their abstract requirements.  For this paper, make it less than 1/2 page.  The abstract should be the last section you write.

 

Introduction Heading

A very important part of a science paper is the introduction.  It is in this section that the reader decides whether or not you have something pertinent to say.  The introduction should orient the reader to the following: Why are you writing this essay? What are you going to discuss? Why should the reader be interested in this topic? What is the scope of the study and what ideas do you want to explain?  Although there are many approaches to writing an introduction, a good rule is to make sure the reader could read it alone and come away with a basic understanding of your work.  This is particularly important when writing a proposal for research funds.  The reviewer, who is usually very busy, may only read the introduction.  Even worse, a weak introduction may cause a negative first impression that is difficult to change later in your text.

 

Here are some examples of weak and strong sentences that might appear in an introduction:

 

Strong statements:

I will discuss the general shape of the sea floor and discuss how the motion of the plates affects that shape.  I will show how the topography is related to the distribution of volcanoes and earthquakes and how these data can be used to determine the kind of boundary between the various plates.

 

Weak statements:

Throughout my essay I will discuss many various topics that are all interrelated to plate tectonics.

 

Introduction checklist

The Introduction should cover:

___ What is the topic of investigation in your paper?

___ How does your work fit into and advance the existing knowledge?  Some background may be needed in order to do this.  This is also where you try to convince the reader that your work is worthwhile and interesting. Don't just say it's interesting and important.  Say what is interesting and why.

 

Methods Heading

This section is where you discuss how and where you got the data.  Maybe you made your own measurements, for example, if you went to the sea and measured depth profiles, or possibly you measured earthquakes with seismic equipment.  For this course, you will be accessing data from existing databases.  You should describe those databases and explain any of the inherent limitations of the data.

 

Here are some examples of statements that might appear in a Methods section:

 

Strong statements:

This study is based on sea surface temperature data acquired by the Nimbus satellite.  The data are available from NASA at http://www.nasa.gov/data/nimbus/SST/ and are accurate to about 0.5 C. The temperature data are available on a 5km grid spacing at 1 week intervals.

 

Weak statements:

I researched Sweden and the Eurasian Plate mainly through the use of the internet and maps. The only setback about the information was that I was not sure how accurate it was.

 

Methods checklist

The Methods section should contain:

___ A description of how the data were collected

___ A discussion of the source and accuracy of the basic data that you will use

___ A discussion of what you did with the data, once it was found

___ References to data sources (see Lab #3 for a description of the CD-ROM data)

 

Observations Heading

Your observations or "data" are described in this section.  It is not appropriate to talk about conclusions or reasoning here.  Just stick to what you observed.

 

Qualitative Observations:

Qualitative observations are not really specific, often relating to some arbitrary and unspecified reference.  For example: "the waves are big," or "that hill was quite steep."  To an experienced big wave rider, the waves may be quite small, but to a non-surfer, they may seem quite large.  Steepness of a hill on a hike is also very subjective.  A person who hikes a lot may find a hill much less steep than a couch potato.  Qualitative observations are not very useful in technical writing, unless you are specifically discussing your reaction to an observation (which is rarely done).

 

Quantitative Observations:

Quantitative means you are actually observing Quantities.  For example: "the waves are between 10 and 12 feet high," or "the hill rises at a 45 degree angle," or "the hill rises at a 50% grade." 

 

Clarity of Observations:

The discussion on "Using Figures" should be read carefully.  You should be sure to first tell the reader where you made your observations.  The location could be marked on a map.  When maps are of a very local area, an inset showing a larger area that is more familiar to the intended reader should be provided. 

 

You observations should include statements that:

 

 

 

 

Examples of observations:

Strong observations:

Many volcanic mountain ranges (chains) such as the Andes, the Aleutians, and the Japanese Islands run parallel to deep, long oceanic trenches.

 

The Japan-Kuril trench is ____  km long and ranges in depth from ____ to more than 9000 m.

 

The East Pacific Rise begins at about 56oS 118oW and ends near the end of the Gulf of California.  It has a typical elevation of -2800m, significantly higher than the surrounding seafloor which is typically 4000m or more beneath the sea surface.

 

Weak observations:

Volcanoes are next to trenches.

 

The trench near Japan is deep and long.

 

Observations checklist:

The observations section should contain:

___ A description of each observation

___ Screen printouts illustrating your data

___ A reference to each figure in the paper.  Don't assume that the reader knows why you put in a particular figure.  Explain, in the text, what the figure shows.

___ Quantitative observations, whenever possible

___ Figures must be in the order they are referred to in the text.  Refer to Figure 1, then 2, etc.

___ Make sub-headings, if appropriate, for observations in different areas.  For example, you might have, for area sub-headings: South America, Tonga-Fiji Region, Global Observations, etc.

___ Use more than one profile to characterize a linear feature.  There may be interesting variations along the feature that will add substance to your paper.

 

A good way to get a poor grade on this paper is to ignore the data on the CD-ROM ÒOur  Dynamic Planet,Ó and make a book report on plate tectonics.  This kind of paper misses the point of the assignment.

 

Interpretations Heading

Here is where you relate your theory or model to the observations. You may need to adjust the theory to fit the data. Generally, this is an iterative process of creating a model or prediction of the outcome, taking data, and then modifying the model to fit the data.

 

Each interpretation must be backed up by one or more observation(s).  Simple sketches or cartoons should be used at this point.

 

 

 

Conflicts in the data:

Unfortunately, the real world is not so nice as your textbook. Data rarely agree perfectly with your interpretation.  Data also have errors, which could allow for multiple interpretations. At the very least, data errors will ALWAYS result in some uncertainty in the resulting interpretation.  It is important to be forthright about where the data disagree with your model.  Maybe you can refine or improve your model if you expand your thinking to consider modification or complexities in your model.

 

You will find that earthquakes do not always produce "classic" textbook patterns, and the volcanoes dataset may be missing volcanoes where observations are not available.

 

Honesty:

It is very important to refrain from over-interpreting your data, or exaggerating its accuracy.  It is also important to include all of your data, rather than only select data which agree with your preconceived ideas.  Sometimes we observe data that do not fit with our expected conclusions.  It is very tempting to just forget about it or blame it on a malfunctioning measuring instrument.  Discarding good observations is a way to miss a very important discovery that might just disagree with preconceived ideas.

 

Science has a very high "trust factor." This is because the ethics of science are based on honesty and openness of reporting.  Experiments must be repeatable by others, and important experiments are always checked or repeated.  Journal articles are critically reviewed by other scientists who are experts in the field.  Of course, there may be great debates about the meaning of the observations.  These debates are part of the scientific process.  Scientific honesty means that the person making the observations is scrupulous in reporting "just the facts."  The facts are not only the observations, but also the accuracy of the observations.

 

Your interpretations section should include statements that (refer to Lab 3 homework, part 2):

 

Example, Observation and following Interpretation:

The Observation: The topography shows a trench-like feature (Figure 3) which plunges to a depth of 8,000 meters from a depth in the West of 3,000 meters.  This trench extends along the full Western margin of South America, for about XXXXX km.  The Andes Mountain Range lies to the West, along the western boundary of South America.  The Interpretation: The many active volcanoes in this mountain range suggest that it was built by volcanic activity (Figure 4).  Several cross-sections of earthquakes (Figure 5) show a descending pattern characteristic of subduction zones.   Figure 6 shows a sketch of my model for this structure, which is a classic subduction zone.   Note that these interpretations are backed by observations.

 

You should be particularly careful to look at more than one profile in your study area.  For South America, you would want to do a number of profiles along its western boundary.  This might allow you to make a more detailed picture of the shape of the descending slab. A single profile is not enough to define a 3-D feature. It may have crossed a trench, but it may have crossed a basin too. The profile game provides an opportunity for you to experiment with identifying features using profiles.

 

Interpretations checklist:

The Interpretations section should contain the following:

___ Interpretation of each of the observations that you present in the Observations section

___ How your interpretations relate to those of others (e.g. your textbook)

___ References (see ÒReferencesÓ discussion) to any material discussed from other sources

___ A sketch (model) of your interpretation of the observations

___ A discussion of the sketch (model) and how your observations support it

___ A discussion of any data that disagree with your observations

 

Discussions Heading

Your findings are put into a broader context in this section. This is also where you can write about aspects of plate tectonics theory that are not supported by your investigation, and how these ideas add to an understanding of your investigation. For example, you could discuss mechanisms that cause plate motion, and other plate tectonics ideas that you have no data to support, but would like to discuss because they add breadth to your paper. You are cautioned that this should not be a general review of plate tectonic theory just to pad the paper, so be sure that your discussion is relevant to your investigation.

 

Conclusions Heading

Here you summarize your findings while carefully explaining your logic or reasoning.  The busy reader who is not a specialist may skip or skim the Methods and Observations section of a technical paper, focusing on the Introduction, Figures, Figure Captions, and Conclusions.  So, leave out everything but "the Beef."  Don't worry so much about paragraph structure in the conclusions because you are supposed to summarize many results together.

 

Examples of phrases that might be used in Conclusions follow:

 

Strong statement:

The western boundary of the South American continent is a convergent plate boundary.  This conclusion is supported by topography, volcanoes, and earthquake hypocenter locations.

 

Weak statement:

This study shows that the western boundary of South America has a trench, volcanoes, and lots of earthquakes. 

 

I really learned a lot from writing this paper.

 

Conclusions checklist:

The conclusions section of your paper should contain:

___ A summary of each of your main conclusions

___ Any speculation about interpretations that you would like to make, but are not fully supported by the data.

___ A discussion of what further research on the topic might be needed, and the significance of its possible outcome

 

Using figures to illustrate your paper:

The old clichŽ that says a picture is worth a thousands words applies especially in science and technical writing.  This kind of writing can get complicated and extremely difficult to understand.  Any time you can illustrate a point with a picture or sketch, the clarity of the presentation is enhanced.  Most people are not really very good at visualizing geometrical shapes and physical phenomena that have been described with words.  A picture fills in questions in the reader's mind and lessens the tedium of pages of text.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The busy reader may only look at your figures and read the captions.  This underscores the importance of good captions.  Figure captions should briefly describe what the figure shows.  For this example, Figure 2 would have a caption that said something like: "Locations of the three studies discussed in this paper."  That would be enough.

 

When writing a technical paper related to the Earth, it is important to show the reader where the study took place.  Where is the study location on the Earth?  Figure 2 shows how this can be done on a Mercator map of  the world like the one in your lab manual.  Each study area is clearly marked so that you can refer to it in the text without requiring the reader to remember previous location descriptions.  All locations that you mention in the text must be indicated on the location map.

 

Since you will be using profiles in your paper, you will want to use figures to show samples of profiles.  Maybe you want to illustrate the geometry of a trench, or show profiles across a mid-ocean ridge. Figure 3 shows a representation that would successfully show the location of a number of profiles.

 

Figure 4 shows an example of how you might print a series of detailed profile plots which give vital information like the elevations and distances.  You should think of the Figure 3 profiles as merely locating the profile positions while Figure 4 shows the actual profile data.

 

Mistakes using figures:

Believe it or not, you can over-use figures.  A big pile of figures showing everything you did will simply not produce a good paper.  It is the job of the technical writer to condense the information so that the reader can easily assimilate the information and come away convinced of the correctness of the conclusions.  That is the main purpose of using figures, but do not overdo it.  If you have a lot of figures, you might try combining them.  However, each figure should not be too complex.  You have to exercise some judgment and restraint to keep the balance between having too many figures and having figures that are too complicated.

 

Notating figures: Another mistake is just using raw figures. A reader should be able to glance at the figure and caption and get a good idea of what the figure expresses. This means you should use the graphics editing tool to draw arrows to important features that you are examining in your investigation. Captions should also describe the purpose of the figure.

 

Figure 4. Detailed plots of profiles shown in Figure 3.

 

Here are the Figures referred to in the text.  For readability, it is best to put the figures near to where they are referred to, rather than grouping them all at the end of your paper.

 

Symbols to use on maps:

 

The symbols to the left can be drawn on the map to indicate the presence of mountains.  If the mountains are volcanoes, you could put a wiggly line indicating smoke coming out.  Colored pencils can be used to advantage, to make your map more readable.

 

 

The above symbols are used to represent ridges, which are places where the lithosphere is spreading apart, and trenches, where the plates are pushing together.  The cross section view shows the geometry of the down-going side of the trench.  The saw teeth are pointed in the direction of motion of the plate that is being subducted.

 

Legends:

Although the use of particular symbols may follow a convention, it is always important to include a Òlegend.Ó  This is a section on the map that shows the meaning of the symbols.  An example of a legend is shown at the left.  It is simply a listing of what each symbol, line type, or line color means.  Other information that you should put on a map is an arrow showing the direction of north.  For the world map, north is obvious, so you don't need it.  Smaller maps require a north arrow.

 

 

Figures checklist:

___ Each figure shown has a numbered caption, which describes the figure.

___ Each figure is mentioned and explained in the text.

___ Figures are numbered according to the order in which they are mentioned in the text.

___ Figures are clear and easy to read.  If the data do not show up clearly on the figure, mark on it with colored pen.

___ There are no figures that are photocopied/scanned from the text, or any other source.

 

References:

All data, text, and figures that you get from other sources must be referenced.  When you speak of other peoples' work in the body of your text, you use a reference.  For example: 

 

In recent years, considerable effort has been directed towards investigating the biological consequences of climate change (see Bolin et al. 1986; Chapin et. al. 1992; Fautin et al. 1992, for reviews).

 

Or:

Ocean uptake of carbon is simulated with the world ocean general circulation model (OGCM) of Toggweiler et al. [1989], as modified by Toggweiler and Samuels [1993]. etc.

 

There are various styles for referring to others' work, and you may choose any style that is clear.  However, do not mix styles.  Notice that you are referring to the author's name, and a date.  This will identify a specific reference in the reference list, which must appear at the end of your paper. 

 

Samples follow:

 

References:

Toggweiler, J.R. and B. Samuels, 1993.  Is the magnitude of the deep outflow from the Atlantic Ocean actually governed by southern hemisphere winds? The Global Carbon Cycle, edited by M. Heimann, pp. 333-366, Springer-Verlag, New York.

 

Hurley, P.M., (1968) Absolute abundance and distribution of Rb, K, and Sr in the Earth. Geochem. Acta, 32, 273-283.

 

Note that the first reference is to a book and the second is to a scientific journal article.  Each journal requires a slightly different format for references.  You may use the format above. 

 

Form of book reference to use:

<Author>, <Year>, <Title>, <Title of book>, <editor or edition of book>, <page numbers of your reference>, <Publisher>, <City of publisher>.

 

Form of paper reference to use:

<Author>, <Year>, <Title>, <Name of journal>, <Volume number of journal>, <page numbers of article>.

 

Internet references:

An action-alert posted on the web:

American Psychological Association, (1995) APA public policy action alert: Legislation would affect grant recipients [Announcement]. Washington, DC: Author, Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/ppo/istook.html

 

An article from a newspaper on the web:

Sleek, S. (1996, January). Psychologists build a culture of peace. APA Monitor, pp. 1,33. Retrieved January 25, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://www.apa.org/monitor/peacea/html

 

Be sure to reference quotes from your textbook and from the lab workbook.

 

Final checklist:

__ Name, section, and perm number at the top.

__ All specified headings included (see ÒFormat of PaperÓ).

 

__ The paper may include any number of figures and drawings.  Small figures should be included in the text (drawing them on the computer is optional).  Full page figures can be inserted at the closest spot where they are referred to.

__ Do not include any figures photocopied/scanned from the textbook.

 

All papers will be handed in on-line through the EarthEd system, unless otherwise specified. Consult the Oceanography class web site