How to Write a Scientific Report on Drosophila
APPENDIX 5 - Writing Reports
Report 1: Drosophila F1 Generation Report
General Notes:
This report is very much a practice run to get you used to this style of report writing, rather than simply filling in lab sheets.
It should not be a long report (no longer than these notes, in fact).
Scientific writing is not like writing essays in other genre. In many ways it is easier! There are three important rules to scientific writing and if you adhere to these, the rest is quite easy: 1. Sentences are short and use no superfluous words. Try to limit each sentence to one idea at a time. Avoid repeating concepts. Repetition is redundant and has no place in a scientific report. 2. The flow of sentences is logical and follows a process of building knowledge or understanding from foundations to a pinnacle conclusion. If important information is left out or is placed in an ambiguous fashion, the house of knowledge, with your arguments and even reputation, will crumble under the scrutiny of your peers.
3. The scientific argument, presentation of results, discussion and conclusions are presented so that the reader is guided through the deductive process in a clear and concise manner. The reader should at no time feel uncertain about any step in the process. What you discuss in the Discussion relates directly to the Results and to the ideas, questions, hypotheses, expressed in the Introduction.
Sections you should include in your Report.
The Title of a scientific paper should be brief but should also inform reader about the content of the paper. It should contain the name of the organism studied and wherever possible should state the study specifics. For example, a title
Feeding Habits of Drosophila Mutants. is brief and informative, whereas;
A study of Feeding. is less useful since no information is included about the experiment or organism and many potential readers will not bother to read the paper.
Note that titles of scientific papers are
Report 1: Drosophila F1 Generation Report
General Notes:
This report is very much a practice run to get you used to this style of report writing, rather than simply filling in lab sheets.
It should not be a long report (no longer than these notes, in fact).
Scientific writing is not like writing essays in other genre. In many ways it is easier! There are three important rules to scientific writing and if you adhere to these, the rest is quite easy: 1. Sentences are short and use no superfluous words. Try to limit each sentence to one idea at a time. Avoid repeating concepts. Repetition is redundant and has no place in a scientific report. 2. The flow of sentences is logical and follows a process of building knowledge or understanding from foundations to a pinnacle conclusion. If important information is left out or is placed in an ambiguous fashion, the house of knowledge, with your arguments and even reputation, will crumble under the scrutiny of your peers.
3. The scientific argument, presentation of results, discussion and conclusions are presented so that the reader is guided through the deductive process in a clear and concise manner. The reader should at no time feel uncertain about any step in the process. What you discuss in the Discussion relates directly to the Results and to the ideas, questions, hypotheses, expressed in the Introduction.
Sections you should include in your Report.
The Title of a scientific paper should be brief but should also inform reader about the content of the paper. It should contain the name of the organism studied and wherever possible should state the study specifics. For example, a title
Feeding Habits of Drosophila Mutants. is brief and informative, whereas;
A study of Feeding. is less useful since no information is included about the experiment or organism and many potential readers will not bother to read the paper.
Note that titles of scientific papers are
References: Every reference cited in the text must be included in the reference list. The reference list must contain only references that were cited in the text. A general reading list, which you are not providing, would be called a Bibliography. Journals usually have very specific referencing styles that must be followed without exception. For this report you should use any of the Harvard or APA styles.