Scientific writing forms an indispensable aspect of any scientific process. However, it often gets overlooked at the undergraduate level, with courses favoring the maximization of time on scientific concepts. However, the ability to communicate your research findings effectively proves crucial in ensuring that biological sciences succeed. Professional scientists get evaluated by the number of articles they publish, while graduate students are encouraged to publish their research work early.
Students, therefore, have to possess the required solid foundation early on regarding scientific writing to make them excel in their scientific profession. However, the best news encompasses that students can get taught how to present their concepts in class. All you will have to do as a student involves learning the guidelines. So what do these writing guidelines entail when it comes to your biological science paper? How can you go about it?
Before Writing Your Undergraduate Biology Paper
- Research and find out how your study fits within the existing literature. You have to become conversant with previous studies if you want to understand how your study compares with other research work within the same field. It can involve inferring from your laboratory manual or textbook if you have to write a lab piece. On the other hand, you have to comb through literature online to get information to write a research paper. Such platforms include Google Scholar, Web Science, etc. Determine why and how the information acquisition will help your cause, and this should offer you insights on how to structure the piece besides the correct writing style to employ.
- Comprehend your audience. It becomes critical to identify and understand your audience, especially regarding the type of story you would want to impart to them. However, writing scientific concepts as a narrative can prove an arduous task. Most students prefer to do it in other ways based on their knowledge – impartiality and dispassionate communication of findings. Scientific writing aims to explain what you want your readers to comprehend rather than what you learned or did. However, understanding your subject’s background becomes pivotal if you want to become an excellent science writer.
Writing the Paper
- Introduction. It should set your paper’s tone and offer pertinent background information besides identifying the challenges you want to address. Begin broadly to ensure everyone understands before narrowing your scope to the particular question you want to answer. Also include the implications of your study and sufficient background information to help your audience understand your subject. To do this successfully, you need to comb through literature and logically write the vital aspects. Try and incorporate relevant material and nothing that fails to build your story.
Additionally, structure your introduction appropriately and include the thesis statement towards the end. Ensure that the thesis follows a logical identification of the knowledge gap. - Methodology and materials. It comes as an essential section of your research work and one that you can start writing immediately you start conducting your experiment. It aims at convincing the audience that you used viable scientific methods in providing your findings. Ensure that it follows a chronological order and states the procedures you undertake. Include aspects such the site characterization, experimental design, statistical analyses, etc.
- Results. Here, you have to present the key findings of your research. Ensure that they come objective and lay a solid foundation for your discussion.
- Discussion. It would help if you considered a lot of aspects in your discussion section. Ensure that your interpretation of your results comes in a self-contained manner that ties your findings and the introduction.
- Conclusion. Here, you need to summarize your methods, findings, and discussion. Remember to restate your thesis.
Other considerations that you need to take note of include using active words to ensure your piece gets easily understood. Additionally, you should cite your sources and incorporate a bibliography field that should contain all your sources. Other things like appendices can incorporate raw data and other relevant information that fails to correlate with your topic directly.
Conclusion
Follow the mentioned guidelines to write an excellent biological science paper for your undergraduate program. You will develop an excellent write-up that will not only qualify you for the degree but enhance your reputation as a researcher.