How To Write A Scientific Report

how to write a scientific report"how to write a scientific report"

Materials and Methods for Writing a Research Paper

No specific page limit is given, but a key concept is important to keep this section concise. People will always want to read this material selectively. The reader might just be interested in one formula or part of a procedure. All the materials and methods may be reported under subheadings within the section or can also be incorporated together.

General intent

This should be the easiest section among the rest to write on, but many students fail to understand the purpose of it. The main objective is to document all the specialized materials and the general procedures, so that another individual may use some of the methods in another study or even judge the scientific merit of your work. It is not suppose to be a step by step description of everything that you have been doing, nor is the methods section of your paper a set of instructions. Particularly, it is not suppose to tell a story.

Writing a materials and methods section

Materials:

• Describe all the material separately only if the study is very complicated so that it saves the space this way.


• Include the specialized chemicals, biological materials and any equipment or supplies that may not be commonly found in laboratories.


• Do not include any supplies that are commonly found such as test tubes, pipette tips, beakers, etc. or any standard lab equipment such as spectrophotometers, centrifuges, pipettes, etc.


• If you use a specific type of equipment, or a specific enzyme, or a culture from a particular supplier that is critical to the success of the experiment, then the source should be singled out.


• Materials should be mentioned in a separate paragraph with a separate heading or else they should be highlighted in the procedures section.


• In biosciences we have to frequently work with solutions – refer them by name and describe them completely, including concentrations of all reagents and pH of aqueous solutions and solvent if non-aqueous.

Methods:

• Refer to the examples that are given in the writing portfolio package.


• Report the methodology and not the details of each procedure that employs the same methodology.


• Describe the methodology completely including the specifics as temperature, incubation times, etc.


• Just to be concise present methods under the headings to devote to specific procedures or groups of procedures.


• Generalize and report what the procedure was, and not how they were specifically performed on a particular day.


• If you use well-documented procedures, report the procedure by name or perhaps with reference and that's all.

Style:

• It can be awkward or maybe impossible to use active voice when you document methods without using first person, which would obviously force the attention of the reader on the investigator rather than the work on it. Therefore, while writing the methods most of the authors use third person passive voice.


• Use normal prose in this section as well as in every other section of the paper – avoid informal lists and use complete sentences for that purpose.

About the Author

Written and submitted by Eric Mosby on behalf of http://www.ghostpapers.com/

Ghost Term Papers provides custom term paper and research paper writing services.

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how to write a scientific report
how to write a scientific report
how to write a scientific report