The Guts of a Good Scientific Paper

The Guts of a Good Scientific Paper

Choosing a topic is important. Choose a topic for your paper (and seminar):

that is interesting to you. If you aren't interested in the subject that you are writing about, you'll be less inclined to spend the time necessary to research and write a good paper (or give a good seminar). The solution is simple - choose a topic in which you are interested!

for which the background material is readily available. It is not necessary (and also unlikely) that you will be initially an expert in the topic you choose. This means that you will have to spend time and effort researching your paper. If the references you need are not easily accessible, you will be frustrated in acquiring the knowledge on which to base your writing.

where the background material is at a level that you can understand. Remember that you will have to present, explain, and answer questions on your topic. It is likely that you will have to work with your mentor increase your understanding.

Good writing is the product of clear thinking. If you know what you want to say, if you know the points you want to make, then it should not be too difficult to put your ideas and arguments in writing so that others can understand them. You should strive for clarity. This last point was recently addressed in an editorial on Clarity First Language in Research Articles by Royce Murray, editor of Analytical Chemistry.

Know your audience. Questions worth asking (and answering) include: To whom are you writing? What are you trying to communicate? What do you want your audience to come away with?

Be concise. Strive to clearly make your point in as few words as possible. In the words of William Strunk Jr. taken from The Elements of Style, 3rd ed., William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (see below):

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell."

Or in other words cut to the chase, get to the bottom line, and, by the way, don't overdo the use of clichés.

There are a number of guides to writing scientific and technical papers. Many of these have additional references embedded in them. A short list is given below:

http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/ These guidelines developed by faculty at Virginia Tech, The University of Illinois, The University of Texas, and Georgia Tech provide a detailed discussion of scientific and technical writing and presentations.

Oregon State University Chemistry Department Writing Guide (2000), Department of Chemistry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR (2000). Written for undergraduate chemistry majors at Oregon State, this document provides general guidelines for report writing, has links to web sites that allow you to test your writing skills, and presents examples of original and revised technical writing.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (2003). This is the bible for correct grammatical usage in writing. For example the manual would indicate that you should use hyphenation in "up-to-date web pages" because the hyphenated phrase precedes the noun it modifies, while the same phrase in "the web pages were up to date" should not be hyphenated because the phrase follows the noun it modifies.

The Elements of Style, 3rd ed., William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA (1979). Widely recognized for over forty years as the best short book on the essentials good writing. Here is an on-line version of the Elements of Style by William Strunk.

Here are some typical examples of various types of research writing:

The Hydrolysis of Chlorine Nitrate and its Possible Atmospheric Significance, Rowland, F. S., Sato, H., Khwaja, H., and Elliot, S. M., The Journal of Physical Chemistry, 90(10):1985 (1986) provides an example of a research article. This is also an example of a primary source or a source where results were first reported.

The Hydrothermal Synthesis of Zeolites: History and Development from the Earliest Days to the Present Time, Colin S. Cundy, C. S. and Cox, P. A., Chemical Reviews, 103:663 (2003) provides an example of a review. This is also an example of a secondary source or a source in which original work is not presented.

Catalysis by Colloids, Lewis, L. N., Technical Information Series Report, GE Research & Development Center, General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York, Report Number 96CRD135, September (1996) provides an example of a report. This is another example of a secondary source and is probably the closest model of your seminar paper, if you are not reporting on your own research.

Your writing, while relying on other sources, should be your own. Plagiarism according to the Oxford American Dictionary is:

"to take or use another person's ideas or writings or inventions) as one's own."

The Montana Tech Student Handbook specifically addresses plagiarism and says:

"Plagiarism: A student will be considered guilty of academic dishonesty if he or she submits a term paper, essay, speech, laboratory report, or other assignment in which all or part of the words or ideas are copied from the published or unpublished work of another individual without giving the original author proper credit for the words or ideas."

In addition to ideas and phrasing, data , figures, graphs, tables, results, and conclusions that are not original with you should be properly referenced. A short, but succinct discussion of plagiarism and how to recognize and avoid it was developed in A Note on Plagiarism by the Department of Sociology at Augusta State University. Consider the following example taken from this source.

Montana Tech has also developed a web page on plagiarism to help students (and faculty) recognize and avoid plagiarism.