Introduction

• Your statement of research comes at the end of your introduction. Score your research topic sentence against the Research Topic Scorecard to determine it’s specificity and strength.

Methods

• One thing new writers to science often struggle with is how much and what type of detail to include. We think this stems from the experimental protocols used in lab versus the experimental design those protocols help you address. To determine the difference between a Protocol versus Experimental Design methodology, consider this example. Imagine you are going on a bike ride with a few friends along the Eastside trail. You meet at a Relay bike rental station on campus.
  • Your Methodology to go on a bike ride is something like this:
    • Each of us rented a Relay bike and brought our own water and helmets. We mapped route through Midtown and biked to and along the trail for pleasure. The entire ride took two hours, with a quick stop for a coffee at Dancing Goats in Ponce City Market.
  • Protocol or Step by step of how to ride a bike
    1. Fasten helmet securely.
    2. Step across the crossbar to mount the bike, keeping one foot on the ground for balance
    3. Push down on one pedal while pushing forward with other foot to gain momentum.
    4. While rolling forward, put both feet on the pedals and push downward with the foremost foot, switching feet when the cyclical motion moves the other foot in front.
    5. Etc.
• Note how different these two are! It takes multiple protocols to complete an experiment. The Methods section tells the reader which protocols were needed to process the samples and carry out the experimental design. The protocols themselves are well known to experts and don’t need to be included in the methods, but the experimental design–how many samples, what the samples were–is the unique information that the reader cannot find in a published protocol. The methods will also include and which protocols were used and why.
• A protocol’s step-by-step procedure provides very detailed instructions for a process that an expert can summarize in one sentence, or even a few words: “we biked to the trail.” Your task is to take these details protocols and boil them down to the 1-2 sentence purpose for the methods, while specifying things that you made decisions about, like providing your own bike helmet or riding bikes from the rental company Relay, that might affect the outcome of the experiment.

Discussion

First, draft: For each paragraph of your discussion, write a single sentence or idea.

• First paragraph: Summarize your results to provide an answer or support for your research question. Recognize the important of negative results.
• Next paragraphs interpret your results, supporting your conclusions with evidence. You might include some or all of these:
  • Were your results expected or unexpected? Do they align with your research question?
  • State your results with authority, using unambiguous word choices.
  • Did you interpret the results in the context of other literature?
  • Have you considered problems, inconsistent results, and counter-evidence?
    • Cite sources of error succinctly and without excuses. Error types include sampling error (usually too small a sample size), non-repeatable results, equipment measurement error, researcher error (failure to follow procedure or use equipment correctly).
    • Do not belabour this section.
• Penultimate paragraph: Describe future extensions of current work, or next steps.
• Final paragraph: State the specific importance of your results or this type of work to the scientific community. Why did you do this work and why does it matter?

Then, revise:

• Reconfirm that you’ve used a coherent, logical organization
• Check that you have avoided using the word “prove” and its word-relatives.
• Confirm you have cited all sources in text and in the literature cited using the style of the journal Genetics.
• Seek peer review.

Figures and Tables