The following are guidelines to writing a scientific report.  Your reports should be written in the expected style for scientific writing; read about that by clicking here.  This page describes the standard sections of a scientific report, and the material that should go in these sections.

Your report should have a title.  The title should be clear, informative, and specific.  In general, a title should include the following three elements:

• the name of the organism being studied
• the particular aspect or system studied
• the variable(s) manipulated, or factors whose variation is described

 

Abstract. (1 paragraph) The abstract briefly summarize the entire paper.  The abstract should make sense without any reference to the rest of the paper and should NOT be detailed.  It should include an introduction of the topic of about one sentence, a summary of the methods of about one sentence, a one-two sentence summary of the results, and a one sentence summary of the main conclusion(s). Even though the abstract is presented first, you should not write it until you have written the rest of the paper.

Introduction.  The introduction provides the background on the topic and organism(s) being studied, the significance of the study, and the  goals or hypotheses of the study. It should include:

• An explanation of how the question being studied is relevent to science in general
• Any background information on the organism or situation being studied that is relevant to the goal of the study
• A statement of the goals of the experiment.  If the goals are to test hypotheses, the hypothesis or hypotheses being tested should be stated, along with a rationale for these hypotheses  -- that is, why they are reasonable, possible explanations of some natural phenomenon, given what is known about this phenomenon -- and the specific predictions of the hypotheses that are being tested in this study.

Materials & Methods: The matererials and methods section is a concise but detailed account of what was done in the experiment about which you are writing.  It should include the materials you used and how you used them and be detailed enough so that someone else could potentially repeat the experiment from reading the section.  If relevant (for example, in a field ecological study), it should include a statement and description of where the study was conducted.  It should include statistical methods (the names of any statistical tests used to analyze data) as well as experimental methods. When writing the materials and methods section, write in the first or third person, describing what you did, and write in the past tense, since you are describing something you did in the past (do NOT use second person -- this section is NOT a set of instructions for someone else, it is a description of what you actually did).  Materials & methods sections are most useful when they include brief considerations of why particular methods were used e.g. "in order to test (some specific aspect of the study), I (used some method)"

Results: The results section a statement of the main results obtained in the study, but not what they mean with respect to the hypotheses. If statistical analyses were completed, the results section should include statements about whether trends were or were not statistically significant.  Results usually include figures and/or tables to present data.  A figure is a picture such as, a graph, a map, or a picture of a study species or area.  Each figure and table must be assigned a number and a title specific enough so that the figure makes sense on its own.  The number and title of a figure is given below the figure, but the number and title of a table is given at the top of the table.  Each figure and table must be referred to, by number, in the written part of the paper; this should not repeat exactly what is in it (e.g. don't re-state the numbers) but should give a verbal description of the main trends or points to the figure or table.  The results section must include a written description of the main trends in addition to figures and tables. Each figure or table that presents results must be mentioned, with main trends described, in the order of appearance of the figures and tables, in the written part of the results section.

Discussion: The discussion section is where you present the results you obtained in the context given in the introduction -- it is where you describe how your results fit into the "big picture" of what you are studying.  It should be related to the background and goals presented in the introduction.  If you tested hypotheses in your study, you should explain in the discussion whether or not they were supported.   It should include:

• an explanation of whether, and how, the results support or do not support your hypotheses, or what the results show with regard to the goals stated in the introduction
• consideration of different possible interpretations of your results.  If you supported a hypotheses, consider what other hypotheses could also explain your results.  If you tested, but did not support, a hypothesis, consider other hypotheses that could explain the results you did obtain.
• an explanation of how specific possible errors affect your ability to interpret your results.  This explanation should be related to your goals or hypotheses.  For example, if a possible systematic error would be expected to have made all your measurements of something too small, you should indicate this, and explain how this measurement being too small would affect what you have concluded with regard to your goals or hypotheses.  If random error would be expected to add variation, so that some measurements may be too large or too small but you can't tell which, you should explain how this would affect what you have concluded with regard to your goals or hypotheses
• an explanation of how the results, given what you have said so far, may increase our understanding of the general area of science to which you related this study in your introduction
• recommendations for further work that would improve our ability to test the hypotheses being tested or meet the stated goals.

Literature Cited: If you made reference to any background works, give the full bibliographic citation here.