scientific Writing

CHAPTER 2

For meeting Two until meeting Five

Writing Style

Writing style is much like any other type of style in that it helps us express who we are. It is how the writer chooses to express himself or herself through writing. A little vague, right? Well, let's look at personal style for comparison. Each person has their own personal fashion style, whether they mean to or not. The clothes and accessories that we choose to wear each day can define personal style. If someone throws on a T-shirt and jeans with some old flip flops, they are expressing a casual and laid back style. On the other hand, if someone chooses a button-down shirt and leather shoes, they are showing the world that they mean business. The same goes for writing.

So, should we start wearing leather shoes while we write? It could make it interesting, but no. That's not the point. Just like clothes, writing can express a specific style. There are four main types of writing - expository, persuasive, descriptive, and narrative - and each one has a specific style.

Main Types of Writing: Expository

Expository writing is a general category that includes all types of essays (with the exception of persuasive essays). The main purpose of expository writing is to explain a concept or idea while including details for support. Such writing is usually based on a subject and therefore requires facts, not opinions, for examples and supportive detail. This type of writing is generally used in textbooks or 'how to' articles and essays. As such, these essays and articles follow an organized and logical sequence. An expository style of writing is more formal and straightforward, so the casual language or slang that you would use with friends is not acceptable. Unlike jeans and a T-shirt, this writing is more dressed up.

Main Types of Writing: Persuasive

Slightly similar to expository writing, persuasive writing is usually found in article and essay form. It also relies on specific details and examples for support; however, persuasive writing does not rely heavily on facts. In a persuasive piece, the writer is often expressing an opinion and trying to persuade the audience to do something or to agree with the writer's point of view. It must be clear and concise, but it can also be a bit more forceful and dramatic to help convince the reader. For example, sometimes writers will exaggerate their details to affect the reader in a more emotional way than in an expository essay.

Main Types of Writing: Descriptive

Fiction and poetry are filled with descriptive language, since the purpose is not to inform but to entertain. Someone may read this type of writing to enjoy the beauty of the language and writing itself. Therefore, this style tends to use more adjectives and adverbs, as well as figurative language and imagery, to create detail that allows the reader to envision the scenery and events in their minds.

Main Types of Writing: Narrative

Like descriptive writing, narrative writing aims to entertain the reader; however, instead of trying to entertain the reader with the beauty of its language, the writer is trying to tell a story. If an author adopts an expository writing style to tell a story, the author can quickly bore the reader. Narrative writing will use more descriptive language and imagery, because the author wants the reader to imagine the characters, scenes, and setting in order to become part of the story's world and to connect to its plot. Narrative writers can also change their style depending on the type of story. For example, if a writer wants to create a suspenseful story, they might use short, choppy sentences to build up to the most exciting moment. Therefore, the genre or category of the narrative can influence the style of writing as well.

 Description, methods and Academic reality

Describing processes and products

            Here, we look at another idea closely related to time order: processes order. Processes order is used to describe processes, for example the life cycle of plant; or to explain how a procedure is carried out, for example how to extract drinking water from sea water. Process order is used primarily to educate the reader. You will find it useful in your own academic writing, especially when reporting work you have done yourself.

Task 1                   Reordering a Methods section

It is important for a reader to be able the method as a logical sequence of steps, this task will give you practice in putting a sequence in its correct order.

The following is jumbled summary of the methods section of a student research paper. The writer’s topic is: can living organisms survive in Hudson River Hypothesis what that the daphnia will not be able to survive, not even in the lowest concentration of Hudson River water? Her hypothesis was that the Daphnia will not be able to survive, not even in the lowest concentration of Hudson River water.

Read the sentences and recorder them into a logical sequence

(write ‘1’ alongside the first, and so on).

……. After placing the appropriate water concentrations and daphnia in each beaker, they were stored in safe and neutral place.

….. Beakers were stored for 1 hour, then 24 hours and concluded in 48 hours.

…... Finally, the 100% beakers was filled with 0ml of Hudson River water and 5ml of Daphnia culture water.

……Next, the 100% beaker was filled with 5ml of Hudson River water, of spring          water and 5ml of Daphnia culture water.

…… Three beakers were labelled with these solution concentrations (control, 50% and 100%)

SCORE:  for this task, if to all correct to get 100 but the students only answer partly, so the student only get 50, if the students not answer, so the students get 0

Source: Day. 2011. Scientific English: A Guide for Scientists and Other Professionals. 3rd ed. Greenwood. 224p.

Task 2             Applying on Reality Principle to a text

                        You are going to read the fist part of methods section of research paper entitled: Unusual swimbladder behavior of fish in the Cariaco Trench in order to determine what information the reader is assumed to have in advance of reading the article, and what information the reader is given.

Read ‘3’ method below, and then tick the appropriate boxes in the table

NO	Information	Assumed	Given
1	The location of the Cariaco Trench
2	Where in the Trench the measurements were taken
3	The depth of the ocean where the measurements were taken
4	What benign weather is like.
5	The timing of sunset and sunrise.

 

3 Methods     The experiment was conducted from 18 January through 2 February 1976 in the center of the western sub-basin of the Cariaco Trench. Measurements were within 10 km of 10o 40’N, 65O 30’Water depths were about 1400 m. extensive acoustic and biological measurements were made but water chemistry was not examined,    Weather benign during the experiment. Winds were usually less than 7m/s, and never exceeded 10 m/s. Seas were usually less than 2 m and never exceeded 3 m. sunrise barely changed, from 0645 to 1826, and sunset changed from 1820 to 1826 over the course of the experiment.

SCORE: TO CORRECT GET (1-2-3-4-5=100) So all the scores divided the all question

For example: the students have the 3 correct and  then 3 correct:5x100= 60

Source: Harmon and Gross. 2010. The Craft of Scientific Communication. Chicago. 225 p. (recommended for graduate students)

Result, discussion and academic writing relevance

In the Result of your report you make sense of what you have found. Here you not only present your findings but also talk about the possible reasons for those findings. Also, if your research approach was deductive, then here is where you accept or reject your hypothesis (based on your findings). In addition, in this section you should use your knowledge of the subject in order to make intelligent comments about your results.

What is an argument?

Much of the done by academics involve understanding reporting and interpreting work of others. But knowledge is created by original research, and original research thinking. If someaone is to think originally, they have to think critically and be able to argue.

The academic argument begins with statement (thesis) that is debatable: that is, an idea you believe in, but with which other people might disagree. The reminder of your text provides evidence for your thesis statements and against opposing arguments. Your aim is to convince your readers of the correctness of your thesis by providing evidence that they will find convincing and by defeating alternative arguments that they might have alternative arguments that they might have believed

Task 1         identifying a thesis statement

A thesis is a statement about which people can take different pints of view – it is debatable. Study the following statements and decide which are these 9that, is, which are debatable) and which are matters on fact, you will probably have to look up some of these in books or on interbet to find out.

NO	Statement	Thesis	Factual
1	With tablespoon of blood. The DNA of an individual can determine the relatedness of individuals, families, tribal group, and populations.
2	If you cloned yourselft, there is no guarantee that your clone would be just like you.
3	The nematode Caenorhabditis  elegans  is among the most widely studied model organisms in current biological and biomedical research.
4	Genetically modified food will mainly the world’s poor
5	Genetically modified food will mainly benefit the world’s poor
	A gene is a discrete sequence of DNA

Score: To correct GET (1-2-3-4-5=100) So all the scores divided the all question

For example: the students have the 3 correct and  then 3 correct:5x100= 60

Source: Harmon and Gross. 2010. The Craft of Scientific Communication. Chicago. 225 p. (recommended for graduate students)

The Results and Discussion section

It is easy to confuse the results and discussion sections of research papers. The simplest way to think about the difference is to remember that *R* = *R*, that is, Results = Reporting.

Results

Raw data include all observations or data that you get from your experiment. Raw data are never included in your scientific paper they are needed to give evidence for specific conclusions, which cannot be  obtained by looking at analysis, or summation, of the data. You present converted data in your report as figures (graphs), tables, and/or description of observations, you need to present your converted data well, in order to make your point succinctly and clearly.

            In a research essay, report or academic paper, the results section describers but does not interpret your result. Its functions to provide the reader with clear description of your findings. You can draw attention to data you think are very important or constitute trends. Here is an example, from the journal of the society for Gynaecological Investigation Vol. 7, No 4 (2000). Note that the numbers in square brackets relate to the difference list, using the referencing conventions of mediciate.

Task 1              Describing the data to use in an argument

When you write the Results section, rather than just putting a table (or other visual data display) in the paper and then moving on to the discussion section, you need to describe the relationship of each section on converted data to the overall study. For example look at Table 1-E below, which you worked with in task 5 of unit 3.

Table 1-E Incomes and food prices

Country	1998 GNP Per capital (constant 1995 $US)	Average growth rate of GNP per capita, 1994-96	Bread and cereal index 1998 (PPP)	Meat Price index 1998 (PPP)
United States EU Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden United Kingdom	29,316 30,841 29,284 36,894 27, 807 28,028 30,941 12,111 19,469 19,363 50,851 28,344 11,573 15,405 26,613 20,214	2,66 2,21 2,36 3.30 5,23 2,19 1.65 2,32 7.78 1.68 1.22 2.81 2.82 2.66 2.34 2.72	100 114 116 156 147 125 145 104 80 101 NA 106 85 89 151 90	100 163 161 210 156 157 187 102 103 135 NA 176 116 91 179 128

TABLE 1-E gives purchasing power parity indices between food prices in the countries considered here. A quantity of bread and cereal items that would cost $100 in the US would cost $156 in Denmark but only $80 in Ireland. Meat costs are higher in most European countries than in the US. A quantity of meat costing $210 in Denmark, but only $91 in Spain.

In 1997, US consumers spent only 3,8% of average household income on food, whereas European Union countries spent an average of 17.4% of family income on food in the same period.

Score:  all of correctly the scores of the data 100

If the student only describe half so the scores to get 50 and if the student not answer so the student to get scores 0

Source: Harmon and Gross. 2010. The Craft of Scientific Communication. Chicago. 225 p. (recommended for graduate students)