<p>Any advice as to how to write a science research paper? science research=research in a lab
not the research you do for a class at school</p>
<p>much appreciated!</p>
<p>Don't use any adjectives. If it's physics or mathy, write a lot of it in math. Make sure that if somebody reads it, they can redo your experiment. And don't overwrite the abstract. People always seem to make these longer than required. An abstract is an overview of what you did. Anything specific?</p>
<p>Do I have to explain every technical term because most published articles don't explain terms at all (or else I wouldn't have to run to the dictionary every 5 minutes). but I also hear that you should write the paper so that a person without any background knowelge on the topic could read and understand it.</p>
<p>You should use technical terms when appropriate. I've found the best way to describe good scientific writing is that it's both concise and precise. Most words have very specific meanings, and it's important to choose each word properly when writing important parts of your paper.</p>
<p>Not that you should choose each word less properly when writing less important parts of your paper...</p>
<p>how many papers/journals did you guys read before or during writing the paper?</p>
<p>
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how many papers/journals did you guys read before or during writing the paper?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>A few, just to get an idea of how papers are structured.</p>
<p>Use LaTeX, if you have the time to learn it. A fantastic piece of software which can make your papers look very professional.</p>
<p>^^^ If you don't have time to learn LaTeX, use lyx. Lyx is basically the GUI version of LaTeX</p>
<p>intelligentimp, you should look at the type journal you think your research would be suitable for publishing in. Different journals have different stylistic preferences (headings, no headings, citation style, etc).</p>
<p>how many articles did you guys read to get a strong knowlege of the area and to "reference apropriate related works and palce the study in a proper context" for Siemens/westinghouse?</p>
<p>
[quote]
how many articles did you guys read to get a strong knowlege of the area and to "reference apropriate related works and palce the study in a proper context" for Siemens/westinghouse?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For a professional paper, any statement that is not a direct result of your experiment/reasoning should be cited, preferably to another research paper or to a book (not a website.) Although you should skim over a few professional research papers to get an idea of how they're written, you should use them mostly as references during your research. You will often need only 2-3 sentences from an entire research report as citations, so don't waste too much time reading over the entire paper. As far as getting knowledge about your subject, you can either go to library and read up on it or if you're lazy like me, you can go online. You will often need to look up something while writing your paper, so it's a kind of "learn as you go" process. Just try to avoid citing internet references when writing your report, though.</p>
<p>Because Siemens' competition is directed mostly towards high schoolers, I'm fairly sure that some "unprofessional" citations are passable, such as reliable websites.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you don't have time to learn LaTeX, use lyx. Lyx is basically the GUI version of LaTeX
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Good call; I forgot about that.</p>
<p>Good luck,</p>
<p>thanks for all the advice :)
one more question: I went on to the lyx site, and it instructed me to download macTex before downloading lyx (i have a mac). So after a series of clicking, I got here CTAN:</a> directory: /tex-archive/systems/mac/mactex . Am I to download
ExtrasFolder.pdf 2008-08-30 50 Kbyte download<br>
MacTeX-20071201.dmg 2007-12-01 762296 Kbyte download<br>
MacTeX-20071201.dmg.md5 2007-12-01 54 bytes download<br>
MacTeX.dmg 2007-12-01 762296 Kbyte download another name for: systems/mac/mactex/MacTeX-20071201.dmg
MacTeXtras-20080831.zip 2008-08-30 280919 Kbyte download<br>
MacTeXtras-20080831.zip.md5 2008-08-31 58 bytes download<br>
MacTeXtras.zip</p>
<p>all of that?</p>
<p>I have a PC, and with a PC, it is one simple download.
But for Mac, I think you do need to install all of those... except maybe the extras?
But there is only one way to find out... download it and try it out</p>
<p>when you write the methodology part do you have to give background info on the techniques you used? for example: "we retrieved data from __ genomic database. <no description="" give="" about="" the="" database="">"
or
"____ is a genomic database that blah blah blah. We retrieved ___ from this databse"</no></p>
<p>"we used PCR to extract ...
or " PCR is a widely used technique that ... We used PCR to..."</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>"<whatever pcr's="" acronym="" means=""> (PCR) was used to..." if it's a well known technique. If it's a rather obscure one, then you should cite a paper that explains it clearly.</whatever></p>
<p>ok thanks, how long is the methodoloy section usually?</p>
<p>It depends on what your paper is about. If it's about creating a new method, then it'll be pretty significant. If it's about results from a group of fairly standard tests, then I've seen it be as little as one to two paragraphs.</p>
<p>also is it ok to repeat stuff in the abstract in the intro?</p>
<p>o cool we posted within a second of each other, has anyone made it to semifinals with just one to two paragraphs in the methodology section?</p>
<p>Depending on the field, the abstract may or may not contain the results of your experiments. However, it usually does contain a brief sentence or two on the foundations of the research. A small segment may contain how the experiments were conducted, and the bulk is about what's actually being studied in the paper.</p>