scientist Essay Examples

Scientist Essay Writing Guide: Tips and Example

1. Organization: Any academic paper ought to convey an argument. When writing your essay, the ideas you expose need to have a meaning. Furthermore, you must arrive at a particular conclusion, even if that conclusion only makes for speculation. Your target is to persuade your audience that your arguments are accurate. It is without any doubt that this constitutes the essential guideline that one needs to follow when writing an academic paper. This will aid you in devising an adequate structure and writing a high-quality essay. The coherence of your ideas and arguments offers the foundation required to write an essay logically. As such, your ideas need to stick to a coherent development, using information or proof to substantiate every phase of your argument, up to the point where you arrive at a coherent conclusion.

2. It is of pivotal importance to substantiate every one of your essential arguments with data. You need to do more than just quote the research. You must succinctly explain its essential findings in one or two phrases. Furthermore, you need to provide a comprehensive explanation as to why this backs up your argument. One ought to link every assertion that refers to a non-evident fact (for instance, “primates know how to follow gaze," or “the organism needs dopamine to function properly”) to a source (this could even be a textbook).

3. Evidence: At this point, you ought to remark that the reasoning of scientific studies involves listing out probabilities (advancing theories), followed by conducting trials to assay them. The next phase entails disproving incorrect theories, instead of demonstrating valid hypotheses. In case the entirety of the rational theories was disproved apart from one, one should regard the hypothesis that wasn’t disproved as the most credible one. However, one must not regard that theory as credible, except for the situation in which a substantial quantity of data, gathered in a lot of laboratories and with a lot of distinct methods, points to it as the only probability left standing. As such, it is highly improbable for unique experiential research to demonstrate a specific theory. While it’s possible for the study to be in line with that theory, it cannot demonstrate it.

4. Being analytical amounts to attentively scrutinizing the veridical foundation of an assertion. Merely disputing research (for instance, for not studying more than one species, for using a specific approach, or for not introducing enough statistical data) doesn’t indicate an analytical approach. Science involves distinguishing between the essential and inconsequential agents. It’s better not to say anything, rather than disproving incidentals. Being over-analytical regarding insignificant factors is just as inadequate (perhaps even more inadequate) than being unanalytical.

5. Be succinct. Steer clear of figurative phrases like “it is considered" or “researchers think” or “the unanimous opinion appears to be …” (which is probably an even worse wording, as science doesn’t rely on popularity!). Instead, you could write something like “Johnson (2010) asserted (especially if you are in disagreement with their opinion)/demonstrated (especially if you agree)/implied (in case of theories) that x”. In case you are conveying a personal idea, simply write “I propose” (avoid formulations like “the author proposes”).

6. Avoid using scientific words that a general specialist would not be familiar with without explaining them. We’re talking about words like “metarepresentation," “intentionality” or “phoneme," which have specialized meanings that must be succinctly defined.
7. Latin denominations of species must be written in italics. While the subfamily must always be written in capital letters, the species must not be capitalized (Homo sapiens, Canis familiaris). In case you want to write about an unidentified species, write Naja sp. (singular). On the other hand, when you wish to approach numerous species of the same family, you should write Naja spp. (plural). These guidelines apply to the entirety of species.

8. Citations: The entirety of the sources on which you base your arguments must get proper references. Make sure you cite all of the materials you’ve used in the bibliography section, which you need to add on the last page of your essay. Furthermore, in-text references must include the name(s) of the writer(s), as well as the issuing date. For instance: Johnson and Andrews (2004); Anderson, Walters, and Griffin (2011). In case the material you want to refer to was written by more than two people, you can use a shortened form when you are required to cite it again. For instance: Anderson et al (2011). If your source has at least six writers, you ought to use “et al” even in the initial reference.

9. Here are a couple of widespread errors regarding specialized terms/shortened forms:
   • The shortened form for et alia (which can be translated from Latin as “and others”) is et al. As such, you ought to write “Anderson et al., 2004”. Never make use of this abbreviation when there are no more than two authors. For instance, “Johnson and Andrews (2004)” can never be written as “Johnson et al (2004).
   • The singular of the word “stimuli” is “stimulus." Never write “one stimuli”!
   • The word “data” is always a plural form. Rather than using the singular form, “datum," you could talk about one “data point."
   • The plural of the word “ganglion” is “ganglia." For instance: “the basal ganglia represent …”. Similarly, the plural of “criterion” is “criteria," and the plural of “phenomenon” is “phenomena."
   • Overstatements such as “colossal," “astonishing," “mighty” or “magnificent” as well as punctuation marks such as “!” must almost always be avoided.
   • Formulations like “the work of certain researchers”refer to their entire scientific activity or a subsection of it, and not to a singular piece of writing. In case you want to talk about a single piece of writing, use the word “study."
   • Replication: a research paper that tries to replicate a previous one uses the same techniques as the initial research. The term of “replication” denotes a study that has achieved the same outcomes as a previous one. If the outcomes are different, it means that the study failed to replicate the original. In case the techniques are different, the research cannot possibly be regarded as a replication.

10. Last but not least, a lot of students are confused about abbreviations as well as possessive forms. To write a singular possessive, just add ‘s. For instance: a beast’s nourishment. To write a possessive form of a regular plural (which ends with an s), just add an apostrophe after the s. For instance: the beasts’ prey. In case of irregular plurals, make use of the same rule as that of singular possessives.