Writing and Presenting Scientific Papers 2nd Edition Cover design and photography The Photo-Visual Unit, University of Nottingham Writing and Presenting Scienticfi Papers 2nd Edition Birgitta Malmfors Phil Garnsworthy Michael Grossman Nottingham University Press Manor Farm, Main Street, Thrumpton Nottingham NG11 0AX, United Kingdom www.nup.com NOTTINGHAM First published 2000 Second edition 2004 Reprinted 2005 (twice), 2006, 2007, 2008 (twice) and 2009 © Birgitta Malmfors, Phil Garnsworthy and Michael Grossman All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright holder’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Writing and Presenting Scientific Papers, 2nd Edition: I Malmfors, B., II Garnsworthy, P.C., III Grossman, M. ISBN 978-1-897676-12-7 Typeset by Nottingham University Press, Nottingham CONTENTS Preface xi 1 Communicating Science 1 The ABC of science communication 1 Scientific versus popular science writing 3 The sections of a scientific paper reflect the research process 5 2 Sections of a Scientific Paper 9 Major headings 9 3 Tables and Figures 17 Tables 17 Figures 20 4 Other Types of Scientific Writing 23 Literature review 23 Conference paper and abstract 27 Thesis or dissertation 28 Popular science article 29 Research proposal 32 5 Getting Started in Writing 37 Making an outline facilitates writing 38 Use a computer for your writing 39 Start with the sections you find easiest to write 40 Write a draft - review and revise 42 6 Improving Your Writing 45 How to make your writing easier to read 45 Do I or don't I? 53 Writing correctly 54 7 Writing Statistics 67 Materials and methods 67 Results 72 v Writing mathematics 73 Writing numbers, dates and time 74 8 Literature Searching and Referencing 79 Search strategies 79 Manual searching 82 Recording your search 82 Referencing published work 83 Referencing web addresses 85 Copyright 86 9 Getting a Paper into Print 89 Preparing your manuscript for submission 89 Authorship and addresses 90 Submission 91 Editor’s and referees' reports 92 Author proofs 93 10 Oral Presentation and Visual Displays 99 Planning the oral presentation 99 Preparing the oral presentation 101 Visuals support your talk 105 Creating visuals 110 Performing the oral presentation 114 11 Poster Presentation 121 Attract viewers and show the essentials 121 Designing the poster 122 Presenting the poster 127 12 Training Students in Writing and Presentation 129 Undergraduate and Masters level 130 Postgraduate level 135 Training communication skills - in summary 139 13 Reviewing Papers and Presentations 141 Written papers 142 Students’ written work 143 Book reviews 144 Assessment of presentations 145 vi Further Reading 147 Books 147 Journal articles 148 Web sites 148 Index 151 vii ThE AuThOrS Birgitta Malmfors is an Associate Professor in Animal Breeding and Genetics at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. She has written many scientific papers, reports and articles. She has authored textbook chapters on animal breeding and a handbook on scientific writing and oral presentation, and also authored chapters on teaching methodologies published in a CD. She regularly makes presentations at international meetings. She has taught students successfully for 30 years, and now also trains university teachers in international courses. She has been given a distinguished award for teaching and communication skills. Phil Garnsworthy is a Senior Lecturer in Animal Production at the University of Nottingham, UK. He has edited 18 books of conference proceedings and contributed chapters to several other books in the area of animal nutrition. He also has written many papers for scientific journals and articles for the popular press. He regularly makes oral and poster presentations at international scientific conferences and industry meetings. He has been teaching students for more than 20 years and is particularly interested in training students to communicate effectively. Michael Grossman is a Professor in the Departments of Animal Sciences and Statistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He has written numerous scientific papers as well as popular science articles, and has given national and international scientific presentations. He has taught animal genetics and mathematical modelling for more than 30 years. He also has taught many workshop courses on techniques for writing and presenting a scientific paper to PhD students, both at the University of Illinois and at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, where he has received a prize from each university for his teaching skills. Since 1998, the three authors have jointly presented a workshop on ‘‘Writing and Presenting Scientific Papers’’ in advance of the annual meeting of the European Association for Animal Production. This workshop continues to attract participants from many countries, who indicate that they benefit greatly from the experience. ix