Learning successful lab and research publication writing

Alan Jenks

Writing your lab reports should be approached in the same way that you are going to submit a paper to a peer review journal.

The approach should always start with a hypothesis

A hypothesis is a “tentative statement that proposes a possible explanation to some phenomenon or event.”

Hypotheses must be testable.

Formalized hypotheses use an if/then format that helps to assure that all important aspects of the hypothesis are intact including the independent and dependent variables.

A good research hypothesis has three parts:

1. an explanation of a phenomenon to be tested,
2. a method,
3. and a prediction.

A research hypothesis must be written before an experiment is conducted.

The next idea is to identify which are going to be your independent and dependent variables.

The dependent variable is the variable in the experiment that is measured by the researcher.

The independent variable is the variable that is manipulated by the researcher in order to exert an effect on the dependent variable.

How you ask your Why? Is important.

• My grip strength will be stronger with warm hands than with cold hands.
• My grip strength will be stronger with warm hands than with cold hands.
• If low temperatures suppress muscle contraction, and I test grip strength at different temperatures with a handgrip dynamometer, then my grip strength will be stronger with warm hands than with cold hands.

One of the most important things you can always ask is WHY? often the why allows you to help formulate your hypothsis.

• Does changing the respiratory rate affect heart rate?
• Does caffeine consumption affect blood glucose levels?
• Does body temperature affect blood oxygen levels?
• Does arm position affect muscle activity?
• Does an empty stomach affect blood lactate levels?

How Much Exercise Do We Need to Live Longer? This is a type of question that occupies my mind often.

Research in this area is on going. Thee seems to be a sweet spot for longevity which lies around 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps or about 30 to 45 minutes of exercise per day.

If we wanted to make an experiment on this idea could we write a hypothesis as an if/then statement for this experiment.

What is the dependent variable?

What is the independent variable?

To further our endevours we want to take a deep dive in  condcuting background research  in that pariticular topic.

We want to Conduct background research in order to learn what is already known about the problem.

Primary literature research includes original written works such as research published in scholarly journals.

Ideal resource for academic work; however, the terminology used may be difficult to understand for beginners in a field of study.

Secondary sourcesinclude books or review articles that summarize primary research findings. A good example of a secondary resource is a textbook. Today, variousinternet resourcesare popular for conducting research.

Understanding the research starts with understanding how to read a scientific article. The simplist way to do this is:

1. Skim the article and identify its structure.
2. Generate questions and be aware of your understanding
3. Draw inferences
4. Most journals use a conventional IMRD structure:
   1. An abstract followed by
   2. Introduction
   3. Methods
   4. Results, and Discussion

Each of these sections normally contains easily recognized conventional features, and if you read with an anticipation of these features, you will read an article more quickly and comprehend more.

When reading the papers you can use an easy accronym to evaluate the resources: the CRAAP Test:

• Currency: The timeliness of the information.
• Reliability: Where did the author get this information?
• Authority of author: Who is the immediate source of the information?
• Authority of organization: Does the resource have a reputable organization behind it?
• Purpose: The reason the information exists.

How to write your reports

• Set aside time for writing and choose the optimal environment.
• Split the thinking from the writing: structure your complete storyline and create empty tables/figures before writing full sentences and paragraphs.
• Choose a potential journal early.
• Divide the writing of a paper into manageable chunks.
• Make use of writing sessions and sufficient short and long breaks.
• Reward yourself for achieving intermediate-and long-term goals

Title & Abstract

• Construct title and abstract from keywords from all sections of the main text.
• Use important keywords at the beginning of the title.
• Avoid abbreviations and passive voice (title and abstract).
• Always state the objective and start the results section with the answer to the research question (abstract).
• Give sample size if you report percentages (abstract).
• Check if the abstract covers the 4 Ws:
  • Background: What is known and why is this study needed?
  • Methods: What did you do?
  • Results: What did you find?
  • Discussion: What does it mean?
  • Check that the abstract can be read independently from the main text.
  • Revise every time the main text is revised (title and abstract).
• Purpose or rationale of study (why they did it)
• Methodology (how they did it)
• Results (what they found)
• Conclusion (what it means)

Introduction

• Check if the introduction has a funnel shape with clear sections on:
  • general background (what is this all about?);
  • what is known and what is unknown about this specific subject (why was this study needed, and why is it important?);
  • primary research question (what did we want to know?); and
  • study aim and design (what did we do to answer the research question?).
  • Look at the length of the introduction (maximum 10-15% of the total word count).
  • Determine if the introduction is the start of the story line of your paper by looking at your outline (skeleton).
  • Ask yourself, Will this introduction sell
  • Creating readers’ interest in the subject and providing them with enough information to understand the article
  • What is known about the topic) to more specific information (what is not known) to a focal point (what question the authors asked and answered).
  • Describe previous work that led to current understanding of the topic (the broad) and then situate their work (the specific) within the field.
  • Creating readers’ interest in the subject and providing them with enough information to understand the article
  • What is known about the topic) to more specific information (what is not known) to a focal point (what question the authors asked and answered).
  • Describe previous work that led to current understanding of the topic (the broad) and then situate their work (the specific) within the field.

Methods

• Include basic information on study design, setting and subjects, data collection, data analysis, and ethical approval.
• Refer to previous publications from the same large research project, such as a study protocol, for additional information (if applicable).
• Consider providing detailed information on the methods as web only supplementary materials.
• Ask yourself, ‘‘Would a researcher be able to reproduce the study with the information I provide in this paper?’’
• what experiments were done to answer the question stated in the Introduction.
• Methods are often difficult to read, especially for graduate students, because of technical language and a level of detail sufficient for another trained scientist to repeat the experiments.
• However, you can more fully understand the design of the experiments and evaluate their validity by reading the Methods section carefully.

Results

• Write the results section in the past tense.
• Structure roughly into: recruitment/response, sample characteristics, primary analyses, secondary analyses, and ancillary analyses.
• Match the results section with the methods section.
• Present findings without interpretation.
• Highlight findings from tables and figures in the text.
• Present estimates with 95% confidence intervals.
• Consider providing additional results in tables and figures as web only supplementary material.
• Statements of what was found, and reference to the data shown in visuals (figures and tables).
• Normally, authors do not include information that would need to be referenced, such as comparison to others’ results. Instead, that material is placed in the Discussion—placing the work in context of the broader field. The Discussion also functions to provide a clear answer to the question posed in the Introduction and to explain how the results support that conclusion.

Discussion

• Check if the discussion has a clear inverted funnel shape with distinct sections providing:
  • A summary of main findings (What did we find?);
  • Comparisons with other studies (What is known?, What is new?, and How does this fit in?),
  • Strengths and limitations (Are the findings true?
  • -Implications (Are the findings important? What can we do with them?).
  • Answer the research question in the first paragraph and check if this is in line with the research question posed in the introduction (hourglass model).
  • Check to see if the discussion section does not present new results.
  • Be frank about acknowledging limitations.
  • Ensure it offers a clear ending to the storyline of the paper (citable statement).
  • Formulate a clear and concise one-liner as the bottom line of the paper.

Tables & Figures

• Make a deliberate choice early in the writing process on which key findings to present in tables/figures.
• The title should reflect what is shown.
• Ensure that tables/figures are self-explanatory.
• Do not repeat information from tables/figures in the text but emphasize the important findings.
• Design tables/figures to make them clear and easy to read.
• Start each table/figure on a new page, after the reference list.