Short Guide to Writing About Biology

by Pechenik, Jan A.

• ISBN13: 9780321078438
• ISBN10: 0321078438
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley

Summary

Emphasizing writing as a means to examining, evaluating, sharing, and refining ideas, A Short Guide to Writing about Biology helps students get more out of their biology courses and prepares them for work beyond the classroom. More than a "writing guide," this book teaches students to think as biologists and to then express that thinking clearly and concisely through their writing and speaking. With comprehensive coverage on how to read and evaluate articles, how to interpret and describe the results of statistical tests, how to maintain laboratory and field notebooks, and how to communicate information concisely and convincingly to professional and general audiences, this book is a "must have" for any biology student. This edition also provides considerable emphasis on the Internet and work with computers in Biology.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Part I General Advice About Writing and Reading Biology	1	(132)
Introduction and General Rules	3	(20)
What Do Biologists Write about, and Why?	3	(3)
The Keys to Success	6	(12)
Eight major rules for preparing a first draft	6	(5)
Seven major rules for developing your final draft	11	(5)
Six finer points: one last pass	16	(2)
On Using Computers in Writing	18	(2)
On Using Computers for Data Storage, Analysis, and Presentation	20	(1)
Summary	21	(2)
General Advice on Reading and Note-Taking	23	(30)
Effective Reading	23	(2)
Reading Data	25	(5)
Reading Text	30	(2)
Plagiarism and Note-Taking	32	(8)
Plagiarism	32	(1)
Taking notes	33	(7)
Split-page note-taking: a can't-fail system	40	(1)
Final Thoughts on Note-Taking	40	(2)
Locating Useful Sources	42	(9)
Using indexes	43	(1)
Using Science Citation Index	44	(1)
Using Current Contents	45	(1)
Using Medline, Biological Abstracts, Basic BIOSIS, and BioDigest	45	(1)
Prowling the Internet	46	(2)
Seeking other relevant Web sites	48	(2)
Final thoughts about efficient searching	50	(1)
Closing Thoughts	51	(1)
Summary	52	(1)
Reading and Writing about Statistical Analyses	53	(17)
Statistical Essentials	53	(13)
Variability and its representation	53	(3)
What you need to know about tomatoes, coins, and random events	56	(3)
Establishing a null hypothesis	59	(1)
Conducting the analysis and interpreting the results	60	(5)
Degrees of freedom	65	(1)
Summary	66	(1)
Reading about Statistics	67	(1)
Writing about Statistics	67	(3)
Citing Sources and Listing References	70	(10)
Citing Sources	70	(5)
Preparing the Literature Cited Section	75	(3)
Listing the references	75	(2)
Listing journal references	77	(1)
Listing items from the World Wide Web	77	(1)
Listing book references	78	(1)
Listing an article from a book	78	(1)
Listing a laboratory manual or handout	78	(1)
Sample Literature Cited Section	78	(2)
Revising	80	(53)
Preparing the Draft for Surgery: Plotting Idea Maps	82	(5)
Revising for Content	87	(4)
Revising for Clarity	91	(6)
Taming disobedient sentences	91	(4)
The dangers of ``it''	95	(2)
Revising for Completeness	97	(3)
Revising for Conciseness	100	(7)
First commandment: eliminate unnecessary prepositions	101	(1)
Second commandment: avoid weak verbs	102	(2)
Third commandment: do not overuse the passive voice	104	(2)
Fourth commandment: make the organism the agent of the action	106	(1)
Revising for Flow	107	(5)
A short exercise in establishing coherence	110	(1)
Improving flow using punctuation	111	(1)
Revising for Teleology and Anthropomorphism	112	(1)
Revising for Spelling Errors	113	(1)
Revising for Grammar and Proper Word Usage	114	(7)
Becoming a Good Editor	121	(9)
Giving criticism	123	(2)
Receiving criticism	125	(1)
Fine-tuning	126	(1)
Sentences in need of revision	126	(4)
Summary and Checklist	130	(3)
Part II Guidelines for Specific Tasks	133	(166)
Writing Summaries and Critiques	135	(9)
Writing the First Draft	136	(1)
Writing the Summary	137	(1)
Sample Student Summary	138	(2)
Analysis of student summary	140	(1)
Writing the Critique	140	(3)
The critique	141	(2)
Analysis of student critique	143	(1)
Concluding Thoughts	143	(1)
Writing Essays and Terms Papers	144	(12)
Why Bother?	145	(1)
Getting Started	146	(1)
Researching Your Topic	147	(1)
Writing the Paper	147	(6)
Citing Sources	153	(1)
Creating a Title	154	(1)
Revising	155	(1)
Writing Laboratory and Other Research Reports	156	(77)
Why Are You Doing This?	156	(1)
The Purpose of Laboratory and Field Notebooks	157	(6)
Taking notes	158	(5)
Components of the Research Report	163	(2)
Where to Start	165	(1)
Writing the Materials and Methods Section	165	(6)
Determining the correct level of detail	166	(4)
A model materials and methods section	170	(1)
Writing the Results Section	171	(36)
Summarizing data using tables and graphs	172	(3)
Constructing a summary table	175	(1)
To graph or not to graph	175	(6)
Preparing graphs	181	(2)
(Not) falsifying data	183	(1)
The question: to connect or not to connect the dots	183	(6)
Bar graphs and histograms	189	(2)
Learning to love logarithms	191	(4)
Preparing tables	195	(2)
Self-sufficient graphs and tables	197	(1)
Verbalizing results: general principles	198	(4)
Verbalizing results: turning principles into action	202	(1)
Writing about negative results	203	(1)
Writing about numbers	203	(2)
In Anticipation	205	(2)
Citing Sources	207	(1)
Writing the Discussion Section	207	(9)
Expectations	208	(1)
Explaining unexpected results	209	(2)
Analysis of specific examples	211	(5)
Writing the Introduction Section	216	(7)
Stating the question	216	(2)
An aside: studies versus experiments	218	(1)
Providing the background	219	(4)
Deciding on a Title	223	(2)
Writing an Abstract	225	(1)
Preparing an Acknowledgements Section	226	(1)
Preparing the Literature Cited Section	227	(1)
Preparing Papers for Formal Publication	228	(2)
Checklist for the Final Draft of Your Research Report	230	(3)
Answering Essay Questions	233	(8)
Basic Principles	233	(8)
Applying the principles	238	(3)
Writing Research Proposals	241	(11)
Researching Your Topic	242	(2)
What Makes a Good Research Question?	244	(1)
Writing the Proposal	245	(6)
Introduction	245	(2)
Background	247	(2)
Proposed research	249	(1)
Citing references and preparing the literature cited section	250	(1)
Tightening the Logic	251	(1)
The Life of a Real Research Proposal	251	(1)
Writing a Poster Presentation	252	(8)
Layout of the Poster	255	(3)
Making the Poster	258	(1)
Checklist for Making Posters	259	(1)
Writing for a General Audience: Science Journalism	260	(10)
Science Journalism Based on Published Research	260	(5)
Journalism Based on an Interview	265	(5)
Preparing Oral Presentations	270	(12)
Talking about Published Research Papers	271	(5)
Preparing the talk	271	(2)
Giving the talk	273	(3)
Talking about Original Research	276	(1)
Talking about Proposed Research	277	(1)
The Listener's Responsibility	277	(1)
Preparing Effective Slides and Overheads	278	(2)
Getting Fancy, or Not	280	(2)
Writing Letters of Application	282	(17)
Before You Start	283	(1)
Preparing the Resume	283	(4)
Preparing the Cover Letter	287	(10)
Recruiting Effective Letters of Recommendation	297	(2)
Appendix A	299	(2)
The Disassembled Paragraph Reconstituted (From Chapter 5)	299	(2)
Appendix B	301	(3)
Revised Sample Sentences	301	(3)
Appendix C	304	(2)
The Revised Sample Sentences in Final Form	304	(2)
Appendix D	306	(2)
Commonly Used Abbreviations	306	(2)
Appendix E	308	(3)
Suggested References for Further Reading	308	(3)
Appendix F	311	(3)
Some Computer Software for the Biological Sciences	311	(3)
Index	314