You can design the greatest experiment on the earth but if you cannot write a good report, then nobody will consider your results sincerely. The actual process of writing a research paper is often a messy and recursive one. Several students wonder about the writing process itself. For most areas of science, from biology to physics, writing a research paper is one of the most important skills. When writing a scientific paper, you need to adjust to the academic format. The Council of Science Editors (CSE) writing style is one example of an academic standard frequently used. There are too many rules included in this manual but here are a few that may prove to come in handy when you are writing a Biology paper. ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS Use sparingly and limit to widely known abbreviations. Abbreviations widely known throughout science, such as DNA, may be used in titles, abstracts, and text without definition. Abbreviations not widely known throughout science and not carried in the index to a major bibliographic database relevant to the subject and scope of the journal should not appear in article titles. If such abbreviations are well established in the discipline represented by a specialized journal, they may be used in the abstracts and text without explanation. Abbreviations not acceptable by the aforementioned criteria should not be used in titles and abstracts but may be used in the text, tables, and illustrations if they are parenthetically defined at first use. They should be eliminated altogether if they are not used more than 3 times in the text. Avoid using abbreviations at the beginning of a sentence. Use “e.g.” and “i.e.” for parenthetical statements, footnotes, or endnotes only; use “et al.” to abbreviate “and others.” These are used in the text by their English equivalents. TITLE Do not change the form of locants✤ or prefixes of chemical names, but capitalize the root terms. Headings and sub-headings: First level: bold capitals and lowercase (Methods) Second level: capitals and lowercase (Chemical Analyses) Third level: small capitals (CALCIUM) Fourth level: italic capitals and lowercase (Ionized Calcium) APOSTROPHE Avoid using possessives for inanimate objects For example: Original: the gene’s expression Preferred: the expression of the gene Eliminate possessives for eponymic terms For example: Crohn disease is preferred and not Crohn’s disease Contractions are inappropriate in the scientific material TIME UNITS AND DATES Use SI units Day (d), hour (h), week (wk), month (mo), and year (y) may be used with numerical values. Clock time should be expressed using the 12-h system (12:00 PM). Insert a space between the number and the symbol, except when there is more than one unit. Dates follow the format of year/month/day. Month may be abbreviated (2013 Dec 1). In running text, insert a comma between day and year. No comma should be inserted between the month and year. For example: This occurred on January 2, 2000 This occurred in January 2000 ITALICIZE The title of a book, journal, or other complete documents A letter or number that refers to the corresponding character in a table or figure A word or phrase when introduced for definition Use quotation marks to indicate the title of a journal article or a book chapter Quantity (y, V) Gene names (sis, HRCT) Subscript modifying a quantity symbol For example, Px for the probability P of an unknown quantity x Symbols for elementary and nuclear particles (e, W, μ) MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSIONS AND SYMBOLS P values are capitalized, italicized, and have a zero before the decimal point (P < 0.05). No hyphens are used between "P" and "value" and between "t" and "test." Student t test is written without an 's. Use the multiplication symbol (×) or the middle raised dot (·) for denoting “times.” Vectors are set in bold typeface, and scalars (components of a vector) are set in italics. For example, fx and fy denote the scalar components of vector f. USE EN DASH To link 2 terms representing items of equal rank. To connect names in eponymous terms attributed to 2 people; however do not add an en dash to a nonhyphenated proper name. As a coordinate connector within a term that includes hyphenated elements. To represent chemical bonds. For page ranges in end references. As a minus symbol if a separate minus symbol is not available. To represent a range. NUMBERS Use a thin space to separate groups of 3 digits for numbers greater than 9999. Use numerals for all numbers except zero and one, including expressions of ratios and multiplication factors. Express zeroes and ones as numerals in the following occasions: (1) When they are directly connected to a unit of measure (2) When they are a part of a series of numbers or closely linked with other numbers (3) When they are in a ratio (4) When they specify calculated values Do not use numerals: When numbers begin a sentence, title, or heading When 2 numbers are adjacent; instead, spell one out For example, eight 10-g aliquots or 8 ten-gram aliquots not 8 10-g aliquots Spell out single-digit ordinals (first to ninth) unless they appear in a series or are indirectly linked with larger ordinals. Place a zero before the decimal point for numbers less than 1.0. These are some points that you must keep in mind while writing a research paper according to the CSE manual of style. Scholarly Editing and Translation Services Pvt. Ltd. is an emerging company that is already making it mark in both academic editing and proofreading.
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