Overview
I have written a lab report for LS7L following the official “Structure of a Scientific Paper” rubric. I need you to humanize the writing style so it sounds naturally written by a student and not AI, while keeping all scientific content, structure, and formatting intact.
Please follow these rules:
- Keep the same section headings: Title, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion, Works Cited.
- Do NOT change or remove any data, p-values, statistics, or numerical values.
- Do NOT add new sources or remove existing citations. Keep the same in-text citations and Works Cited.
- Keep scientific tone, but make sentence flow feel more natural and less robotic.
- Do NOT add first-person statements (no “I” or “we”).
- Keep everything in paragraph form. Do not add bullet points.
- Preserve past tense in Materials & Methods.
- Do NOT simplify scientific meaning. Only improve phrasing and flow.
- Check for minor grammar improvements and smoother transitions.
RUBRIC:
1. Title The title should be concise and relevant. A good title gives a clear indication of what a paper is about, so that it can easily be found by other scientists. It should not be overly wordy, but it needs to have sufficient detail that someone scanning titles will know the topic. Titles should never be catchy or colloquial!
2. Introduction The goal of the introduction is to provide background and context for your study, and to state your hypotheses. A scientific paper does not require a “hook” or a lead-in. It's fine to simply jump into your topic of interest. First, provide the general background information for your study - this will include both biological background, like definitions of specific measurements that will be used or a basic overview of the biological functions being explored in your study. Assume that your audience is another scientist who is familiar with basic scientific information but is not an expert in this area. Scientific papers published in journals will generally include many citations to previously published studies relating to the topic of the current study. The goal of citing previous studies is to provide context - what is already known on this topic, and what is not yet fully understood? In LS7L you are required to cite at least one previous published research paper. You can cite additional studies if you want, but only one is required. If you're struggling to find a relevant paper, see the section above for some literature search tips. Citation format is provided in the "works cited" section below. In LS7L we cite using "author, year" format, which means your in-text citations should look like this (Pfluegl, 2023). Make sure to cite any sources you reference while writing your text and summarize them in your own words! We don't use direct quotes in scientific writing. Based on the background information and previous research, you should identify a “knowledge gap” that your study seeks to answer. Remember that the point of a scientific study is to build on previous studies to uncover new knowledge, or explore phenomena that are not well understood. You do not simply want to replicate results that are already well supported by other research. What question can you explore that has not already been definitively answered? You must state your hypothesis in the introduction. Although published scientific papers usually only include the alternative/experimental hypothesis (generally just referred to as the hypothesis) and assume the reader understands that the null hypothesis is the statistical opposite, in this class, for the purpose of learning proper scientific principles you are required to state both the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis.
3. Materials & Methods In this section you should describe the experimental procedures in sufficient detail that another scientist familiar with basic techniques could replicate your experiment in their own lab, using their own equipment. Students often struggle with how much detail is "sufficient" here. It can be helpful to think of the detail level in a cookbook. You want to include all necessary materials and important procedures, but you can assume your reader will be able to figure out how to turn on the stove. Likewise, you would not want to spend time explaining things that are specific to your lab, like which shelf the beakers are located on, since this information would be useless to a researcher working in a different lab. Unlike a recipe, however, the materials and methods section must be written in prose (paragraph form) and cannot use lists, bullet points, or flowcharts in lieu of text (although flowcharts are sometimes used in addition to text, if they are helpful). When deciding what to include, think about what you would need to know if you were a scientist from another university reading the paper and learning about this experiment for the first time. Who were the subjects? What procedure was followed? How were the data collected? How were the data analyzed? (Do not include any results here, just state the statistical method) The materials and methods section must always be written in paragraph form and cannot just consist of lists or flowcharts. It should be completely written in past tense, since the experiment being described has already been conducted.
4. Results What did your experiment reveal? This section should contain a straightforward report of the statistical data. Do not interpret the data or draw any conclusions here. You should never present raw data in the text (like listing out individual measurements or the results of individual trials, for example) of a scientific paper. When deciding what data to include, think about what you would find useful if you were reading someone else's study. Keep in mind that the studies you are conducting in LS7L are generally small, but many research studies have hundreds of subjects. Would you want to have to read through the weight of hundreds of individual subjects or the results of hundreds of individual trials? Wouldn't it be more helpful to know some of the descriptive statistics that represent your data sets, such as median and MAD (or the mean and standard deviation)? This is why we present the results of our statistical tests instead of listing out raw data. Figures are often used in the results section. In LS7L you are not required to include figures, but they can sometimes be helpful to present your data to your audience. If you do include figures, make sure that you spend some time determining what type of figure best describes your data. While we do not include raw data in our text, it is fine (and often very helpful) to present raw data in figures, such as a beeswarm plot, which shows every data point collected and can give the reader a better picture of the overall dataset than the statistical calculations alone. Give your figures legends that include a brief description of the material presented in the figure, including sample size. Tables should be labeled with a title; a simple statement describing the contents. Avoid common errors that make your figures needlessly complicated such as using a three-dimensional bar graph if you are only presenting two dimensions of data. Figures should not be included in lieu of text. All of your figures should make sense without reference to the text. However, any figures included must be referenced somewhere in the text by using the following citation format (Figure 1).
5. Discussion The goal of the discussion section is to interpret the results of your study and place them in context - how do they expand (or change!) what was previously established in this area of research? First, interpret your own statistical results. Based on your p-value, do you reject or fail to reject your null hypothesis? Was there a significant difference between your two groups? If your groups were significantly different, you'll want to discuss how they were different - which group exhibited higher/lower/faster/slower/etc responses? Keep in mind that an experiment is not a failure just because you didn’t have statistically significant results. Sometimes the lack of relationship between two variables is more interesting than a relationship. Whether or not you saw a significant difference, you have gained valuable information and you should be able to discuss it in a meaningful way. Discuss whether your results make sense (or not) based on what you learned while reading the previous studies. Do not spend the majority of your discussion going over possible sources of error in your experiment just because you did not see the results you expected. If there were inconsistencies in your data that you feel were caused by experimental errors or other variables you should certainly address them, but you should not try to explain your results away just because they do not agree with your expectations. How do your findings align with the current research in this area? You should have already done a literature search before conducting your study, when formulating your hypotheses. Revisit that research now, and relate your findings to the previous work. Does your study agree with similar work that has been done elsewhere? Does your study cast new light on the current understanding of the topic? In LS7L it's fine to either cite the same study that you used in your introduction, or use a different study if you prefer. Often, this leads to additional questions. Most research papers include at least a few sentences discussing possible future extensions of the work. What direction would you explore next? Include thoughtful suggestions for future research projects that relate to your results.
6. Works cited Make sure to include a works cited section at the end of your text. Most journals have strict citation formatting requirements. In LS7L we are mostly concerned with making sure that you learn to cite sources and use a somewhat consistent method to make it easy for your classmates to read your text. We will not dock points if your citation style has minor errors, as long as you provide citations with clickable links. In LS7L we use APA format with an author-date formatLinks to an external site. for in-text citations. See some examples below. You are required to include a clickable DOI link to make it easy for your readers to find your cited papers - you can read more about DOI links hereLinks to an external site.. Journal article, one author: Author, A. A. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number, page range. https://doi.org/10.0000/0000 Cite in text as (Author, year of publication) Journal article, two authors: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number, page range. https://doi.org/10.0000/0000 Cite in text as (Author and Author, year of publication) Journal article, with three or more authors: Author, A.A., et al. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number, page range. https://doi.org/10.0000/0000 Cite in text as (Author et al., year of publication) Web page with an author listed: Author, A. A. (Date of publication). Title of page. Site name. URL Cite in text as (Author, year of publication) Web page from a group or organization: Group/organization name. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. URL Cite in text as (Group name, publication year) If the date of publication is not listed, use the abbreviation (n.d.) Other types of sources: For formatting from other types of sources, you can find instructions hereLinks to an external site.. Again, we are less concerned with the exact formatting and more concerned with making sure you have cited all your sources and provided easy to click DOI links for each.
7. General tips Make sure you define any acronyms. Yes, even UCLA is an acronym that needs to be defined! Remember that scientific papers are read all over the world, and even if an acronym seems like common knowledge, a scientist in another country might not know it. Exceptions are made for acronyms that are so common in the scientific community that the full name is rarely used. For example, EKG is frequently used without a definition, and some journals will use the acronym PCR without further defining it. Your tone should be unbiased and unpersuasive - don't include catchy, rhetorical language or colloquial phrases. By convention, scientific papers are not written in first person ("I" statements). It is okay to use "we" statements occasionally but it's more common to see passive voice used - rather than "I centrifuged the tubes for 5 minutes" you would write "the tubes were centrifuged for 5 minutes". Make sure to review your paper after you have written it. Check carefully for unclear phrases, typos or grammatical errors that may make it difficult for your reader to understand what you have written. Excessive typos or grammatical errors can make it harder for your reader to understand your writing. We won't be grading you down for a few typos, but try to avoid them as much as possible.