General Follow directions in the assignment. Often, guidelines include: Include 1-inch (2.5 cm) margins on all sides. Use standard 11 or 12 point font (e.g., Times, Times New Roman, Arial, etc.). Double space. Do NOT include any additional spacing before or after paragraphs. Number your pages in the bottom right corner. Include the title and authors…
Conveying information concisely is an important component of scientific writing. Middlebury College has a useful page on this topic.
Affect/effect Affect is a verb that means to have an influence on or make a difference in. Effect is a noun that means a change or response to a specific action. Ex. To compare the effects of starvation and infection on lipid metabolism, we also studied flies that had been fed only PBS (Hang et al. 2014). Ex. …
Topic sentences help a lot. Proofread! Write your paper. Read it carefully. Work on it a bit more. Repeat. Scientific writing should be formal. Be careful to avoid colloquialisms or turns of phrase that you might use in conversation but would not be appropriate in a formal environment. Do NOT use the word prove. From Berkeley: “Science is based on the principle that any…
The Amherst College Writing Center has a page where you can learn about plagiarism and how to avoid it.
