MATERIALS & METHODS

Writing & Presenting for Scientific Papers

NATURE

• Clear explanation on how study

will be carried out
• “Methods” or “Methods and
Materials”
FUNCTION

Provide enough details to

1. How to gather necessary data

2. How to treat and interpret data

• to enable replication of the study

by an appropriately trained person
• verify the findings
CONTENTS

• Description of the study site

(Locale of the study)
 significant physical and biological
features
 precise location (latitude and
longitude, map, etc);
CONTENTS

Subject of the Study

• Subject or entity or organism studied

(plant, animal, human, etc.) and their
pre-experiment handling and care
• "subject" is used ONLY for human
studies
CONTENTS…
Experimental or sampling design
(Sampling Procedure)
• how the experiment or study will be
structured
• controls, treatments, the variable(s)
measured
• Field lay-out
• how many samples will be collected
• Replication
• final form of the data
CONTENTS…
• Means of measurements
(Research Instrumentation)
• Validity and Reliability
CONTENTS…

Protocol for collecting the data

(Data gathering Procedure)
• how the experimental procedures will
be carried out
• Frequency of
measurements/observations
CONTENTS…

Data Analyses Procedure

• How the data will be analyzed
• qualitative analyses
• How data will be summarized (means,
percent)
• Software to be used
• Statistical procedures used to determine
significance
CONTENTS…
Data Analyses…
• Measures of variability
• Data transformations to correct for
normal distribution or equalize
variances
• any other numerical (e.g., normalizing
data) or graphical techniques used to
analyze the data
IMPORTANT TIPS

• Organize with subheadings

• Provide enough quantitative details
• Use past tense
• Third person, passive constructions
IMPORTANT TIPS

• OK to use first person in scientific

writing, BUT use it sparingly –
reserve the use of first person for
things that you want to emphasize
that “you” uniquely did
IMPORTANT TIPS

• It is better to say “It is possible

to ..” than to say “One could ...”.
• Writing that uses the impersonal
pronoun “one” often seems
noncommittal and dry.
IMPORTANT TIPS

• Inanimate objects (like genes,

proteins, etc) should be described in
third person, not with
anthropomorphic or possessive
terms
(e.g., instead of saying “its att site”,
say “the chromosomal att site”).
IMPORTANT TIPS

• Methods not a lab manual – no

need for a step-by-step,
directive protocol
IMPORTANT TIPS

First pour agar into six Petri plates.

Then inoculate the plates with the
bacteria. Then put the plates into the
incubator . . .
Six Petri plates were prepared with
agar and inoculated with the
bacteria. The plates were incubated
for ten hours.
IMPORTANT TIPS

"I took up 1 ml of bacterial broth from a

5 ml tube with a 2 ml plastic pipette and
expelled it onto the surface of one agar
plate"
"One agar plate was inoculated with 1
ml of bacterial broth".
IMPORTANT TIPS

• For laboratory studies specify

location only when needed (only
existing facility)
• Hypotheses tested may be
included –may also be done in
the form of questions
IMPORTANT TIPS
• Always identify treatments by the
variable or treatment name, NOT
by an ambiguous, generic name
or number
e.g., use "2.5% NaCl" rather than
“Treatment 1"
IMPORTANT TIPS
• When using standard lab or field
methods and instrumentation, it is
not always necessary to explain the
procedures (e.g. preparation of
Hoagland’s solution, ) or equipment
used (e.g. leaf area meter) since
other scientists will likely be familiar
with them already.
IMPORTANT TIPS

If modifying standard techniques,

describe the changes you made.
IMPORTANT TIPS
• Identify certain types of
equipment by vendor name and
brand or category particularly if
they are not commonly found in
most labs
IMPORTANT TIPS

…After washing with the buffer, cells were

treated with Novozyme 234 (Novo Industri A/S,
Bagsvaerd, Denmark) for 60 min at 30oC with
reciprocal shaking to remove the cell wall…
… For the staining of F-actin, cells were washed
and suspended in Rh-ph solution (Molecular
Probes, Inc., Eugene, OR, USA) diluted 20 times
in 50 mM-phosphate-buffered saline containing
1mM-MgCl2 (PBS, pH 7.3) at room temperature
for 2 h…
IMPORTANT TIPS

• When using a method described in

another published source, you can
save time and words by providing
the relevant citation to the source

• Describe modifications if there

are any
IMPORTANT TIPS

….Schizosaccharomyces pombe h90, the

homothallic, readily sporing haploid strain,
was used. The strain was maintained on
malt extract-yeast extract (MY) agar as
described by Tanaka and Kanbe (1986). …

…Nuclei were stained by 4,6-diamidino-2-

phenylindole (DAPI) in NS buffer described
by Suzuki et al. (1982). …
IMPORTANT TIPS

• Use web resources such as

Google EarthTM and
MapQuest™ for location maps
• No need to list down or
enumerate materials and
equipment used!