Download Your Science Paper - Nancy Brim Chemistry

Your Science Paper
The First Draft
Powerpoint Includes:
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General paper guidelines
Title page format
Background information discussion
Parenthetical documentation
discussion.
What is Included in the
First Draft
• Title Page
• Introductory paragraph (thesis and
purpose)
• Background information (research)
• Final paragraph with hypothesis
• Works Cited page
GENERAL GUIDELINES
• Double-space your entire paper.
• Type in 12 pt Times New Roman
• Set the margins of your document to 1
inch on all sides.
• Create a header that numbers all pages
consecutively in the upper right-hand
corner, one-half inch from the top and
flush with the right margin. (Note: do not
number the title page.)
GENERAL GUIDELINES
• Do not skip extra lines between
paragraphs
• When beginning a paragraph, use your own
words for the first and last sentences. Do
not cite someone in those two sentences.
• No part of the paper has a title or header.
It should all flow from one paragraph to
another with good transitions.
TITLE PAGE
• Center your title in the middle of the
paper, double spaced.
• Capitalize each word in the title. This rule
does not apply to articles, short
prepositions, or conjunctions unless one is
the first word of the title or subtitle.
• Do not underline any word and make the
title 14-16pt font size.
TITLE PAGE
• In the bottom right hand corner,
double spaced, print your name, your
full home address on two lines, your
school name, and your grade. Write
out “tenth” instead of using a
number. Use 12pt font.
Background Information
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Starts on a new page.
Includes introductory paragraph with
thesis statement and purpose,
background information
Ends with summary paragraph that
includes the hypothesis.
You must cite your sources correctly.
Failure to cite your sources will result
in a zero for plagiarism.
Background Information
• This section should explain what prompted
your research and what you hoped to
achieve.
• It should include previous research as well
as your own experiences.
• Review the literature (books, websites,
journals, etc.) and summarize essential
information so that we can understand it.
Background Information
• Include information about your
independent and dependent variables.
• Establish a strong rationale for the
study by emphasizing unresolved
issues or questions.
The First Paragraph of
Your Paper…..
• This starts on a new page, right
behind the title page.
• This is the paragraph that sets the
tone for your whole paper.
• It includes your purpose and your
thesis statement.
• It introduces your topic.
The First Paragraph of
Your Paper…..
• Your purpose should NOT read “The
purpose of this project is…”
• State your thesis and the purpose of your
research paper clearly. What is the chief
reason you are writing the paper?
• State also how you plan to approach your
topic.
The First Paragraph of
Your Paper…..
• Explain briefly the major points you plan
to cover in your paper and why readers
should be interested in your topic.
• Do some critical thinking and write your
thesis statement down in one sentence.
• Your thesis statement is like a declaration
of your belief. The main portion of your
essay will consist of arguments to support
and defend this belief.
The First Paragraph of
Your Paper…..
• Your thesis may change as your paper
matures through its many drafts.
• Make sure your thesis is in the form of a
statement, not a question. "Can we save
the Amazon rain forest?" is an earcatching question that might be useful in
the introduction, but it doesn't express an
opinion or perspective.
Thesis Examples
• “The Amazon rain forest can be saved by limiting
tourist presence, boycotting goods made by
companies that deplete the forest's resources,
and generally educating people about the need to
preserve the rain forest in order to preserve the
earth's ecological systems."
• "The Amazon rain forest cannot be saved since
the companies that deplete its resources in their
manufacturing are so widely-spread throughout
the world, so politically powerful in their
respective countries, and wealthy enough to fight
the opposition fully."
The First Paragraph:
An Example
The tartness that distinguishes Lycopersicon
esculentum, the tomato, from other vegetables is
produced in part by acids. Practically all foods
contain acids, either naturally or added later
during processing (Gould 268). There are several
important factors that seem to have an influence
on the acidity of tomatoes. These include variety,
maturity, handling and holding procedures prior to
processing, and the processing itself (Gould 273).
Does the pH of roma and plum tomatoes change
once they are canned?
The First Paragraph:
An Example
Most people notice that low-powered light
bulbs are dimmer than light bulbs with high power.
They probably also see slight variations in the
color of differently powered light bulbs. These
everyday observations lead one to question what
effect a light bulb's power has on its spectrum.
Spectrum, according to Kurt Nassau's
Experimenting With Color, is the pattern of
colors in the visible part of the electromagnetic
spectrum (120). This experiment is designed to
discover quantitatively what happens to the
spectrum of a light bulb as its power source, in
this case batteries, is gradually diminished.
Background Information
• This is your research.
• This is where you talk about
different aspects of your project.
• This is where you write about what
you have been researching.
Background Information
• When I read your hypothesis at the
end of this section, I should already
know what it is going to say because
you have set it up through your
research. What you write about
leads to your hypothesis.
For Example:
The hypothesis:
If begonia plants are given Coca Cola,
they will grow taller than plants that
are given just water.
So what should you discuss in your
background?
You Should Write
About:
1. What is a plant
2. How plants grow
3. What they need to grow
4. Information about the specific
plant you are using.
5. What is in Coca Cola that you
think will help plants.
Final Paragraph of
Background Information
• This final paragraph sums up your
background information and includes
your hypothesis.
• The hypothesis is not set apart or
listed separately.
Sample Last Paragraph
When one, two, or three batteries of a four-battery
flashlight are replaced with foil, the flashlight still works,
but the voltage traveling to the incandescent bulb
decreases. The light keeps working because the foil acts
like a wire, allowing the remaining batteries to power the
flashlight. The decreased voltage causes the bulb to have a
lower temperature, and the lower temperature should
affect the spectrum of the light bulb in a way similar to
that described in the above research. This leads to the
hypothesis that when the power of an incandescent light
bulb is decreased, its spectrum will shift from having
similar intensities for all colors to having greatest intensity
in the red portion of the spectrum.
Sample Last Paragraph
Tomatoes have a sharp taste and are used in a
variety of recipes. Some cooks choose to use
canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Cooks are also
concerned about microbial growth in their foods.
Thus a lower pH is preferable. If plum and roma
tomatoes are compared before and after canning,
a canned plum tomato will be more acidic than a
fresh plum tomato and both tomato varieties will
display comparable acidity after canning.
General Information
• Do not use first or second person.
• Do not put words in quotations unless
your are quoting someone.
• Use metric at all times
• Spell out numbers 1-10
• Don’t start a sentence with a nonspelled out number.
General Information
• The first and last sentence of each
paragraph is your own words.
• Integrate the hypothesis into the
last paragraph.
• Hit the space bar twice after the
end of each sentence.
Questions?
Parenthetical
Documentation
• This is where you give credit to
someone else for his/her ideas.
• Anything that is NOT common
knowledge must be cited.
• If you cite it in your paper, it must
appear on your Works Cited page and
vice versa.
Parenthetical
Documentation
• MLA format follows the author-page method of
citation.
• This means that the author's last name and the
page number(s) from which the quotation is taken
must appear in the text, and a complete reference
should appear in your works cited list.
• The author's name may appear either in the
sentence itself or in parentheses following the
quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s)
should always appear in the parentheses, not in
the text of your sentence.
Parenthetical
Documentation
• If you are using a website, there are no
page numbers unless it is a PDF file.
• You use par. # or pars. #-# after the
author’s name. Count the number of
paragraphs.
• If there is no author, then use an
abbreviated form of the title in its place
in the parenthesis.
Parenthetical
Documentation
Wordsworth stated in his book The Prose
Works of William Wordsworth that
Romantic poetry was marked by a
"spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings" (263).
Romantic poetry is characterized by the
"spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings" (Wordsworth 263).
Parenthetical Documentation
The tartness that distinguishes Lycopersicon
esculentum, the tomato, from other vegetables is
produced in part by acids. Practically all foods
contain acids, either naturally or added later
during processing (Gould 268). There are several
important factors that seem to have an influence
on the acidity of tomatoes. These include variety,
maturity, handling and holding procedures prior to
processing, and the processing itself (Gould 273).
Does the pH of roma and plum tomatoes change
once they are canned?
Parenthetical Documentation
Growing tomatoes at home is not complicated.
According to William McGlynn, a horticultural food
specialist, tomatoes may be harvested at the mature
green stage,, semi-ripe (with different amounts of red
pigmentation), or fully ripe, depending on marketing
requirement (4). They are very perishable and subject
to surface and internal damage, and must be handled
accordingly (2). Tomatoes are sensitive to chilling
injury, which differs with maturity of the fruit and
proper temperature management for ripening and
storage are critical to maintain quality (3). Tomatoes
are dependent upon growing conditions and as the
variety changes, so can the conditions required.
Parenthetical Documentation
Tomatoes have a tart taste. The most abundant
natural acid in tomatoes is citric acid which is also
found in oranges and lemons (Wahem 1). The pH of
tomatoes runs between 4.0 and 4.5 (Wahem 4).
Tomatoes average a pH of 4.3 and an acidic product is
considered to have a pH of 4.6 or less (Gould 273).
Many vegetables go through the canning process. Food
processing companies desire a lower pH to prevent
microbial growth in their canned foods because the pH
of a food is the controlling factor in the regulation of
many chemical and microbial reactions (Gould 270).
Tomato processors tend to use citric acid and fumaric
acid as a chemical agent to lower pH (Gould 270). It
would seem that canned tomatoes should have a lower
pH.
Questions?