A Student Handbook for Writing in Biology

About this book

This indispensable handbook provides practical advice to students who are learning to write according to the conventions found in biological studies. This covers everything from reading technical literature, writing scientific papers, preparing lab reports and making oral presentations on biological findings. Almost half of the handbook is dedicated to familiarising students with helpful features in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint – features such as producing Greek letters and mathematical symbols. Some of the main features include firstly introducing the scientific method and experimental design. Moving on to ways of sourcing primary literature through article databases and scholarly search engines. Whilst a further two chapters look at poster and oral presenting, and how best to create content and deliver them. A Student Handbook for Writing in Biology will give your students all the helpful hints they will need to create professional quality scientific communication.

New to this edition:
- Updated coverage for Microsoft Office 2010 for the Windows 7 operating system
- Updated instructions for making graphs in Excel for Mac 2011
- A new section on saving formats as chart templates, making it easier to standardize graphs
- Updated coverage on options for backing up data online
- Expanded coverage of plagiarism, helping students recognize what kinds of information must be acknowledged and how to do so appropriately
- Updated coverage of how to cite Internet sources, with examples of online journal articles, databases, and websites
- Updates throughout based on developments from the Council of Science Editors (CSE)

Contents

Preface xiii
Chapter 1 The Scientific Method 1
Chapter 2 Developing a Literature Search Strategy 9
Chapter 3 Reading and Writing Scientific Papers 31
Chapter 4 Step-by-Step Instructions for Preparing a Laboratory Report or Scientific Paper 49
Chapter 5 Revision 103
Chapter 6 Sample Student Laboratory Reports 141
Chapter 7 Poster Presentations 163
Chapter 8 Oral Presentations 173

Appendix 1 Word Processing in Microsoft Word 189
Appendix 2 Making Graphs in Microsoft Excel 213
Appendix 3 Preparing Oral Presentations with Microsoft PowerPoint 255

Bibliography 273
Index 277

Customer Reviews

Biography

Karin Knisely is Lab Director of Core Course Biology at Bucknell University. She earned a B.S. in Biology from Bucknell, (where she was a three-sport athlete and is now enshrined in the Athletics Hall of Fame) and an M.S. in Zoology from the University of New Hampshire. She then completed a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellowship at the University of Konstanz (the German equivalent of a Fulbright fellowship). Bilingual in German and English, she sometimes works, outside of the academic year, as a freelance translator.