How to write a science paper: gathering data

When your science instructors assign a paper, you have no reason to worry. Writing a science paper is significantly easier than writing an argumentative essay for history or literature courses. The reason these papers are so much easier to write is because students do not need to prove their opinions. Science papers are all about the facts that were discovered which makes the data you find extremely important.

Include Your Abstract with Important Details and Discoveries

The first part of your science research paper is the abstract, which is where you summarize what you have researched. This includes the main question that you addressed and the methods that you used to get the answers. You will also show what your results were and how those affected the results. Many abstracts will also recognize trends and interpretations. This is all done in a short paragraph about 200 or 300 words in length

Where to Find the Data

It is important that you use high quality data before you can write any part of your science paper. Your data can be gathered in a few different ways and they are all effective. These are some ways to gather data:

  1. Conduct your own experiment
  2. Look on the Internet
  3. Investigate a topic on a database
  4. Review previous experiments
  5. Read scientific journals

Sharing What You Found and What You Did with It

Regardless of the way you gather your data, you will need to document what you found and what you learned. Some science papers require students to share literature reviews as data, which is different than using literature to prove a point in a humanities paper. Your literature review looks at the hypothesis and what the researchers found when they tested their hypothesis. Your literature review can include as many pieces of literature as you need to be able to help support your own theories. If you are researching a newer hypothesis, then you might not be able to find as many supporting pieces as you could on an older hypothesis.

How to Organize Your Paper

When you are ready to organize your data, you will need to include a few important pieces. Include what you researched and the way you conducted the research. Then, include the location where you conducted the research, because that location could affect the outcome of your research. You will need to include your sample size and what steps you took to prevent your data from being affected.