Formats scientific papers

In addition to their specificity, scientific, medical, and mathematical papers often have exact formats. These papers often include precise charts, tables, graphs, and illustrations relating to the research. Once again, it is important to check with your professor or supervisor beforehand to ask how the data should be represented. Some individuals prefer charts, figures, and illustrations, while others prefer that data be written as prose. 

The decision to adopt a participatory approach in our research reflected the premise that the responsibility of environmental scientists is to provide reliable Information that will help society resolve its environmental problems. While the premise may be laudatory, it is slippery to apply. For example, the typical means of supplying new information to society takes the form of scientific papers published in English in international journals (e.g. Brown et al. 1992, Kainer et al. 1998). In Brazilian Amazonia, we have found, however, that information in this format does not easily reach the local and regional decisionmakers, few of whom read English or have effective access to scientific literature. Also, those who have the most at stake, the local communities, require a different mode of information transfer. 

Scientific papers are the means by which research findings are communicated to others. They are published in journals with a wide circulation among academics and are peer reviewed by one or more referees before being accepted. Each journal covers a well-defined subject area and publishes details of the format they expect. It would be very unusual for an undergraduate to submit a paper on his/her own - this would normally be done in collaboration with your project supervisor and only then if your research has satisfied appropriate criteria. However, it is important to understand the process whereby a paper comes into being (Box 52.3), as this ean help you when interpreting the primary literature. 

Glazovskaya, M.A. (1958) Weathering and primary soil formations in Antarctica. Scientific Paper of the Institute, Moscow University, Faculty of Geography 1, 63-76. 

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