Presentation to PSIL student jatna

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Scientific Writing Prof Jatna Supriatna, Ph.D

Dept of Biology Univ Indonesia

• _Experiences:

– _{Chief Editor, Tropical Biodiversity 1992-2007} – _{Co-editor, Asian Journal Primatology}

– _{Managing Editor, Asian Journal of Biodiversity} – _{Consulting Editor:}

• Tropical Conservation Science (SAGE)

• Park Journal (IUCN)

• International Journal of Wildlife research and Policy

• Biosphere Conservation

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Scientific Writing

But in science the credit goes to the man (or woman) who convinces the world, not to the man (or woman) to whom the idea first occurs

Sir Francis Darwin

 _{Contributing to the world of}

knowledge

 _Originality

 _{Critical thinking and insight}

 _{A clear focus … but on what?}

 _Coherent

 _Structured

 _{Scientific style}

 _{No mistakes}

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Task vs. process

 _{How do you go about the writing}

task?

 _{Why the process is important}

 _{It is about organization, avoiding}

frustration, finding your focus, productive writing and …

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Scientific style

 Formality: creating distance between writer and reader

 Goal: objectivity

 But style and formulation should not make the reading

task impossible

 In this section: a few problems related to style and

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Writing an introduction

 _{An important structuring mechanism}  _{Anouncing the topic}

 _{Motivation to undertake the study}  _{Most important findings in the}

published literature

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Problem statement

 _Specific

 _{Highly focused, clear}  _{As concrete as possible}

 _{Preferably one problem statement;}

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Problem statement

Discussion of the problem statement in the example text:

Can you find a single sentence denoting the problem statement?

Where exactly is the focal element in the section?

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Hypothesis

 _{The answer to your problem statement}  _{Should be refutable}

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Other components

 Theoretical framework

 Literature review  Research design:

Problem statement(s), hypotheses,

pilot study, sample taking, sample size, measuring instruments, statistical

techniques, etc.

 _{Presentation of findings}

 _{Discussion of findings}