Whether you are a teacher, parent or a student, keeping a science journal is a great way to document and share what you learn. It is also a fantastic tool for developing students’ writing skills and understanding of scientific ideas.
A science journal is a publication that contains firsthand reports of scientific research, often reviewed by experts. These reports include background information, data, statistical results, graphs and maps, explanations of how the study was performed and how the researchers interpreted their results.
Introduction
A science journal is a form of publication in which scientists make their research available to the general public. The format of these articles varies between journals, but there are some common characteristics that apply to all scientific journal articles.
A successful article’s introduction provides background information and set the context for the rest of the paper, including the question motivating the work (the problem), the approach to answering the problem (methods), and the main findings from the work.
Your introduction should explain the purpose of your study and pique interest in the topic you are presenting. It should also indicate any relevant earlier research and clarify how your work differs from it.
Methods
When writing the methods section of a science journal, it is essential to describe your experiment in detail and include all necessary information. This will help readers understand your results and ensure that they can replicate your work if they choose to.
This section should also include the registration number and approval letter from an appropriate institution or ethics committee, if applicable. It should also include the manufacturers and part numbers of the components used in your experiments, if relevant.
Methodology is a branch of philosophy of science that deals with the methods and practices used in scientific research, including experimental design, statistics, interdisciplinary collaboration, and communication. However, it should not be confused with scientific methods themselves; the latter are defined by the aims and products of science (i.e., knowledge, predictions, and control).
Results
The discussion that follows the results section should be written as a well-organized, systematic examination of the meaning of your findings. It is a great place to discuss the practical implications of your research, to address limitations, and to suggest areas for future study.
When writing a scientific discussion, remember that results make little sense to most readers without interpretation. So don’t force the reader to go through every detail you described in your Results section — instead, write a clear and concise explanation of what the results mean.
Discussion
Writing an effective discussion is a tricky balance between summarizing the results of your study, providing proper context for your research and avoiding introducing new information.
As the name suggests, a discussion section is primarily used to explain what your study findings mean for broader scientific questions. It provides readers with the larger implications of your study, explains how your results add or disprove prior research and describes ways future researchers can build on your work.
The discussion section should be written in a style that is easy to read and understand for the reader, but should also be clear enough to explain what your findings mean. For example, avoid using idioms that aren’t commonly used in English and use the same key terms and narrative style as you did when describing the research problem in your Introduction.
Conclusions
Scientific journals provide the means for researchers to disseminate their findings. They are typically specialized for academic disciplines or subdisciplines and may include reports of original research, re-analyses of others’ research, reviews of the literature in a particular area .
Conclusions should contain a short summary of the major points made in the paper and, if appropriate, recommendations for further study. The article should also explain how the study advances new understanding of a scientific problem, or fills an important gap in the literature.
Limitations and a discussion of future studies should also be included in the conclusion, although they can be incorporated into other sections of the paper. The limitations section should discuss any flaws in the methodology used, or how they might impact the validity and generalizability of the results.
