NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-185

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Marine Fisheries Service

Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Woods Hole, Massachusetts

August 2004

Revised and Updated Edition

of

F. Bruce Sanford’s 1957

“Planning Your Scientific Research Paper”
168. U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Marine Mammal Stock Assessments – 2001. By Gordon T. Waring, Janeen M. Quintal, and

Steven L. Swartz, eds., Phillip J. Clapham, Timothy V.N. Cole, Carol P. Fairfield, Aleta Hohn, Debra L. Palka, Marjorie C. Rossman, U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, and Cynthia Yeung, contribs. December 2001. vii + 310 p., 43 figs., 54 tables, 2 app. NTIS Access. No. PB2002-

104350.

169. U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Marine Mammal Stock Assessments – 2002. By Gordon T. Waring, Janeen M. Quintal, and

Carol P. Fairfield, eds., Phillip J. Clapham, Timothy V.N. Cole, Lance P. Garrison, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Aleta A. Hohn,

Blair G. Maise, Wayne E. McFee, Debra L. Palka, Patricia E. Rosel, Marjorie C. Rossman, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Frederick W. Wenzel,

and Cynthia Yeung, contribs. September 2002. vii + 318 p., 42 figs., 56 tables, 4 app. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-104167.

170. Interaction of Shelf Water with Warm-Core Rings, Focusing on the Kinematics and Statistics of Shelf Water Entrained

within Streamers. By Ronald J. Schlitz. March 2003. v + 35 p., 26 figs., 3 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2005-100158.

171. Length-Weight Relationships for 74 Fish Species Collected during NEFSC Research Vessel Bottom Trawl Surveys. By

Susan E. Wigley, Holly M. McBride, and Nancy J. McHugh. March 2003. vi + 26 p., 1 fig., 3 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-106486.

172. Variability of Temperature and Salinity in the Middle Atlantic Bight and Gulf of Maine Based on Data Collected as

Part of the MARMAP Ships of Opportunity Program, 1978-2001. By Jack W. Jossi and Robert L. Benway. March 2003. vi + 92

p., 74 figs., 5 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2004-100835.

173. Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Barndoor Skate, Dipturus laevis, Life History and Habitat Characteristics. By

David B. Packer, Christine A. Zetlin, and Joseph J. Vitaliano. March 2003. v + 23 p., 14 figs., 1 table. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-104257.

174. Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Clearnose Skate, Raja eglanteria, Life History and Habitat Characteristics.

By David B. Packer, Christine A. Zetlin, and Joseph J. Vitaliano. March 2003. v + 50 p., 25 figs., 2 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-

104260.

175. Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Little Skate, Leucoraja erinacea, Life History and Habitat Characteristics. By

David B. Packer, Christine A. Zetlin, and Joseph J. Vitaliano. March 2003. v + 66 p., 27 figs., 2 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-104259.

176. Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Rosette Skate, Leucoraja garmani virginica, Life History and Habitat

Characteristics. By David B. Packer, Christine A. Zetlin, and Joseph J. Vitaliano. March 2003. v + 17 p., 11 figs., 1 table. NTIS Access.

No. PB2003-104258.

177. Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Smooth Skate, Malacoraja senta, Life History and Habitat Characteristics. By

David B. Packer, Christine A. Zetlin, and Joseph J. Vitaliano. March 2003. v + 26 p., 15 figs., 1 table. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-104256.

178. Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Thorny Skate, Amblyraja radiata, Life History and Habitat Characteristics. By

David B. Packer, Christine A. Zetlin, and Joseph J. Vitaliano. March 2003. v + 39 p., 18 figs., 2 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-104255.

179. Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Winter Skate, Leucoraja ocellata, Life History and Habitat Characteristics.

By David B. Packer, Christine A. Zetlin, and Joseph J. Vitaliano. March 2003. v + 57 p., 25 figs., 2 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2003-

104254.

180. Variability in Blood Chemistry of Yellowtail Flounder, Limanda ferruginea, with Regard to Sex, Season, and Geographic

Location. By Renee Mercaldo-Allen, Margaret A. Dawson, Catherine A. Kuropat, and Diane Kapareiko. September 2003. vi + 20 p., 1

fig., 10 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2004-107074.

181. In press.

182. U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Marine Mammal Stock Assessments – 2003. By Gordon T. Waring, Richard M. Pace, Janeen

M. Quintal, Carol P. Fairfield, and Katherine Maze-Foley, eds., Nicole Cabana, Phillip J. Clapham, Timothy V.N. Cole, Gregory L. Fulling,

Lance P. Garrison, Aleta A. Hohn, Blair G. Maise, Wayne E. McFee, Keith D. Mullin, Debra L. Palka, Patricia E. Rosel, Marjorie C. Rossman,

Frederick W. Wenzel, and Amy L. Whitingham, contribs. May 2004. vii + 287 p., 47 figs., 58 tables, 4 app., index. NTIS Access. No.

PB2004-106431.

183. In press.

184. A Large Marine Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management and Sustainability: Linkages and Concepts towards Best

Practices. By Frank J. Gable. August 2004. v + 84 p., 38 figs., 10 tables. NTIS Access. No. PB2005-101435.

Recent Issues in This Series:
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Donald L. Evans, Secretary

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., USN (ret.), Administrator

National Marine Fisheries Service

William T. Hogarth, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries

Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Woods Hole, Massachusetts

August 2004

This series represents a secondary level of scientific publishing. All issues employ

thorough internal scientific review; some issues employ external scientific review.

Reviews are -- by design -- transparent collegial reviews, not anonymous peer

reviews. All issues may be cited in formal scientific communications.

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-185

Jon A. Gibson

National Marine Fisheries Serv., Woods Hole Lab., 166 Water St., Woods Hole, MA 02543

Revised and Updated Edition of

F. Bruce Sanford’s 1957

“Planning Your Scientific Research Paper”
Editorial Notes

Internet Availability

This issue of the NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE series is being copublished, i.e., as both a

paper and Web document. The Web document can be accessed at: http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/

publications/tm/tm185/.
Page iii

Contents

Preface to the Revised Edition ............................................................................................................................................ v

Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................................. vii

Preface to the Original Edition .......................................................................................................................................... ix

Definition ...................................................................................................................................................................... ix

Importance of Planning ................................................................................................................................................ ix

Aid to Research ............................................................................................................................................................ ix

Aid to Writing ..............................................................................................................................................................ix

Aid to Comprehension ................................................................................................................................................. ix

Plan of the Manual ........................................................................................................................................................ x

Preliminary Considerations ...................................................................................................................................................1

Give Thought to Importance .........................................................................................................................................1

Plan from Inception of Research ...................................................................................................................................1

Make Early Decision as to Who Will Write ..................................................................................................................2

Allow Sufficient Time for Writing and Publishing ........................................................................................................2

Allow Sufficient Time for Search of Literature ..............................................................................................................2

Tailor Paper to Audience ...............................................................................................................................................2

Limit Scope ....................................................................................................................................................................3

Complexity of Ideas ................................................................................................................................................3

Number of Subjects ................................................................................................................................................3

Consider the Tables ......................................................................................................................................................3

Consider the Graphs ......................................................................................................................................................4

Consider the Photographs and Other Illustrations .......................................................................................................5

Make Outline .................................................................................................................................................................5

Use Headings ................................................................................................................................................................6

Relationship between Outline and Headings.........................................................................................................6

Types of Headings Available ................................................................................................................................7

Capitalization of Type-Two and Type-Four Headings ..........................................................................................7

Recommended Headings........................................................................................................................................8

Use of Headings with Individual Paragraphs ........................................................................................................9

Logical Use of Headings ........................................................................................................................................9

Importance of Headings ...................................................................................................................................... 10

Give Thought to the Paragraphing ............................................................................................................................. 10

The Title ............................................................................................................................................................................ 11

Too General ................................................................................................................................................................ 11

Incomplete or Misleading ........................................................................................................................................... 11

Short Versus Specific Titles ....................................................................................................................................... 11

Impractical Sounding .................................................................................................................................................. 12

The Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................................... 12

The Principal Divisions...................................................................................................................................................... 12

The Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 13

Orienting Your Readers to Your Specific Problem .............................................................................................. 14

Stating the Objectives of Your Specific Problem ................................................................................................ 15

An Example of an Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 15

The Methods.............................................................................................................................................................. 17

Statement of Strategy and Motives .................................................................................................................... 17

Description by Reference to Authors ................................................................................................................. 17

Description of Methods Involving a Number of Consecutive Steps ................................................................. 17

Description of a Series of Similar Experiments .................................................................................................... 17

Description of Complex Methods ....................................................................................................................... 18

Illustrations ......................................................................................................................................................... 18

Pitfalls in the Methods ........................................................................................................................................ 18

Adequacy of the Sample ..................................................................................................................................... 18

The Results and Discussion ...................................................................................................................................... 19

The Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................................ 19
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The Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 19

The Literature Cited or Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 20

Summary ............................................................................................................................................................................ 21

Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................................... 23

Endnotes to the Revised Edition ....................................................................................................................................... 23

Figures

Figure 1. Influence of temperature on the solubility of potassium nitrate in water ..........................................................4

Figure 2. Variation of ionization current with increasing magnetic field ...........................................................................5

Figure 3. Illustration of how the reader becomes confused as to where he is in your outline if he fails to distinguish

between your types of headings ........................................................................................................................8

Figure 4. Illustration showing that your paper ordinarily reports on the solution to a number of closely related subproblems .......................................................................................................................................................... 13

Figure 5. Relationship between the general problem, broad problem, and specific problem ......................................... 13

Tables

Table 1. Scale of organoleptic ratings ........................................................................................................................... 31

Table 2. The formal table and its major parts ................................................................................................................ 31

Table 3. Age of all persons and of citizens by sex, for the United States, urban and rural: 1940 ................................. 32

Table 4. Effect of the type of dryer upon the vitamin content of the meal as compared with that of the press cake ... 32

Table 5. An example of how not to present the data in Table 4 .................................................................................... 33

Table 6. Treatment of samples....................................................................................................................................... 33

Table 7. Treatment of samples....................................................................................................................................... 34

Table 8. Treatment of samples....................................................................................................................................... 34

Table 9. Treatment of samples....................................................................................................................................... 35

Table 10. Treatment of samples....................................................................................................................................... 35

Table 11. Preference of readers regarding lining and spacing in tables as determined by a poll of 53 readers.............. 35

Table 12. Degree of subdivision used in the outline of the paper by Brown and coworkers......................................... 36
Page v

Preface to the Revised Edition

In my 28 years as a technical writer-editor for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), I have been asked on

several occasions by different Center Directors and division chiefs to go beyond editing research papers, to training specific

individuals in order for them to write better papers. In general, those individuals were young scientists who had been

identified as having strong research potential, but weak writing skills. In each case, I worked one-on-one with the young

scientist, evaluating his/her previous papers, pointing out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the writing, suggesting

methods for correcting the weaknesses, and providing reference materials for further self-training. The results for the young

scientists were mixed: some individuals showed improved writing, adopting the lessons from the training; others showed

little or no improvement, reverting more or less to their pre-training weaknesses. Because I am trained and experienced in

technical writing and editing, but not as an instructor per se of those activities, it is unclear to what extent the mixed results

were a consequence of the failures of the instructor or of several of the instructees.

The results for me personally, though, were not mixed. Every individualized training exercise took a lot of time and effort.

From an efficiency standpoint, I found it more and more difficult to justify that time and effort with each new exercise.

Consequently, I began to look around for an existing training tool -- a manual, a videotape, a course, anything -- which would

let me effectively train individual scientists without taking a lot of time, or, let me effectively train many scientists concurrently regardless of the time taken. Dozens of training tools, from a Society for Technical Communication training manual to

a U.S. Air Force training videotape to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School training course, were evaluated, but

nothing seemed to address adequately the typical weaknesses in the writings of these young scientists. I was resigned to

having to design and deliver my own training course.

Then I accidentally came across an old, faded report on “Planning Your Scientific Research Paper,” authored by F. Bruce

Sanford, a chemist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS’s) Branch of Commercial Fisheries in Seattle, Washington. The report was issued as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Commercial Fishery Leaflet 10 (February 1957, 95 pages). The

title caught my attention, so I scanned the report. Although some of the information in the report is outdated, and some of

the information I personally would not follow nor recommend that others follow, it nonetheless -- as a whole and at the

conceptual level -- comes the closest to an effective and efficient training tool to address the predominant weaknesses in the

writings of the NEFSC’s young scientists.

Soon after I came across the Sanford report, I attended a November 2002 meeting for scientific and technical editors of

the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in Seattle, Washington. A major thrust of that meeting was to identify the

needs of NMFS for improving its scientific publishing program. Identified as a key need was the training of our young

scientists to write better research papers. I mentioned the Sanford report; several at the meeting felt that it might be a useful

training tool, so I committed the NEFSC and myself to updating and revising the report and re-issuing it in the NOAA

Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE series for use throughout NMFS as my counterparts might see fit.

This report is an updated and revised edition of Sanford’s 1957 report. Much of the new information which is conceptually different from the original information has been kept separate from the original information. In the paper version of this

report, this new information is contained in an “Endnotes” section; in the online version, this new information is accessed

through internal links. This separation of new and original information has been done to achieve two objectives: 1) to

recognize properly the contributions of Sanford in his original work, and 2) to identify the contributions of myself should

there be any disagreements by readers over the recommendations inherent in the new information. Very limited editing of

Sanford’s original work has been performed where there were some obvious errors, outdatedness, and awkwardness -- after

all, Sanford was a chemist, not an editor.

The original report had 23 figures: 18 which used cartoon-like caricatures and provided humorous emphasis of the

points made in the text, and 5 which provided substantive examples of the points made in the text. The five substantive

figures have been redrafted and appear in this updated and revised edition of the report.

The separation of the original and new information also means that the core of the report reflects the views of society and

the manner of language of almost a half-century ago. In one of Sanford’s examples, he describes how to cut up a whale for

market. Throughout the report, only masculine pronouns are used. There are other examples as well. If anyone finds

Sanford’s original report to be politically incorrect and thus offensive, then there is an antidote: grow older by about -- oh,

let’s say -- 50 years, then look back; many of the views that are politically correct today will not necessarily be politically

correct then.

For NEFSC researchers, this report should not be read alone, but also in combination with the NEFSC’s official position

on such matters: “Manuscript/Abstract/Webpage Preparation, Review, and Dissemination: NEFSC Author’s Guide to Policy,

Process, and Procedure,” which is available on the NEFSC Intranet. The NEFSC author’s guide contains important information which complements and supplements the information in this updated and revised edition of Sanford’s 1957 report.
Page vi

Finally, I take this opportunity to thank Laura Garner, an editor with the NEFSC’s Research Communications Branch in

Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In my 24 years before Laura joined the NEFSC, I handled a host of time-consuming technical

and administrative tasks associated with the NEFSC’s scientific publishing program. In the five years since, Laura has

handled a number of those tasks, freeing me to undertake several special projects such as this updating and revising of

Sanford’s 1957 report. She also retyped the original report in order to have it available in an electronic format.

JON A. GIBSON

WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS

JUNE 14, 2004

“Your paper is both good and original.

Unfortunately, the good part is not original,

and the original part is not good.”

Ben Johnson (1702-1784)
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Abstract

 This manual presents numerous suggestions on how to plan your scientific research paper. The first part deals with

preliminary steps in planning such as outlining, choosing headings, and making up tables. The last part deals with the

following: title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion, conclusions, summary, and literature cited or

bibliography. Much stress is laid on the importance of keeping your paper in mind from the moment your research is

conceived, of making adequate use of tables and making them clear, of using outlines, and of using headings. Particular

attention is focused on the introduction and on the need for stating your specific problem and for orienting your readers to

it. Suggestions are given on how to deal with problems in the writing of the methods, results and discussion, and the

conclusion. The differences between the conclusions and the summary are made clear. Relationships between the title and

the abstract and between the title and the specific objectives stated in the introduction are pointed out. Finally a reminder is

given of the importance of following the format of your journal when you are citing the literature.
Page viii
Page ix

Preface to the Original Edition

(Note: This manual is not a scientific research paper; hence it does not follow the style of such

papers, particularly in the use of personal pronouns.)

Definition

For the purposes of this manual, a scientific research paper is considered to be a report in which you: 1) state what

specific problem (or set of closely related specific problems) you were trying to solve; 2) explain the significance of your

problem (if you think that your intended audience may need this explanation for a full understanding of your work); 3) tell

what method you used to solve the problem; 4) give the results you obtained; and 5) list the conclusions or the recommendations you arrived at after considering these results. [See Endnote #1.]

Importance of Planning

Giving careful thought to the plan of your paper is important to you in three ways: 1) your research will be aided; 2) your

papers will be less difficult to write; and 3) your papers will be easier to understand.

Aid to Research

Carefully considering the organization of your research paper will aid you in planning the research itself and will catalyze

your flow of ideas on the research. Furthermore, it will help to insure that your research will be carried out soundly and that

your findings will be published.

Aid to Writing

If your paper is written poorly, it may be subject to major revision -- which means, in addition to spending time in writing

the original paper, you must spend significantly further time in revising it.

The time spent in the revision of your work can be longer than the time spent in the original writing; and if your paper is

reviewed by several critics, the number of pages of criticism can be more than the number of pages of writing in your original

paper. You then wearily must read, evaluate, and act upon all of this tiresome criticism. If your paper has been criticized and

revised greatly, you hardly will be able to recognize the final publication as being your own, and it still may not be good. After

a few experiences of this kind, you are likely to lose much of your enthusiasm for research.

Experience has shown that a principal cause of poor writing in scientific papers is poor planning. Experience has also

shown that the poorly planned papers require the greatest amount of revision. Your errors in grammar, for example, can be

corrected with relatively little difficulty; whereas those in planning often require you to rewrite your entire paper. A knowledge of planning therefore will make your paper much easier to write.

Aid to Comprehension

The number of research papers now being published is so large you are faced with the bitter choice of trying to keep

abreast with the advancements in your field or of doing research of your own. Your fellow scientists have the same problem.

They therefore read your published research papers in the same way you read theirs -- hastily. Thus, if one of your papers

is poorly written, it is not likely to be given sufficient attention for full appreciation and comprehension of your work. To the

extent then to which you fail to write your papers clearly, the time spent on your research is likely to have been ineffectual;

and the funds spent, to have been wasted.

The seriousness of this problem seems not generally to be realized; at least there does not seem to be a general

awareness that anything much can be done about it. Somehow, the impression prevalent among laymen that scientific papers

are hard to comprehend is believed by scientists themselves. Thus if you publish a paper that is unclear, no one censures

you particularly, since the majority of your fellow scientists apparently themselves believe that scientific papers are inherently difficult to understand. Can you visualize, however, what the effect on science would be if all papers were clear and
Page x

easy to read -- if all you had to do was to read rapidly through a paper once and you would comprehend it completely?

You can see that such an improvement in the clarity of scientific papers would effect almost a revolution in scientific

progress.

Can all scientific papers be written in this manner? Experience in writing, in abstracting, and in editing has led me to

believe that they can be. Without underestimating the great importance of the other elements of composition, I also have

been led by this experience to believe that poor planning is one of the basic causes of unclarity in scientific papers. My

purpose therefore in presenting this manual to you is to enliven your interest in planning and to offer you some suggestions

that have proved helpful to others.

Plan of the Manual

The plan of this manual is simple, for it might be considered as having only two main parts. In the first of these, you are

given general suggestions on the planning of your paper; and in the second, some rather specific suggestions related to the

title, the abstract, the introduction, the methods, the results and discussion, the conclusions, the summary, and the literature

cited or bibliography.
Page 1

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

GIVE THOUGHT TO IMPORTANCE

The quality of your research paper will depend in no

small part upon your attitude toward the writing. If you are

not convinced that the paper is an important part of your

research and that the time taken to make the paper easily

readable and clear is well spent, you obviously will not give

the writing of the paper the attention that it requires.

During your period of university training, you probably spent only 5 percent of your time in learning how to

write and some 95 percent in learning how to do research.

[See Endnote #2.] You therefore unconsciously may feel

that the writing is only about one nineteenth as important

as is the research work itself.

Yet, depending upon the use to which your research

findings are to be put, the effectiveness of your research

may depend entirely upon your paper. If, for example, the

users of your results will not be able to query you directly,

your entire research effort may be wasted if you write any

of the essential parts of the paper in an ambiguous manner

or if you leave any important questions unanswered. Furthermore, if the paper is too hard to read, the potential users

of the results of your research may never find the time to

decipher what you have written. [See Endnote #3.] Therefore, if you are not content to pass your time in a scientific

squirrel cage and really want to have your work count for

something, take the care in planning and in writing that is

required to make your paper unambiguous, complete, and

easy to read.

PLAN FROM INCEPTION OF RESEARCH

Writing your paper can be made much easier if you will

start to plan it from the moment that your research is conceived. Think back to whatever papers you already have

published and you undoubtedly will remember some that

would have been far less difficult to write if you had carried

out the research in a better manner.

You cannot write a logical paper if the research itself

was not logically organized, for your paper can never be

any better than the research it reports. By keeping your

paper in mind while you still are able to modify the direction

of the research, you can make whatever changes are necessary to enable you not only to do your research in the best

way but also to report it in a logically developed paper.

Keeping your paper constantly in mind is particularly

helpful to you in the following five ways:

1. You save yourself from doing useless work by deciding, before you start the research, whether the finding

will be publishable. Incidentally, in starting your research and in carrying it through to completion, keep

in mind that you eventually will have to write an introduction to your paper in which you must show, directly or indirectly, the need for the data you have

obtained. Unless you carefully have determined prior

to undertaking the work and while completing it that

your problem is one that definitely needed solving by

your particular organization, you will find that the introduction will be exceedingly difficult to write.

2. You prevent yourself from wandering aimlessly. In

each of your research papers, you should make a concrete and specific statement of the problems you were

trying to solve. Obviously, if your research had no

clearly defined objectives, you cannot state them in

the paper. By keeping your paper in mind, you recognize the need for defining the objectives of your research as soon as is possible, and you thus avoid

wandering.

3. You protect yourself from being sidetracked. One of

the pleasures of research is that of making an unexpected discovery. After such a finding, you naturally

are tempted to learn more about it unless you clearly

realize that the data you obtain in this new investigation will not fit into the paper on the original problem.

The correct procedure is to keep on with your original

objectives and to set up the new discovery as a project

for later investigation.

Often the only immediately tangible result of your

research is your research paper. After you have spent

a reasonable time on your investigation, you therefore

are expected to write a paper reporting your results. If

you have followed the will-o’-the-wisp of new discoveries and have not held to your original problem, you

may be hard pressed to find enough data on a single

subject. You then may decide to throw into one paper

all of the data you have obtained on your series of

more-or-less unrelated experiments. Since the subject

matter of the resulting paper has no obvious unity,

you are now faced with the tortuous experience of

trying to supply verbally the unity that was not inherent in the investigation. After a paper of this kind has

gone through the mill of criticism, you well may have

spent as much time on the work of writing and of revising as you did in carrying out the original research.

All of this effort then may terminate in nothing worthwhile accomplished because often such papers finally

are rejected for publication.

Thus, it is not sufficient to have clearly defined

goals; you must stick to them.

4. You help to insure yourself against overlooking or

neglecting some factor on which data must be given

when you publish. Ordinarily, if you fail to make some

of the required observations, you will not discover

this fact until you start to write your paper -- which

may not be until after your project has been termi-
Page 2

nated and the data are impossible to obtain. On the

other hand, by keeping your paper constantly in mind,

you are not apt to overlook anything that you will

require when the paper is being written.

5. You help to insure yourself against carrying out the

work in an unscientific manner: that is, the more

thought that is given to the research, the more likely it

is to be sound. Also, by keeping your paper in mind,

you are more likely to watch for those points on which

you might be criticized when you submit your paper

for publication.

From the discussion of the preceding five points, it is

clear that by giving thought to your paper while you are

planning and carrying out the research work, not only will

you write a better paper, but you also will do a better job of

research.

MAKE EARLY DECISION AS TO WHO WILL

WRITE

Since most research projects are cooperative ventures involving several workers, there may be a problem as to who will

write the paper; that is, the senior author is not necessary the

one who does the actual writing of it. Hence, a decision should

be made as to which one of the research workers is to have the

primary responsibility for writing the paper and for seeing it

through to publication. This decision should be made early so

that the paper can be kept in mind from the very start of the

research. (Other aspects of authorship have been discussed

by Young and Crowell (1956).)

ALLOW SUFFICIENT TIME FOR WRITING AND

PUBLISHING

A common error in scientific writing is the failure of

research workers, in planning their project, to allow sufficient time for writing and publishing the paper. This process of writing and publishing is complex and time-consuming, particularly if several workers are involved. As a

result, estimates of the time needed are almost invariably

too short. The writing and related tasks required in the

publishing of the paper then must be sandwiched in between other projects or must be done outside of working

hours.

Any delay in the publication of the paper can add

greatly to the other complications. Other rush projects may

take every moment of available time, or key workers may

become ill or transfer to other jobs. Thus your paper may

never be published if sufficient time is not assigned for the

work that will be required in the writing and publishing of it.

ALLOW SUFFICIENT TIME FOR SEARCH OF

LITERATURE

As has been pointed out by Piskur (1956), the scientific

literature represents a tremendous amount of man-years of

work that is available to research, development, and production. Thus, in a search of the literature, you obtain

“experimental results, history of experiences, and data at a

cost in effort and supplies comparable to as little as a p.p.m.

or even a millimicroγ of the supplies and labors expended to

produce this information.” Obviously, the failure to make a

proper search of the literature is a colossal blunder. Furthermore, when you write the introduction to your paper, you will

look foolish if you have not searched the literature well.

In many lines of research, the old idea of changing one

variable at a time is inefficient. You therefore should consider your statistical requirements or possibly consult a

statistician when planning your research. At the termination of your project, however, you cannot expect the statistician to wave his magic wand of mathematics over a hatful

of unreliable data and pull out a sound research rabbit for

you. That is, statistics is not a substitute for careful planning, sound experimental techniques, and old-fashioned

common sense.

TAILOR PAPER TO AUDIENCE

Write your paper in such a way that your intended audience will understand it completely after rapidly reading it

through once. [See Endnote #4.]

To accomplish this, you will have to visualize your audience. In particular, you will have to visualize the least

informed individual who you wish your paper to be read by,

because you will have to write the paper at a level he will

understand. Otherwise, in effect, you will have eliminated

him from your audience and will have narrowed your readers accordingly.

The more specifically you can visualize this least informed individual, the more successful you are likely to be

in reaching the entire audience you have in mind. By writing for a well characterized individual, you will be able to

determine better: 1) what he already knows, and 2) what he

needs to be told.

Remember that the better informed you assume this individual to be, the narrower will be your circle of understanding readers. If you lose sight of this fact, you unwittingly may exclude from this circle, by your method of presentation, the very people you most would like to have read

and act upon your paper.

Unless you have a good reason for doing otherwise, I

would suggest that you visualize as your least informed

reader, a recent graduate with a bachelor of science or engineering degree in the field in which you are writing. This
Page 3

practice will give you about the widest audience possible

without making your paper into a popular one or involving

you in vast amounts of explanation.

Whatever audience you choose, you should keep your

presentation consistent, for any shift in your point of view

will alienate some of your readers. If you start your discussion after introducing it on a more difficult level, you will

give your better informed readers the impression that you

are starting to talk down to them. By keeping one fairly well

characterized individual in mind while you are planning and

writing your paper, you are less likely to fall into these errors.

LIMIT SCOPE

Complexity of Ideas

To express an idea, you must use a certain minimum

number of words. Unless you use this required number,

you are obviously doomed to failure. [See Endnote #5.]

The number of words required depends upon two factors: 1) the complexity of the idea, and 2) the background of

knowledge of the least-informed member of your audience.

Owing to the limitation in space in the scientific journals,

you are restricted as to the type of subjects you can present

to certain audiences. If you do not keep this fact in mind,

you may attempt to present too complex an idea for the

audience in the particular journal in which you intend to

publish. For this reason, you should carefully consider

whether the limitations in space in your contemplated journal will preclude a successful presentation of the idea that

you had in mind.

Number of Subjects

The more different subjects you present to your readers at one time, the greater the difficulty they will have in

understanding you, and the harder you will find the paper

to write. In planning your paper, make certain you are dealing with only one problem or with only one set of closely

related problems. You are not justified in reporting two or

more separate research projects in the same paper -- even

though you may have studied all of them at the same time.

Unity is just as important in scientific papers as in any other

type of publication. [See Endnote #6.]

If you limit your paper to reporting only one problem or

one set of closely related problems, you may find that some

of your papers are relatively short. If you are not reporting

upon a fragment of your research, do not let this fact disturb you because there is nothing less “scientific” about a

short paper than about a long one. (This topic is treated by

Young and Crowell (1956).) The value of your paper lies not

in its length but in its contents.

CONSIDER THE TABLES [See Endnote #7]

It does not appear generally to be realized that many

subjects can be presented better in tables than in words

alone. Almost any subject that is difficult to write because

of its repetitive nature can be given better in tabular form;

that is, the use of tables is not limited necessarily to the

presentation of numerical data, as can be seen from Table 1.

(Note: This illustration shows you the value of using a

table for repetitive material. If you are skeptical, try presenting the contents of this table in writing. Also, to conserve space, I have abridged the table, as I have most of the

others in this manual. The longer tables would have illustrated the various points more impressively.) In fact, almost

every subject that can be presented in a table will take less

writing time, will require less space in a journal, and will be

much easier for your readers to comprehend if it is given in

a table rather than in a written discussion.

The names of the various parts of the formal table are

shown in Table 2 (Jenkinson 1949). Table 3 gives a specific

example corresponding to Table 2. Compare these two tables.

[See Endnote #8.]

The following are suggestions on the preparation of

tables:

1. Present all of your tabular material in formal tables. There

are two reasons for this suggestion: a) the formal table,

being able to stand independently of the text, is the

clearest of all tables; and b) since the formal table does

stand independently, the printer can place it on the pages

wherever it will fit best.

2. Type each table on a separate sheet of paper. If you

follow this practice, you will not have to retype your

table every time you revise the text -- or vice versa. [See

Endnote #9.]

3. Give special thought to the title. Keep it short, if you

can, but make it adequate, and make it logical. The title

preferably should give the intent of the table rather than

merely catalogue its contents, which the reader readily

can determine for himself by reading the various headings. The title of Table 4, for example, might have been

given as: “Composition of press cake and of the corresponding meal produced in different types of dryers.”

Such a title, however, would not show exactly the relationships that the author had in mind. The title “Effect

of the type of dryer upon the vitamin content of the

meal as compared with that in the press cake” reveals

more the intent of the author because the information

wanted was the following: a) is there a loss of vitamins

when the press cake is dried to meal?; and b) if the

vitamins are decomposed, which type of dryer contributes to the greater loss? You can see that the title I

suggested as a possibility does no more than hint at
Page 4

these relationships and therefore is not nearly as good

as was the one chosen by the author.

4. Try to place the units at the head of columns (Table 4),

if at all possible, rather than bury them in line captions

(Table 5). (If your head is nodding at this point, wake

up because this suggestion is tremendously important

to you. Placing the units at the head of columns not

only greatly aids clarity but also makes your tables far

easier to design.)

5. Draw vertical guidelines between all columns. (Here is

another simple but highly important suggestion. Compare Table 6 with Table 7.)

6. Draw the appropriate horizontal guidelines (Table 4 and

Table 7).

7. If room permits, space each line of data (Table 8 and

Table 9). To learn whether horizontal guidelines and

spacings between lines of data in tables contribute to

the clarity of the tables, I polled 53 readers and asked

them to compare Table 7 with Table 8, Table 8 with Table

9, and Table 9 with Table 10. The results of this poll,

which are given in Table 11, indicate the following: a)

most of the readers preferred the use of horizontal guidelines; b) most of the readers preferred relatively wide

spacing between the lines of data; and c) when the spacing between the lines of data was decreased, more of

the readers felt the need for horizontal guidelines than

when the spacing was wider. On the basis of this limited poll, I recommend that you take Table 4 and Table 8

as your standard format, without forgetting suggestion

No. 9 below.

8. Make your tables stand independently of the text.

9. Regardless of any of the preceding suggestions, follow

the format of the journal to which you intend to submit

your paper.

10. Test your table by asking someone who is not familiar

with it to explain it to you.

Your tables should be devised, of course, prior to the

time that you first start to gather your data. These data

then can be entered in the appropriate table as they are

obtained. This practice will enable you to follow the trend

of your research more closely than if you wait until you

start to write your paper before devising your tables and

entering your data. By following this practice, you are not

likely to miss taking any of the essential observations.

CONSIDER THE GRAPHS [See Endnote #10]

If the same information can be given in either a table or

a graph, the graphical presentation is likely to be comprehended more readily by your readers. Tables, however,

have certain advantages that should not be overlooked.

Exact values, for example, can be taken directly from the

table, whereas they are somewhat more difficult to determine from a graph. If the policy of your journal permits, you

therefore may wish to present both the table and graph.

In constructing your graph, keep in mind that it probably will be photographically reduced in size for publication. Therefore, make all of the lettering and the figures

large enough to be read easily in the published paper. [See

Endnote #11.] Do not forget to label your ordinate and

abscissa and to state the units, if any (Figure 1). [See

Endnote #12.]

The title of the graph should reflect your intent rather

than merely repeat the variables that can be read from your

labeled ordinate and abscissa. Figure 1, for example, might

have been given the title: “Concentrations of Potassium

Nitrate Versus Temperature.” This title lists the variables

but does not reveal much of the intent of the author. Note

how much more informative is the title: “Influence of Tem-

 10 20 30 40 50

Temperature (o

C)

KNO3 Concentration (g/100 g H O)

2

10

30

20

40

50

80

70

60

90

Figure 1. Influence of temperature on the solubility of potassium

nitrate in water.
Page 5

perature on the Solubility of Potassium Nitrate in Water.”

This second title supplies information that otherwise might

not be apparent to the reader.

The value of an informative title is illustrated further by

Figure 2. Could you have guessed the intent of this table

from a mere listing of the ordinate and the abscissa?

Follow, of course, the format of the journal in which

you intend to publish. You will save yourself much effort if

you will check on the format before you make the graphs.

CONSIDER THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND OTHER

ILLUSTRATIONS

Many subjects are impossible to present adequately

by words alone, and almost all others can be made clearer

and more interesting if they are illustrated. If your journal

permits the use of illustrations, you show a lack of perception if you do not make adequate use of them. [See Endnote

#13.]

Including illustrations in your paper often requires forethought. If photographs are to be used, you may not be

able to take them after your project is completed. Try to

schedule your photographs ahead of time or at least to

keep the need for them in mind while you are doing the

research.

MAKE OUTLINE

One of the really great labor-saving devices in the writing of scientific papers is the use of an outline. Unfortunately, many beginning writers in science are not convinced

of this fact. The result is much unnecessary work not only

for the authors, but also for typists, critics, and editors. It

therefore follows that the least expensive way to write a

scientific paper is first to make an outline. The mere fact

that you may have published papers without an outline

proves only that: 1) some of the published scientific papers

are vastly in need of improvement, and 2) many workers

who may be expert at research do not know how to plan and

to write scientific papers properly.

A word of warning: the use of an outline is not foolproof. The outline simply enables you to organize your

thoughts, but it does not guarantee that you will do so. In

short, the perfunctory use of an outline will get you nowhere. Only by careful thinking can you be sure that your

outline will enable you to present your material to the best

advantage.

Many writers have trouble getting started on their outline. If you have this difficulty, you might try first to divide

your subject into its principal divisions:

I. ________

II. ________

III. ________, etc.

Next, divide each of these divisions into its principal subdivisions:

I. _______

A. _______

B. _______

C. _______, etc.

II. _______

A. _______

B. _______

C. _______, etc.

III. ________

A. _______

B. _______

C. _______, etc.

Continue this approach until you have completed your outline down to the paragraph level. If you follow this process,

you will find that you have made several short outlines,

with each succeeding one increasing in complexity. You

thus will have to reconsider your paper in its entirety several times, but this is a small price to pay for a logically

organized paper.

In practice, you probably will find that it will be easier

to develop an outline for certain divisions of the paper than

for others. Once your ideas start to flow readily on a given

division, go ahead and finish it without worrying about the

other ones. The point is not how you make the outline but

that you make a good one.

While you are reflecting on how best to write the paper,

you may think of a good idea concerning some subsection

of it before you have thought the paper through completely.

As has been pointed out by Prince (1955), a practice that

you may find useful is to write down your ideas on the

subject, taking care to use a separate sheet of paper every

time your thoughts take a new direction. When you come

 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000

H (gauss)

Activity (arbitrary units)

2

6

4

8

Figure 2. Variation of ionization current with increasing magnetic

field.
Page 6

to writing your final article, you then can shuffle these papers until the various subjects discussed fit into your outline. As long as you do not write on more than one subject

to a single piece of paper, you will have no trouble in fitting

these subjects into whatever logical outline you finally devise.

In developing your outline, do not be satisfied too easily. Check it and recheck it, and then discuss it with your

colleagues. If you have a supervisor, you should give it to

him for a final check. Remember that only if your outline is

logical and complete, will your problem of writing be relatively easy.

Often times you can think of several different ways to

write the paper. If so, make an outline to correspond to each

of them before arriving at your final decision as to which

way to write the paper. Making the additional outlines will

be far less work for you than will be the work of revising

the paper if you decide later that your first way was not the

best. Furthermore, the additional time spent in considering

the various outlines will clarify and help to firm up your

ideas and will greatly facilitate the later process of getting

them down on paper. [See Endnote #14.]

USE HEADINGS

A monumental discovery in the history of writing was

the invention of headings, for they serve two very important functions: 1) they act as sign posts pointing out to the

reader changes in your direction of thought; and 2) they

serve as filing guides showing where certain information is

given in the paper.

By the aid of headings, the reader is able to follow --

without confusion -- intricate changes in your line of thinking, since the headings serve as sign posts to guide him.

The headings also enable the reader to: 1) skip large sections of the paper, if he is so inclined, and to read only those

parts in which he has a particular interest; or 2) go back to

these parts, time and time again if need be, for data and

other information.

Important though headings are as filing guides, the use

of them as indicators of changes in your direction of thought

is vastly the more important function. The mind of the

reader has a certain amount of inertia. It therefore will continue to follow along the same line of thoughts, unless you

supply a force sufficient to start it to think in whatever new

direction you desire. Headings are forceful enough to enable you to accomplish these shifts in the thinking of the

reader.

Theoretically, you could omit headings by substituting

transitional sentences and paragraphs. But why weary your

readers unnecessarily by forcing them to read a paragraph

for which a short heading will suffice? This question is not

meant to imply that transitional sentences and paragraphs

are not useful in scientific writing, for they are. Rather, it is

intended to impress you with the fact that headings help

greatly to reduce reader fatigue. Furthermore, a short heading often will arrest the attention of the reader far better

than will a tiresome transitional paragraph. Your readers

therefore are less likely to get lost in your discussion if you

employ an adequate number of headings. In fact, unless

you do make adequate use of headings, your readers will

seldom be able to understand your paper completely on

one rapid reading of it.

The editor of your paper, recognizing the great importance of headings, often will supply them for you if you

have omitted them. As you already may have discovered,

the headings supplied by the editor are not always worded

logically nor are they always placed at logical divisions.

The explanation for this apparent mental aberration on the

part of your editor is simple. Not having the benefit of

proper headings when he reads your paper, he may misinterpret what you mean, particularly if you also have failed

otherwise to write the paper well; and without the aid of an

outline, he often can only guess at the direction your thinking has taken. Do not depend therefore upon the editor to

supply your paper with headings. Ordinarily, you can devise them better than he can.

As already has been indicated, the use of headings

makes the writing of your paper easier, since often they

spare you the need for composing transitional sentences

and paragraphs, which can be hard to write. Headings are

also an indirect aid to you, in that they help to insure that

your paper will be logically organized; that is, it usually is

difficult to find suitable headings for an illogically planned

paper, and you yourself will become convinced that your

paper needs reorganization. Furthermore, the use of headings makes your paper much easier to comprehend. Critics

and editors therefore are more likely to find errors if any are

in it. In this use, headings admittedly do not save you any

work, but they may help to save your reputation.

Relationship between Outline and Headings

Your outline and the headings of your paper are closely

related in two ways: 1) the headings in your written paper

reveal the various divisions in your outline; and 2) if you

employ care in the wording of the outline, the wording of

the headings can be taken directly from the outline. In a

paper by Brown, Venolia, Tappel, Olcott, and Stansby (Submitted), for example, the outline of the paper was as follows:

OXIDATIVE DETERIORATION IN 

FISH AND FISHERY PRODUCTS.

II. PROGRESS ON STUDIES CONCERNING 

MECHANISM OF OXIDATION OF OIL IN FISH TISSUE

I. Introduction

II. Hematin catalysis

A. Hematin-compound content of fish

B. Catalytic effect of hematin compounds

C. Catalytic effect of proteins

D. Hematin-compound changes during oxidation

E. Rate of oxidation in fish flesh
Page 7

III. Role of antioxidants

A. Naturally occurring antioxidants

B. Commercial antioxidants

IV. Oxidation of oil in fish meals

A. Rate of oxidation in meals

B. Effect of commercial antioxidants

V. Summary

The corresponding headings in the paper were:

OXIDATIVE DETERIORATION IN FISH AND FISHERY

PRODUCTS.

II. PROGRESS ON STUDIES CONCERNING MECHANISM OF OXIDATION OF OIL IN FISH TISSUE

INTRODUCTION

HEMATIN CATALYSIS

Hematin-Compound Content of Fish

Catalytic Effect of Hematin Compounds

Catalytic Effect of Proteins

Hematin-Compound Changes During Oxidation

Rate of Oxidation in Fish Flesh

ROLE OF ANTIOXIDANTS

Naturally Occurring Antioxidants

Commercial Antioxidants

OXIDATION OF OIL IN FISH MEALS

Rate of Oxidation in Meals

Effect of Commercial Antioxidants

SUMMARY

You thus can see that the headings in the paper by Brown

and his coworkers were the same as those in their outline.

Types of Headings Available

In the paper just cited, the degree of subdivision of the

outline was revealed by the types of headings used in the

paper. There were, for example, only two degrees of subdivision (Table 12). The first degree of subdivision was shown

by capitalizing all of the words in the heading and by putting it in the center of the page:

HEMATIN CATALYSIS

The second degree of subdivision was shown by capitalizing only the principal words in the heading, by putting

it at the left-hand side of the page, and by underlining it:

Hematin-Compound Content of Fish

With only two degrees of subdivision, you have no

difficulty in devising suitable types of headings -- even

with the limited facilities of a typewriter -- but you may

require as many as six different types of headings with an

outline of the following degree of subdivision:

I. _______________

A. _______________

1. _______________

a. _______________

(1) _______________

(a) _______________

After you have given this problem some thought, you may

wish to adopt the system of headings widely used by those

writing in publications of the federal government. [See

Endnote #15.] In this system, for convenience of reference,

each type of heading is given a number as follows:

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A TYPE-ONE HEADING

This Is an Example of a Type-Two Heading

This is an example of a type-three heading

This Is an Example of a Type-Four Heading

This is an example of a type-five heading. -- The type-five

heading is indented and made part of a paragraph as shown here.

1. This is an example of a type-six heading: The type-six

heading is similar to the type-five heading in that it is indented

and made a part of the paragraph, but it differs in: a) being

numbered, b) not being underlined, and c) having a colon rather

than a period and a dash following the last word.

Perhaps you have not thought of the title of the paper

as requiring a separate type of heading. Nevertheless it

does, and this type has been designated by the number

zero, as follows:

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A TYPE-ZERO HEADING:

TYPE-ZERO HEADINGS ARE USED ONLY

IN THE TITLE OF THE PAPER

In the paper by Brown and co-workers, the title was a

type-zero heading, the principal subdivisions of the paper

were type-one headings, and the other subdivisions were

type-four headings. (The reason why the last was not a

type-two heading, as would seem more logical, is discussed

in a later section of the manual.)

Capitalization of Type-Two and Type-Four

Headings

In the type-two and type-four headings, the articles a,

an, and the; the prepositions at, by, for, in, of, on, to, and up;

the conjunctions and, but, if, or, and nor; and the second

element of a compound numeral are not capitalized as is

shown by the following examples, which are taken from the
Page 8

United States Government Printing Office Style Manual

(Anonymous 1953).

Built-up Stockpiles Are Necessary

Men Hit with 2-Inch Pipe

No-Par-Value Stock for Sale

Price-Cutting War

Yankees May Be Winners

No Ex-Senator Admitted

Notice of Filing and Order on Exemption from Requirements

but

Building on Twenty-first Street (if spelled)

One Hundred and Twenty-three Years (if spelled)

Only One-tenth of Shipping Was Idle

Many 35-mm. Films in Production

Recommended Headings

If you will compare the preceding seven types of headings (types 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6), one with another, you will

see that unfortunately many of them are very similar in appearance, and that for that reason, your readers may have

difficulty in distinguishing one type from another one. Remember that the only way your readers can keep your outline readily in mind is by the type of heading you use. Thus

if he fails to distinguish one type from another, he will become confused (Figure 3).

The ideal arrangement would be to use only those types

of headings that are as dissimilar in appearance as is possible. If, however, your outline is as complex as the one

illustrated in Figure 3, you would have no choice as to the

types you could use because you would require a typezero heading for the title to your paper and you would need

to use all of the remaining six types to distinguish between

your various subdivisions. Fortunately, it so happens that

most scientific research papers do not require such a high

degree of subdivision. You therefore ordinarily have a

choice among the types of headings you can use.

The problem now becomes, which types are the most

dissimilar and how should they be chosen? The following

method of choosing the best types of headings to use has

been tested and has been found to work well. In this method,

you first classify your paper into one of six categories, which

are determined by the complexity of the outline of your

paper as follows:

Outline of category-A papers (one subheading):

I. ________

II. ________

III. Etc.

Outline of category-B papers (two subheadings):

I. ________

A. ________

B. ________

C. Etc.

Outline of category-C papers (three subheadings):

I. ________

A. ________

1. ________

2. ________

3. Etc.

Outline of category-D papers (four subheadings):

I. ________

A. ________

1. ________

a. ________

b. ________

c. Etc.

I. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Reader thinks he is 1. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

at this subdivision

a. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

when actually is (1) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

at this one, say.

 (a) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Figure 3. Illustration of how the reader becomes confused as to where he is in your outline if he fails to distinguish between your types of

headings.
Page 9

Outline of category-E papers (five subheadings):

I. ________

A. ________

1. ________

a. ________

(1) ________

(2) ________

(3) Etc.

Outline of category-F papers (six subheadings):

II. ________

A. ________

1. ________

a. ________

(1) ________

(a) ________

(b) ________

(c) Etc.

After deciding which category your paper falls into,

you then choose the proper headings as follows:

Headings for category-A papers (those with one subheading):

I. Type-1 heading

II. Type-1 heading

III. Etc.

Headings for category-B papers (those with two subheadings):

I. Type-1 heading

A. Type-4 heading

B. Type-4 heading

C. Etc.

Headings for category-C papers (those with three subheadings):

I. Type-1 headings

A. Type-4 heading

1. Type-5 heading

2. Type-5 heading

3. Etc.

Headings for category-D papers (those with four subheadings):

I. Type-1 heading

A. Type-2 heading

1. Type-4 heading

a. Type-5 heading

b. Type-5 heading

c. Etc.

Headings for category-E papers (those with five subheadings):

I. Type-1 heading

A. Type-2 heading

1. Type-3 heading

a. Type-4 heading

(1) Type-5 heading

(2) Type-5 heading

(3) Etc.

Headings for category-F papers (those with six subheadings):

I. Type-1 heading

A. Type-2 heading

1. Type-3 heading

a. Type-4 heading

(1) Type-5 heading

(a) Type-6 heading

(b) Type-6 heading

(c) Etc.

You will note from the foregoing that the type-three

and type-six headings, being the least distinctive ones, are

used only in those papers that require so many different

types that all the others need also be used. If you examine

the scientific literature, you will find that most papers fall

into categories B, C, or D.

The paper by Brown and co-workers, for example, falls

into category B, and this is the reason why the type-four

heading was used in that paper instead of the type-two

heading, as might have seemed logical. (The present manual

falls into category C.)

Use of Headings with Individual Paragraphs

Ordinarily, you will not set off each individual paragraph by a heading. The factor determining whether you

should use a heading for an individual paragraph depends

upon how abruptly you shift your line of thought. Remember that one of the principal purposes of headings is to

indicate to your readers that your direction of thought has

changed. Therefore where the subject matter of your paper

varies markedly from one paragraph to another, do not hesitate to use headings to signal this fact to your readers. In

this manual, for example, you will find numerous places, in

addition to the present paragraph, where I have set off individual paragraphs by headings.

Logical Use of Headings

One error often made by scientific authors is to use

headings illogically. Suppose that the following is the outline of a paper:

I. ________

A. ________

B. ________

II. ________

This is a category-B paper, and the correct headings

therefore are:

I. Type-1

A. Type-4

B. Type-4

II. Type-1
Page 10

Quite often, however, an author chooses the correct types

of headings, but mixes them up illogically as follows:

I. Type-1

A. Type-4

B. Type-1

II. Type-4

If you will make an outline and follow it, you easily can

avoid this kind of error.

As has been pointed out earlier, you also will find that

if in devising your outline you use care in the wording of it,

you can take the titles for the headings directly from the

outline. This practice has the great advantage of helping to

insure that your headings will be logical and parallel in form.

Importance of Headings

Of all the devices that you can use to make your paper

easy to read and to comprehend, headings must be ranked

among the most important. Unless you make adequate use

of them, you never can achieve your maximum potential as

a writer of clear scientific papers. In concluding this section,

I therefore strongly urge that you always give careful thought

to the headings when you write your future papers.

GIVE THOUGHT TO THE PARAGRAPHING

The use of paragraphs has much the same function as

the use of headings; that is, the paragraph alerts the reader

to the fact that you have finished discussing one topic and

now are ready to discuss another. There also is a further

parallel between headings and paragraphs in that the heading signals to the reader that the group of paragraphs being

considered is related, and the paragraph signals that the

group of sentences is related.

In the same way also that you should not have long

sections in your paper without organizing them into shorter

subsections, you should not have long paragraphs without trying to break them into shorter groupings; that is,

long paragraphs, like long sections, are mentally tiring for

the reader. If it is at all logically possible, the long paragraphs therefore should be broken into shorter ones. View

with suspicion any paragraph that is longer than a typewritten page because it usually can be separated logically

into smaller divisions.

Pay particular attention to the opening paragraph. A

long opening one looks formidable, promises much dull reading, and tends to repel prospective readers.

It is very important that your paragraphs be logical units

of thought. An example of a type of paragraphing that

gives scientific authors much difficulty in this respect is the

following:

The analysis was carried out in two steps.

In the first step, so and so, and so and so, and

so and so was done...

In the second step, such and such, such and

such, and such and such was done...

As you can see, this is logical paragraphing, and it is

clear. You know how many steps there are, and you know

where the description of each one starts. You may feel,

however, that you are breaking some rule of composition

by using a one-sentence paragraph such as:

The analysis was carried out in two steps.

There is no objecting to the use of the one-sentence

paragraph -- if such use aids reader comprehension. Naturally it should not be overdone because it would defeat its

purpose of arresting the attention of the reader. If all of the

above paragraphs are short, for example, all three should be

combined into one paragraph:

The analysis was carried out in two steps. In

the first step, so and so, and so and so, and so and

so was done... In the second step, such and such,

such and such, and such and such was done...

The introductory sentence, in this example, belongs

just as much to the second step as it does to the first one. I

grant that combining the introductory sentence with the

paragraph explaining the first step is only slightly illogical,

but this practice is far more serious than you might think

because in scientific writing, you need be only slightly confusing to cause your readers much mental fatigue.

You complicate matters further if you forget about parallel construction and start your description of the second

step with different wording from that used with the first

step:

The analysis was carried out in two steps. In

the first step, so and so, so and so, and so and so

was done...

The second step consisted in such and such,

such and such, and such and such...

Your attention has been focused on these slight

changes, and you know what they are, but you will be surprised at how fast you can lose an inattentive reader by this

confused method of breaking up your paragraphs and of

presenting your thoughts. This confusion will be greatly

compounded if you use several paragraphs to describe the

first step and several to describe the second.

Let me hasten to add that these faults are minor in comparison to leaving out the introductory statement:

In the first step, so and so, so and so, and so

and so was done...
Page 11

The second step consisted in doing such and

such, such and such, and such and such...

Now visualize the confusion if you also neglect to mention that you are describing the first step:

So and so, so and so, and so and so was done...

The second step consisted in doing such and

such, such and such, and such and such...

If your reader has been half asleep, the statement about

the second step may wake him up, and he will go back to

discover what your first step was. If your discussion is

short, he may have no difficulty in finding the first step, but

if your discussion is long, he may waste much time before

he discovers where in your paper your discussion of the

first step begins.

The last example is not the worst. You also might omit

mentioning that you are describing the second step:

So and so, so and so, and so and so was done...

Such and such, such and such, and such and

such...

In addition, you might run the paragraphs together:

So and so, so and so, and so and so was

done...Such and such, such and such, and such and

such was done...

Do all these things, and you leave your readers with a

nice little puzzle to solve -- if they ever get around to it.

THE TITLE

In searching the literature, have you ever been misled

by the titles of certain papers into believing these papers

would furnish you with the information you needed? On

the other hand, because of poorly worded titles, have you

ever rejected certain other papers only to discover later,

through different sources, that these particular ones really

were important? If so, you already are aware of the need for

carefully wording your title.

TOO GENERAL

One of the pitfalls to avoid in wording the title is to

make it too general. Although such a title may inform the

reader that your paper treats subjects in his field of interest,

it will not tell him whether your paper contains the particular information he needs. After a worker fruitlessly has

looked up a large number of papers because of titles that

are overly general, he tends to become highly critical and to

reject all those general titles. Unless your title is specific,

your paper may be among those eliminated -- possibly incorrectly.

INCOMPLETE OR MISLEADING

Another common error in titles is that of incompleteness. Thus, your paper may treat certain subjects, but your

title may give no clue to this fact. Still another difficulty is

that your title may be misleading in that it indicates your

paper is about one subject, whereas it actually is about

another.

SHORT VERSUS SPECIFIC TITLES

In planning and writing your paper, you may fall into

errors such as making your title too general, incomplete, or

misleading, owing to your desire to keep the title from becoming overly long. Now, although it is important to have

a short title, it is even more important to have one that

correctly reveals the main contents of your paper.

You have only to go through the tiresome act, however,

of writing out the titles to half a dozen papers to discover

the great virtue of brevity. It therefore is unfortunate that

brevity and specificity usually are not compatible. With

many of your papers, the title will be a compromise between

what you think should be mentioned and what space you

think can be spared for it. The following examples illustrate

how the length of the title increases as the title becomes

more specific:

Measurements

Fish Measurements

Determining Fish Measurements

Accurately Determining Fish Measurements

Device for Accurately Determining Fish Measurements

Photographic Device for Accurately Determining Fish

Measurements

Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining

Fish Measurements

Fully Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining

Measurements of King Salmon

Fully Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining

Measurements of King Salmon (Oncorhynchus tsawystcha)

Fully Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining

Measurements of Live King Salmon (Oncorhynchus

tsawystcha)
Page 12

Fully Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining,

Aboard Ship, Axial Measurements of Live King Salmon

(Oncorhynchus tsawystcha)

Fully Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining,

Aboard Ship at Near-Freezing Temperatures, Axial

Measurements of Live King Salmon (Oncorhynchus

tsawystcha)

Fully Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining,

Aboard Ship at Near-Freezing Temperatures Under All

Conditions of Lighting, Axial Measurements of Live King

Salmon (Oncorhynchus tsawystcha)

To arrive at the proper balance between specificity and

brevity, you will have to give much thought to the subject.

A good plan is to assign a temporary title when you first

start to consider your paper and then to improve upon the

title as time goes by. The first one you think of usually is

not the best.

IMPRACTICAL SOUNDING

Another unfortunate aspect of scientific titles is that

some of them sound impractical. In fact, often the better

and more specific the title -- from the scientific point of view

-- the less sensible it may sound, especially to the layman

who might not be sufficiently acquainted with your project

to see the need for it. Take for example, the title: “Fully

Automatic Photographic Device for Accurately Determining, Aboard Ship at Near-Freezing Temperatures Under All

Conditions of Lighting, Axial Measurements of Live King

Salmon (Oncorhynchus tsawystcha).” You can see that

this title sounds pedantic. To make it actually ridiculous, all

you now need to add is something like: “Caught at the

Mouth of Hunter Creek” or “Caught at the Mouth of Hunter

Creek by Frogmen.”

You should keep this aspect of titles in mind because

often it is a layman who must approve of the bill for your

investigation, and you cannot expect him to be enthusiastic about a project that does not seem to be of value. If your

title is unavoidably pedantic sounding, make sure that you

show the significance of your work when you write the

introduction to your paper.

THE ABSTRACT

Your abstract has two principal functions: 1) to supplement your title, and 2) to give the reader an overall view of

your paper.

In the function of supplementing the title, the abstract

supplies further information on what the paper is about. As

we have seen, owing to the need for brevity, the title does

not always reveal completely the contents of your paper.

The abstract, not being quite so limited in length, makes up

for this deficiency. Thus a principal function of it is to

supplement the title and thereby help the reader to decide

whether your paper will be of sufficient value to him to

warrant his time spent in reading it.

One of the main requirements of the abstract is that it

be short and to the point. If it is wordy, the prospective

reader may reject both your abstract and your paper.

In the function of giving the reader an overall view of

the paper, the abstract helps him to keep from getting lost in

the maze of details most scientific papers contain. After

having read the abstract, he can see better where these

details fit into the overall picture. For this reason, the small

amount of space taken by your abstract more than pays for

itself in aiding your readers to a quick comprehension of

your paper.

A well-known technique in writing and in public speaking is the following: 1) tell your readers what you are going

to tell them, 2) tell them, 3) tell them what you told them.

In the writing of scientific papers, the abstract is step 1

of this technique, the body of the paper is step 2, and the

summary is step 3. The use of this technique helps to insure that your readers will understand your paper completely

the first time they read it.

A problem arises if you have both an abstract and a

summary in that you may repeat in the summary what you

said in the abstract. You can solve this problem by making

the abstract qualitative (descriptive) and the summary, where

you are less restricted as to wordage, quantitative. (An

example of how to do this is given later in the manual under

the heading “Summary.”) If you omit the summary, you

should make the abstract as quantitative as your limitations

of space will allow. [See Endnote #16.]

Omitting the summary, however, gives your readers a

feeling of incompleteness and an impression that you have

left your paper to dangle. If you think that you must omit

either the abstract or the summary, your paper will be stronger if you retain the summary instead of the abstract.

I strongly recommend that you retain both.

THE PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS

The principal divisions of the scientific paper that have

become more-or-less traditional are: 1) introduction, 2) methods, 3) results and discussion, and 4) conclusions. These

divisions have resulted from the desire of the readers to

obtain answers to the following five questions: 1) what

were you, the author, trying to accomplish?; 2) why were

you trying to do this?; 3) how did you carry out the work?;

4) what did you find out?; and 5) what did you conclude

from your findings? Questions 1 and 2 are answered in the

introduction; question 3 is answered in the methods; question 4, in the results and discussion, and question 5, in the

conclusions. [Also, see the embedded table in Endnote

#2.]

The subsections of this manual immediately following

will discuss these principal divisions.
Page 13

THE INTRODUCTION

As was just stated, the primary function of the introduction is to answer two questions: 1) what were you trying to do?, and 2) why were you trying to do it?

Your failure to answer adequately these questions may

very greatly reduce the effectiveness of your research. If

you fail to answer the first of them, you force your readers

to turn detective in that they must infer your objectives

from the data and from the discussion in the latter part of

your paper. The odds are that they will be unsuccessful,

and as a result, badly confused. The omission, therefore, of

a specific statement of objectives in the introduction is one

of the most serious errors in scientific writing, and in my

opinion, is the principal cause of unclearness in many scientific papers. If you fail to answer the second question,

your paper may join the myriad of others that have lain long

in disuse because their authors did not make clear the significance and usefulness of their findings. A thought you

might keep in mind in this regard is that numerous examples

exist of worthwhile research projects that have been terminated because those who have had to pay the bills for the

research were not shown it was worth the cost.

In answering these two questions, you may find it helpful to consider the general nature of research, which is illustrated in Figure 4 and Figure 5. These figures are intended

to show two points:

1. Your paper ordinarily reports on the solution to some

closely related set of problems of relatively very narrow scope, which for convenience, can be grouped

together and called the specific problem.

Subproblem #1 Subproblem #2 Subproblem #3 Subproblem N Unsolved Subproblems

Specific Problem

Figure 4. Illustration showing that your paper ordinarily reports on the solution to a number of closely related subproblems.

Broad Problem #1 Broad Problem #2 Broad Problem N Unsolved Broad Problems

Subproblem #1 Subproblem #2 Subproblem N Unsolved Subproblems

Specific Problem #1 Specific Problem #2 Specific Problem N Unsolved Specific Problems

General Problem

Figure 5. The general problem is made up of a number of broad problems, these broad problems are made up of a number of specific problems,

and the specific problems, in turn, usually are made up of a number of closely related subproblems. The solution of a problem at one

level contributes to the solution of the problem at the next higher level. The general problem, the broad problem, and the specific

problem seldom are completely solved; that is, there usually is room for more research in every field. Ordinarily, many different

groups of authors contribute to the solution of the broad and general problems; whereas prior to the publication of your paper, your

group will be the only one working on your specific problem, unless some group elsewhere independently has got the same idea.
Page 14

2. Your specific problem is never an isolated one, for your

findings always contribute to the solution to some problem of greater scope, which can be called the broad

problem. The solution to the broad problem, in turn,

contributes to the solution to a problem of even greater

scope, which can be called the general problem. This

process can be continued to the widest field of knowledge. It however seldom is profitable to consider relationships beyond the general problem -- or one of a

scope that is even wider, since there are not many limitations to the extent of the inquiries of science and

since few problems ever are solved completely.

The subjects treated in scientific papers are so widely

different that no one outline will suffice for all introductions. The following is offered, however, as being suggestive of the general approach:

I. Introduction

A. Orientation of your readers to your specific problem

1. Transitional sentence or paragraph to relate the title of

your paper to your general problem.

2. General problem

a. What it is

b. Why it needs solution

c. What has been done on it

3. Broad problem

a. What it is

b. Why it needs solution

c. What has been done about it

4. Specific problem

a. What it is

b. Why it needs solution

B. Statement of objectives of specific problem

1. Objective of subproblem 1

2. Objective of subproblem 2

3. Etc.

Orienting Your Readers to Your Specific Problem

We now see from the outline that orienting your readers to your specific problem (answering question 2 given in

the first paragraph of this section, “The Introduction”) may

be somewhat involved -- depending upon their background

of knowledge. With a poorly informed audience, you may

have to tell them something of the general problem -- what

it is, why it needs solution, and what has been done about

it -- and then go on to discuss the broad and the specific

problems. With a better informed audience, no mention

need be made of the general problem. Only with the most

specialized audiences, however, can you omit mention of

the broad problem -- and even then you are taking a chance

that some of your readers may not see the significance of

your work. In planning and writing your paper, keep in

mind that you cannot possibly visualize all the many uses

for your findings. You therefore should be careful not to

restrict the size of your audience unnecessarily by your

failure properly to orient your readers to your specific problem.

Your title should reveal your specific problem. If therefore you start your paper directly with a discussion of your

general problem, your readers may get the impression that

you have already strayed from your subject. The opening

transitional sentence or paragraph is to assure them that

your discussion of the general problem is pertinent to the

subject indicated in your title. Take, for example, the paper

entitled: “Photographic Device for Accurately Determining

Fish Measurements” (Long and Arzylowicz, In preparation).

The opening paragraph begins as follows: “The photographic measuring device described in this paper was developed to aid the work of the International North Pacific

Fisheries Commission. As a result of a treaty between

Canada, Japan, and the United States, this Commission was

formed...” You can see that if the paper had not included

the opening transitional sentence, the readers would have

wondered what the statements about the Commission had

to do with a photographic device.

Some papers do not require this transitional statement,

whereas others, such as the one just cited, definitely do.

You therefore always should give thought to whether a

transitional statement will be helpful to your paper.

You may feel that you can eliminate any need for this

transitional statement by starting with the specific problem

and then discussing the broad and general problems, in

that order. This technique leaves your readers thinking

about your general problem. You then will need a transitional statement to bring them back to the problem at hand.

Ordinarily, you will find the better technique is to start with

the general problem and end up with the specific problem

rather than the reverse.

In telling what has been done on the broad and general

problems, you will be citing the literature. Keep in mind that

often a citation of only one or two papers that have good

bibliographies will give references to all the important papers that have been written in your particular field. Because of this fact, you may wish to call special attention to

these papers in your citation.

Another point you should keep in mind is that your

readers should always be able to distinguish between your

work and that of others. Owing to the custom in scientific

writing of omitting personal pronouns, the readers often

are left in doubt as to whether the author or someone else

did the work being cited. This is not to suggest that you

start to use personal pronouns but simply that you make

clear, in your discussion, what you and your coworkers did

and what the other authors did.

You will note in the outline immediately preceding this

subsection, “Orienting Your Readers to Your Specific Problem,” that under 4, “Specific problem,” no mention is made

of what has been done on it. The reason for this omission

is that ordinarily, unless you simply are repeating the work

of others, you will be the only one who ever has studied

your specific problem. Thus there will be no work to report
Page 15

other than your own. The reporting of the work that you

have done on the specific problem is what forms the body

of your paper.

You can see from the outline that most of the introduction is devoted to orienting your readers to your specific

problem. In summary, the basic technique for doing this is

first to point out the importance of your general problem

and then to show that: 1) your broad problem is necessary

to the solution of the general problem; and 2) your specific

problem, in turn, is necessary to the solution of the broad

problem. How detailed you make these explanations will

depend upon the background of information of your intended audience.

Stating the Objectives of Your Specific Problem

As is indicated in Figure 4, your specific problem ordinarily is composed of a number of closely related subproblems. The objectives of your specific problem are to solve

these subproblems. In stating your specific problem, you

should list these objectives by number and state them explicitly so that your readers will know exactly what you

were trying to do. Let me strongly emphasize that from the

standpoint of clarity, numbering your objectives and

stating them explicitly are two of the most important things

you can do in planning and writing your paper.

The more objectives you have, the more important it becomes that you state them explicitly. If you have only one

objective, a careful reader may be able to infer what it is even if

you do not state it. If, however, you have several objectives

and do not state them, you can see that it will be almost impossible not to confuse your readers. Why chance puzzling them

when the simple technique of listing your objectives will make

your paper so much easier to understand?

If you have done an adequate job of showing the need

for your research, you ordinarily can include the word

“therefore” in your statement of objectives, as in the following example:

The objectives of the research reported in this paper

therefore were as follows:

1. ________

2. ________

3. ________

You will find that usually the listing of your objectives will determine the logical structure of the rest of the

paper. This fact seems not to be well known, for many

authors use only the following outline 1 for all of their papers:

OUTLINE 1

I. Introduction

II. Methods

III. Results and discussion

IV. Conclusions

The following outline 2, however, generally will be more

appropriate.

OUTLINE 2

I. Introduction

A. Orientation of readers to specific problem

B. Statement of objectives of specific problem

1. Objective of subproblem 1

2. Objective of subproblem 2

3. Etc.

II. Subproblem 1

A. Introduction

B. Methods

C. Results and discussion

D. Conclusions

III. Subproblem 2

A. Introduction

B. Methods

C. Results and discussion

D. Conclusions

IV. Subproblem 3, etc.

V. Overall discussion

VI. Overall conclusions

From an examination of outline 2, you can see that outline 1 normally will be suitable only if your specific problem

has but one objective. You thus can see one reason why so

many scientific papers are hard to understand: the authors

of them use only one outline, regardless of how unsuitable

it may be.

Let me state that outline 2 is not the ultimate for all

papers. It is presented simply to stimulate your thinking.

Each of your papers should be considered individually, and

you should develop whatever logical outline will enable

you to present your paper to best advantage. My point in

this discussion is not to recommend that you use any one

particular outline. Rather it is to impress you with two facts:

1) the statement of the objective of your specific problem

ordinarily determines the structure of your paper, and 2)

neglecting to state your objectives usually will make your

paper hard to organize and even harder to understand.

You probably have noticed that in discussing the subproblems of your specific problem, I always have been careful to point out that they must be closely related. If this

relationship is not close, you will have two or more papers

instead of one, as otherwise unity will be violated. With

each of your papers, you therefore should determine whether

your specific subproblems are closely enough related to

justify reporting of them in one paper.

An Example of an Introduction

To see how these suggestions work in practice, let us

consider a paper by Thurston (Submitted). The following

is a slightly altered and abridged version of the introduction to it:
Page 16

DYE-BINDING CHARACTERISTICS OF FISH-MEAL

PROTEIN, PART I -- SOME PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

AS TO SUITABLE DYES

By Claude Thurston

INTRODUCTION

Statement of Owing to the time required in animal tests

general problem for determining the quality of proteins in

and why it foods, chemists long have been interested

needs solution in developing quicker methods. One promising approach has been to correlate the

quality of the protein with its dye-binding properties. Such a method has many

practical advantages because of the simplicity with which the concentration of

dyes can be measure by spectrophotometric techniques.

What has been Several of the investigations reported in

done on general the scientific literature indicate that the

problem quality of a vegetable protein can be determined by its dye-binding characteristics. Chapman, Greenberg, and Schmidt

(1927) showed by reactions of several acid

dyes with various protein solutions, that

the amount of dye bound was proportional to the number of basic groups in the

protein. Fraenkel-Conrat and Cooper

(1944) found that dyes could be used to

determine the number of acidic and basic

groups present. Udy (1954) -- working

with vegetable proteins, chiefly wheat --

found that the quality of the protein could

be determined from its dye-binding characteristics.

Statement of If a similar relationship exists between

broad problem dyes and the proteins in fish meal, the

and why it nutritive value of these proteins might

needs solution be determined by a chemical index, in

hours, rather than in 1-3 wk as is now

required when a feeding test is used.

Statement of An investigation of the dye-binding

specific problem characteristics of the protein in fish

and why it meal accordingly has been started at

needs solution the Seattle Technological Laboratory

in order to learn if there is any correlation between the nutritive value of the

meal, as determined by chick-feeding

tests, and the extent of binding of the

dye. Since no previous research has

been reported on the use of dyes with

fish meals, one of the preliminary steps

necessary in undertaking this investigation was to determine what dyes are

suitable and how they best can be employed.

Statement of The specific objectives of the study

objectives of reported in the present paper there

specific fore were to determine: 1) what dyes

problem will bind the proteins of fish meal, and

2) what are the optimum conditions in

the use of these dyes.

If you analyze this introduction, you see that the general, broad, and specific problems are as follows:

General problem: To determine the quality of proteins by the

use of dyes.

Broad problem: To determine the quality of proteins in fish

meals by the use of dyes.

Specific problem: To determine what dyes will be bound by the

proteins in fish meals and what are the

optimum conditions in the use of these dyes.

Note that: 1) the first part of the title, “Dye-Binding

Characteristics of Fish-Meal Protein,” points to the broad

problem, since this part of the title refers to the series of

papers that yet are to be written; and 2) the second part,

“Some Preliminary Findings as to Suitable Dyes,” points to

the specific problem, since it is the part of the title referring

to Dr. Thurston’s paper itself. Note also there is no transitional statement to relate the title of the paper to the general

problem, since the discussion of the general problem seems

to be related closely enough to the title.

The opening paragraph of Dr. Thurston’s paper gives

an indirect statement of the general problem and tells

why it needs solution. The second paragraph tells what

has been done on the general problem. The opening part

of the third paragraph gives an indirect statement of the

broad problem and tells why it needs solution. No other

information is given on the broad problem because no

work has been reported on it in the literature. The last

part of the third paragraph states the specific problem

and tells why it needs solution. Since the statement of

the specific objectives is so very important, it is set apart

in the fourth paragraph, for emphasis, and the specific

objectives are listed by number.

As was pointed out earlier, the statement of the specific objectives of the research determines the structure

of the paper. Dr. Thurston’s paper, for example, falls into

two main divisions: 1) the determination of suitable dyes,

and 2) the determination of optimum conditions in the

use of them.

You thus can see the tremendous importance of clearly

stating your specific problem. If, however, you have not

thought your research through, and do not have a clear

idea of what your specific problem is, you hardly can state

it when you come to reporting your data. This is one of the

principal reasons why you were advised earlier in the manual

to give very careful thought to the planning of your research and to the writing of your paper at the time you start

your research project.
Page 17

THE METHODS [See Endnote #17]

Statement of Strategy and Motives

If you study the scientific literature, you find that many

customs have developed that do not contribute to the clarity of the writing. It is the custom, for example, to give a

step-by-step statement of the methods without telling the

readers where these steps are leading or why this particular

approach to solving the problem was used. The readers are

then forced to infer what the methods are supposed to accomplish and why they were the best available ones.

In presenting your methods, you therefore should give

thought to whether they need an introductory statement as to

their overall scope. Ordinarily, you will find that only a short

paragraph or two will be all that is needed to make a vast

difference of the ease of comprehension of your work by your

readers. Incidentally, the more difficulty you have in composing this paragraph, the greater will be the need for it.

This short introductory statement will be helpful particularly to those of your readers who want to find out

what you did in a general way but who do no have the

time to read the details or who actually lack the ability to

synthesize them into a meaningful picture. These readers deserve more consideration than most scientific papers give them. You might keep in mind that this group

often includes abstracters and that the niche in scientific

history your paper will occupy actually may depend on

how well some abstracter understands it. You will not be

exhibiting wisdom if you lose him and your other readers

in a maze of details.

Description by Reference to Authors

If your methods already have been published, you

should not describe them in detail in your own paper. You,

however, should include a brief general statement of them

for the benefit of those of your readers who are not familiar

with the methods and who may not have the time to look up

the reference to them. A key word that often aids the general description of the methods, in this case, is the word

“essentially.”

Description of Methods Involving a Number of

Consecutive Steps

A problem frequently encountered is how to describe

methods involving a number of consecutive steps. In such

a description, you have two difficulties: 1) the structure of

your sentences becomes monotonously the same as does

also your choice of words; and 2) your readers find it difficult to follow you, especially if you intersperse explanations with directives, as often you should.

This problem of describing a number of consecutive

steps can be solved by the use of the following technique:

1) number each step, and 2) give the directions in imperative sentences and the explanations in declarative ones.

An example of this technique is given in the earlier section “Consider the Tables.” A second example is shown in

the following directions on how to cut up a whale:

1. Strip off the blubber from both sides of the whale with the aid

of a winch.

2. Remove the jawbone.

3. Remove, from one side, the long loin that runs from the

shoulder to the tail.

4. Etc.

If you number each step, your readers will have no difficulty in determining where you finish one step and start

the next one. If your directives are given in imperative

sentences and your explanations in declarative ones, your

readers also will have no difficulty in distinguishing between a directive and an explanation. Enclosing the explanatory material in parentheses also may be helpful.

The use of the imperative sentence for stating the directive ordinarily will enable you to start each sentence

with a different verb instead of monotonously starting it

with the article “the” as usually will be the case if declarative sentences are used, as for example:

1. The blubber is stripped off from both sides of the whale with

the aid of a winch.

2. The jawbone is removed.

3. The long loin that runs from the shoulder to the tail is removed

from one side.

4. The etc.

You may find, however, that even with imperative sentences,

you will need to start many sentences with the same verb,

since that particular verb may be the best one to use. If so,

repeat it as many times as necessary, as for example:

1. Strip etc.

2. Remove etc.

3. Remove etc.

Scientific writing, like any other kind, is more pleasing if

it is euphonious; but logic, clarity, and faithful reporting of

the facts should never be sacrificed to euphony.

Description of a Series of Similar Experiments

If your work involved a series of experiments all of

which were quite similar to one another, you may find it

difficult to describe the methods. The following technique provides a good solution to this problem: 1) tell

the readers how many experiments there were in the series, 2) describe the first experiment in detail, and 3) tell
Page 18

how each of the remaining experiments differed from the

first one. If you will give thought to the numbering of

the experiments, you may find that you can simplify your

description of them. In short, unless the chronological

sequence is significant, the experiments should be numbered in whatever order will best aid in the logical description of them.

In the use of the foregoing technique, you will find that

the following practice will be helpful to your readers: 1) set

off, in separate paragraphs, the introductory statement and

the description of each experiment; and 2) use parallel construction so that the reader easily can see any similarities

and differences. The practice of setting off the introduction to the series and the description of each experiment in

a separate paragraph may result in a number of paragraphs

that contain only one sentence. Although longer paragraphs

usually are to be preferred, the function of paragraphing, as

was explained earlier in the manual, is to help the reader to a

quick comprehension of the article. Thus, when clarity is

aided, the use of one-sentence paragraphs not only is permitted but is recommended.

The following description of methods, adapted from a

report by Osterhaug and Andrews (1955), gives an example

of these various points:

Statement of Two experiments were made: series I,

number of experimentally handled oysters, and series II,

series commercially handled oysters.

Detailed In series I, shucked Pacific oysters, which

description had been purchased in 0.5-gal cans in Seattle

of series I and transported to the laboratory, were

sorted into damaged and undamaged groups.

The undamaged oysters were repacked in

0.5-lb cans, hermetically sealed, frozen at

-20°F, and stored for 3 days at 0°F. The

frozen oysters were divided into five groups

of six cans each, and each group was thawed

under one of the following conditions: 1) in

still air at 34°F, 2) in still air at 48-52°F, 3) in

front of a fan at 65-70°F, 4) in water at 45-

47°F, and 5) in water at 110°F.

Description In series II, 10-oz cans of commercially

of series II, frozen oysters that had been in storage at

showing how 10°F for approximately 9 mo were used.

it differed These oysters were divided into similar

from series I groups and thawed under the same conditions

as were those in series I.

Description of Complex Methods

The general technique for describing complex methods

is the following: 1) analyze the methods into their fundamental components for your own information; 2) tell your

readers how many components there are and what they are;

3) describe each component, one at a time; and 4) show

your reader how the components fit together.

Illustrations

In describing the methods, do not forget the limitations

of words; that is, always keep in mind the vast importance

of illustrations.

There are two possible approaches toward illustrations:

1) that the illustrations are used simply to support the text,

and 2) that the text is used to support the illustrations. You

will find that the second approach greatly simplifies your

problems of description. Thus if you have something hard

to describe, first make whatever pictures and other illustrations are possible and then build your write-up around these

illustrations. This technique often will save you pages of

difficult writing. Furthermore, it will enable your readers to

obtain an almost instantaneous comprehension of your

subject; whereas a written description, in addition to being

tiresome, may leave them with only a foggy notion of what

you are trying to convey. Thus, whenever illustrations are

applicable, use them.

Pitfalls in the Methods

In writing your methods, keep in mind the need for warning your readers of any pitfalls; that is, tell them where the

methods may go wrong if they do not take certain precautions. Otherwise they uselessly will have to rediscover for

themselves all your hard-won knowledge of how to avoid

these various difficulties. Those who try to follow your

methods are not likely to revere you for leaving out any of

these warnings. In fact if they have trouble in making your

methods work, they may regard you as being something of

a faker instead of being merely an inept author.

Adequacy of the Sample

In describing the materials employed in your experiments, give a full description of any samples that you may

have used. Keep in mind that no work is ever more reliable

than is the sample. This fact, unfortunately, is not always

recognized clearly. Much of the early analytical work in

fishery technology, for example, was almost useless because in experiment after experiment, the samples were not

adequate.

A striking example of the great care needed in sampling

has been pointed out by Karrick, Clegg, and Stansby (1956)

in their work with sheepshead, a common species of freshwater fish:
Page 19

“If only 16 sheepshead (a much larger sample than that

for most values reported in the literature) from Clearwater Lake,

Minnesota, had been used as representative of all sheepshead, the

oil content would have been reported as ranging from 0.72 to 1.67

percent and as averaging 1.04 percent. Sheepshead then would

have been considered a non-oily fish. If only sheepshead had

been used from another small lake, Lake Kegonsa in Wisconsin,

the oil would have been reported as ranging from 2.00 to 8.84

percent and as averaging 4.89 percent. Sheepshead would then

have been considered as intermediate in oil content. If, however,

16 samples of sheepshead from the Mississippi River had been

taken in June 1954, values from 3.57 to 14.20 percent and

averaging 8.78 percent would have been found. Sheepshead then

would have been classified as an oily fish. This is an example of

the danger of analyzing one fish, or even one large lot of fish from

the same source, and reporting that the values obtained are

representative for the species.”

THE RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As was pointed out earlier, if at all possible, present

your results in tables and graphs, for this is the most efficient and satisfactory way to do so.

Important though your tables and graphs are, however,

you should make your discussion stand independently of

them so that any of your readers who do not have the time

to study the details of your report can still follow the main

trends of your findings. This technique of making your

discussion stand independently helps to insure that both

your tables and graphs and your discussion will be clear.

In your discussion, take care not merely to recapitulate

the details of your data; that is, do not make the mistake of

repeating in words the detailed contents of your tables and

graphs. This repetition does not constitute a discussion

but merely a waste of time, for the tables and graphs, as was

pointed out earlier, will present the data more clearly than

you can verbally. Furthermore, you will alienate your readers because after laboriously going through all your verbiage, they will find that you have told them nothing that

was not already more clearly seen from the tables and graphs

themselves. What a reader wants to learn from your discussion are the trends, correlations, and conclusions that

he otherwise would have to extract from your data himself

-- presuming that he would bring to the task a sufficient

background of knowledge to enable him to do so.

Be sure to point out any apparent or real inconsistencies in your data, and if you can, explain them. Leaving

your readers to wonder about them will weaken your paper

more than if you point them out yourself. Also, if your

conclusions are not obvious, explain the reasoning process by which you arrived at them. Otherwise, your readers, lacking your insight into the work, may disagree with

you.

If your readers might mistakenly think that certain trends

or correlations exist in your data where none actually do, be

sure to make the situation clear. Also, in your discussion,

clearly distinguish between fact and theory.

THE CONCLUSIONS

The most important part of the scientific paper ordinarily is the conclusions. The rest of the paper usually is

for the primary purpose of showing the reader: 1) the significance, and 2) the reliability of them. Thus most scientific papers would need only to present the conclusions

were it not for the readers’ lack of information regarding the

need for the research and for the healthy skepticism as to

the correctness of the results and of the conclusions drawn

from these results. On the other hand, the willingness of

readers tentatively to accept conclusions that are known to

be supported by a formal publication accounts in no small

part for the tremendous usefulness of such journals as Biological Abstracts and Chemical Abstracts.

Occasionally you see a paper in which the author has

neglected to draw conclusions from his data. This practice

is very poor; for the author, being the one who is best

acquainted with the work, obviously should be the one

who is best able to draw the conclusions. Furthermore,

many of the readers who themselves might not be sufficiently informed on the subject to draw the correct conclusions, might very well be able to use these conclusions

once they have been drawn.

Because the conclusions are so very important, they rate

a subsection of the paper entirely to themselves. In writing

your conclusions, list each one by number so that each will

stand out separately and distinctly and be easy to read. Do

not include any discussions or explanation. If you find yourself tempted to add an explanation, you have not done a good

job of writing your “Results and Discussion.”

After presenting your conclusions, you should check back

to your statement of objectives in the introduction to make

sure that your conclusions are in line with what you started

out to do. Experiments have a way of straying from the intended path. Make certain that yours have not done this.

THE SUMMARY

Many scientists appear to be confused as to the difference between the “Summary” and the “Conclusions.” The

difference, however, is distinct. Your conclusions give only

the inferences that you have drawn from your data, whereas

your summary recapitulates the paper and gives it to the

readers in miniature. Thus in writing the summary, you

ordinarily make some mention of each of the various other

sections (introduction, methods, results and discussion,
Page 20

and conclusions) of the paper. In the summary, you mentally digest the paper for the readers and present it to them

in its barest essentials. In restricting the summary to the

essentials, however, remember to be informative -- by giving quantitative data -- and not merely descriptive.

Your summary should stand independently. On the other

hand, you should not mention any topic that was not mentioned in the body of the paper. The summary is not for the

purpose of tucking in facts that you forgot to mention earlier.

Inasmuch as the summary helps the reader to separate

the essentials from the details and to give him a final comprehensive mental grasp of the article, one should be included with every scientific paper -- even those that are

quite short.

Since your summary and your abstract deal with the

same material, the one will simply be a repetition of the

other unless you make the abstract qualitative (descriptive)

and the summary quantitative. [See Endnote #18.] An

example of how to do this is shown in a paper by Cocca

(Submitted):

SOME FACTORS AFFECTING “SAWDUST” LOSSES

DURING THE CUTTING OF FISH STICKS

By F.J. Cocca

ABSTRACT

Much fish is lost as “sawdust” in the cutting of fish sticks (a

three-step operation). As the result of a study to reduce this loss

by making the bandsaw blade more efficient, an “ideal” blade was

designed. The loss of sawdust with this blade was significantly

less than that with the blades that are regularly used. The data

obtained in this study show the great importance of using a slicing

operation rather than a sawing operation in the third step.

SUMMARY

Fish sticks are cut from frozen blocks of fillets in a three-step

operation that results in the loss of 7 to 12 percent of the weight

of the block as “sawdust”. To help minimize this loss, the

Fishery Technological Laboratory at East Boston carried out a

series of tests to determine the effect of the type of bandsaw

blade on the loss of sawdust in the bandsaw cutting operations.

Increases in width, in thickness, and in degree of set of the

bandsaw blades caused the amount of fish that was lost as

sawdust to increase. An increase in the number of teeth per inch

of blade caused the amount of fish that was lost to decrease. The

type of set -- regular set or every-tooth set -- had no effect on the

amount of fish that was lost.

From these observations, an “ideal” bandsaw blade was

designed to reduce the loss of sawdust to a minimum. The loss

incurred by this blade was 7.21 percent less than that with the

regularly used blade producing the least loss of sawdust and was

35.4 percent less than that with the regularly used blade

producing the most loss of sawdust.

In the study of the regularly used bandsaw blades, about 0.6

percent sawdust was lost in the first step in the cutting operation;

about 2 percent, in the second step, and about 6 percent, in the

third step. These data show the great importance of using a

slicing or nonsawdust-forming cutting operation in the third step.

THE LITERATURE CITED OR BIBLIOGRAPHY

In citing references, follow the format of the journal

to which you intend to submit your paper. Checking the

format may seem like an inconsequential detail, but it will

save much labor for you, for your typist, and for all others involved. Thus if you do not follow the proper format, the editor of your journal will think unkindly of you.

Furthermore, he will tend to distrust your work, for carelessness in regard to the format indicates carelessness

in regard to other matters, including the technical content of your paper.

The following examples show you the format used in

most of the publications of the federal government in citing

authors [See Endnote #19]:

Many investigators have studied various methods of

preserving fish and have made recommendations involving: 1) the

use of proper icing techniques (Kuake 1946; Carter and

MacCallum 1953; and Castell, MacCallum, and Power 1956); 2)

the freezing of fish at sea (Hartshorne and Puncochar 1952); and 3)

the addition of certain substances to the crushed ice in which the

fish is stored, in order to inhibit the growth of bacteria and thereby

reduce fish spoilage (Tarr 1956).

Antibiotics, particularly chlortetracycline and oxytetracycline

added to the ice in which the fish is stored, have been shown to be

effective in reducing the growth of bacteria in fish (Tarr, Southcott,

and Bissett 1952; Farber 1954; and Gillespie, Boyd, Bissett, and

Tarr 1955). Tarr (1956) has found chlortetracycline to be the more

effective of these two compounds.

Certain areas were explored previously by use of the U.S. Fish

and Wildlife Service fishing vessel, the John E. Cobb (Powell,

Alverson, and Livingstone 1952).

Nitrogen was determined by use of the standard techniques of

the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (1950).

Vitamin B12 was determined by a modification of the method of

Hoffman, Stokstad, Hutchins, Dornbush, and Jukes (1949).

If you give only the references that actually have been

cited in the paper, they are listed at the end of the paper in a

section called “Literature Cited.” [See Endnote #20.] If,

however, you list references that you did not cite, the heading “Bibliography” is used. The following examples, which

are presented for your convenience, show the format used

in listing the references [See Endnote #21]:

ASSOCIATION OF OFFICIAL AGRICULTURAL

CHEMISTS

1950. Official methods of analysis. Seventh edition, pp.

296-297, Association of Official Agricultural

Chemists, P.O. Box 540, Benjamin Franklin

Station, Washington 4, D.C.
Page 21

DASSOW, J.A., and CRAVEN, H.J.

1955. Reduction of curd in canned salmon prepared from

frozen fish. Part I -- Use of acid and brine dips.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the

Interior, Washington 25, D.C. (In preparation).

HART, J.L.

1949. The lengths of albacore in commercial catch.

Circular No. 17, Fisheries Research Board of

Canada, Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo, B.C.

May.

JARVIS, NORMAN D.

1943. Principles and methods in the canning of fishery

products. Research Report No. 7, U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, 366

pp. (Available from Government Printing Office,

Washington 25, D.C., $1.25.)

ODAN, RICHARD

1952. Effect of temperature and rate of thawing on drip

formation in true cod (Gadus macrocephalus).

Manuscript report, University of Washington,

Seattle, Washington, 9 pp.

SLAVIN, J.W.

1955. Technical Note No. 32 -- Freezing rates and energy

requirements for freezing package fish fillets and

fish sticks in a multiplate-compression freezer.

Commercial Fisheries Review, U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior,

Washington 25, D.C., vol. 17, No. 7, July, pp. 21-

26.

STREET, GUY

1955. New approaches in labeling. Modern Packaging

Encyclopedia, pp. 568-576, Packaging Catalog

Corp., Bristol, Conn.

TARR, H.L.A.; LANTZ, A.W.; and CARTER, NEAL M.

1950. The preparation and application of brines and

dipping solutions for processing certain fish

products. Progress Reports of the Pacific Coast

Stations, Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 898

Richards Street, Vancouver, B.C., No. 84, October,

pp. 51-57.

WIGUTOFF, NORMAN B., and CARLSON, CARL B.

1950. S.S. Pacific Explorer. Part V -- 1948 operations in the

North Pacific and Bering Sea. Fishery Leaflet 361,

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the

Interior, Washington 25, D.C., January, 161 pp.

SUMMARY

1. This manual is based upon the premises that: a) poor

planning is one of the basic causes of unclarity in scientific papers, b) properly planned and written scientific papers can be understood completely after a single

rapid reading by the intended audience, and c) a significant increase in the clarity of scientific papers

would effect almost a revolution in the progress of

science.

2. Assuming that your research is sound, the quality of

your paper will depend largely upon whether you are

willing to take the time and give the thought required in

planning and writing your paper properly.

3. Writing your paper can be made easier if you will start to

plan it from the moment that your research is conceived.

4. Make an early decision as to which one of the coworkers in your research team is to have the primary responsibility for writing the paper and seeing it through

to publication.

5. Budget sufficient time for the planning, writing, and

publishing.

6. Allow sufficient time for searching the literature.

7. Consider your statistical requirements when planning

your research.

8. Tailor your paper to your audience. To do this effectively, visualize the least-informed member in it.

9. Limit the scope of your paper. Keep in mind that: a) to

express an idea, you will require a certain minimum number of words and that you therefore should not attempt

too much for the available space in your journal; and b)

unity is just as important in scientific papers as in any

other type of publication.

10. Keep in mind that: a) almost every subject that can be

presented in a table will take less writing time, will require less space in the journal, and will be much easier

for your readers to comprehend if it is presented in a

table rather than in a written discussion; and b) two of

the secrets to making clear tables are to: 1) place the

units at the head of columns rather than in line captions, and 2) draw vertical guidelines between all columns.

11. Where suitable, present your data graphically.

12. If possible, use illustrations, for there are many subjects that cannot be presented adequately by words

alone, and almost all others can be made clearer and

more interesting if they are illustrated.

13. Use an outline.

14. Use headings, for they serve two exceedingly important functions: a) they act as signposts pointing out to

the reader changes in the direction of your thought,

and b) they serve as filing guides showing where certain information is given in the paper.

15. Your outline and the headings of your paper are closely

related in two ways: a) the headings reveal the various

divisions in your outline; and b) if you employ care in

the wording of the outline, the wording of the headings can be taken directly from the outline.
Page 22

16. There are about seven types of headings that can be

made easily on a typewriter.

17. Choose the most dissimilar types of headings that the

complexity of your outline will allow.

18. The factor determining whether you should use headings for an individual paragraph depends upon how

abruptly your line of thought has changed from the

preceding paragraph; the more abrupt the change, the

greater the need for the heading.

19. In choosing your headings, follow your outline so that

you will not mix up the types of headings illogically.

20. Unless you make adequate use of headings, you cannot achieve your maximum potential as a writer of clear

scientific papers.

21. Paragraphing has much the same function as has the

use of headings; that is, the paragraph alerts the reader

to the fact that you have finished discussing one topic

and now are ready to discuss another.

22. Your title should correctly reveal the main contents of

your paper.

23. If your title tends to sound impractical, make sure that

you show the significance of your work in the introduction to your paper.

24. Include an abstract; make it short and to the point.

25. Every scientific paper should answer the following five

questions: a) what were you trying to do?; b) why

were you trying to do it?; c) how did you do it?; d)

what did you discover?; and e) what did you conclude

from your findings?

26. Your introduction, as a minimum, should answer the

two questions: a) what were you trying to do?; and b)

why were you trying to do it?

27. Your paper ordinarily reports on the solutions to some

closely related set of problems of relatively very narrow scope, which for convenience can be grouped together and called the specific problem.

28. Your specific problem is never an isolated one, for your

findings always contribute to the solution of some problem of greater scope, which can be called the broad

problem.

29. The solution to the broad problem, in turn, contributes

to a problem of even greater scope, which can be called

the general problem.

30. Your title should reveal your specific problem.

31. The basic technique for orienting your readers to your

specific problem is first to point out the importance of

your general problem and then to show that: a) your

broad problem is necessary to the solution of the general problem, and b) your specific problem is necessary

to the solution of the broad problem.

32. In stating the objectives of your specific problem,

list each one by number and state it explicitly. From

the standpoint of clarity, numbering your objectives

and stating them explicitly are two of the most important things you can do in planning and writing

your paper.

33. The statement of the objectives of your specific problem ordinarily determines the structure of your paper.

34. In presenting your methods, give thought to whether

they need an introductory statement as to their overall

scope.

35. If your methods already have been described in the

literature, omit the details of them in your paper, but

include a brief general statement of them.

36. If your methods involved a number of consecutive

steps, then: a) number each step, and b) give the directions in imperative sentences and the explanations in

declarative ones.

37. If your work involved a series of experiments, then: a)

tell your readers how many experiments there were in

the series, b) describe the first experiment in detail, and

c) tell how each of the remaining experiments differed

from the first one.

38. To describe complex methods, analyze them into their

fundamental components; tell your readers how many

components there are and what they are; describe each

component, one at a time; and finally show your readers how the components fit together.

39. If your methods are hard to describe, first make whatever pictures and other illustrations are possible and

then build your write-up around these illustrations.

40. In writing your methods, be sure to warn your readers

of any pitfalls in them.

41. Give a full description of any samples you may have

used so that your readers can judge as to the adequacy

of these samples.

42. Make your discussion stand independently of your

tables and graphs in order that any readers who do not

have the time to study the details of your report can

still follow the main trends of your findings.
Page 23

43. In your discussion, take particular care not merely to

recapitulate the data in your tables and graphs; instead,

point out: a) the trends and correlations, and b) the

conclusions to be drawn from them.

44. In writing your conclusions, list each by number so

that each one will stand out separate and distinct and

be easy to read.

45. Make sure that your conclusions are in line with the

objectives given in your introduction.

46. In your summary, recapitulate your paper and give it to

your readers in miniature.

47. Make your summary quantitative, not merely descriptive.

48. In citing references, be sure that you follow the format of

the journal to which you intend to submit your paper.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anonymous. 1953. United States Government Printing Office

style manual. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Brown, W.D.; Venolia, A.W.; Tappel, A.L.; Olcott, H.S.; Stansby,

M.E. (Submitted.) Oxidative deterioration in fish and fishery products. II. Progress on studies concerning mechanism of oxidation of oil in fish tissue. Commer. Fish. Rev.

CBE [Council of Biology Editors, Committee on Form and Style].

1972. CBE style manual. Third ed. Washington, DC:

American Institute of Biological Sciences; 297 p.

Cocca, F.J. (Submitted.) Some factors affecting “sawdust” losses

during the cutting of fish sticks. Commer. Fish. Rev.

Jenkinson, B.L. 1949. Bureau of the Census manual of tabular

presentation. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census; 266 p. Available from: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Karrick, N.; Clegg, W.; Stansby, M.E. 1956. Composition of

fresh-water fish -- No. 1. Commer. Fish. Rev. 18(2):13-16.

Long, C.W.; Arzylowicz, R.A. (In preparation.) Photographic

device for accurately determining fish measurements.

Osterhaug, K.L.; Andrews, M. 1955. Cold storage of frozen

Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) -- No. 1. Commer.

Fish. Rev. 17(12):11-14.

Piskur, M.M. 1956. The importance of a good technical library

for research, development, and production. J. Am. Oil

Chem. Soc. 33(10): 4,18.

Prince, M.V.H. 1955. News item. Chem. Eng. News 33(34):3513.

Thurston, C. (Submitted.) Dye-binding characteristics of fishmeal protein. Part I. Some preliminary findings as to suitable dyes. Commer. Fish. Rev.

Weil, B.H., editor. 1954. The technical report: its preparation,

processing, and use in industry and government. New

York, NY: Reinhold; 485 p. [Note: This book contains a

number of excellent bibliographies covering all aspects of

technical writing.]

Young, F.N.; Crowell, S. 1956. The application of gamesmanship in science. Washington, DC: American Institute of

Biological Sciences; p. 13-14.

ENDNOTES TO THE REVISED EDITION

ENDNOTE #1

Many papers authored by NMFS employees aren’t “scientific research papers” as defined by Sanford. Those other

types of papers cover a wide spectrum of written products,

ranging from descriptive biology articles to stock assessment reports. Nonetheless, Sanford’s report is variously

useful in preparing any type of paper authored by NMFS

employees.

ENDNOTE #2

Different experts recognize different types of writing,

but most experts recognize at least five major types: expressive, creative, persuasive, expository, and technical. Some

experts lump one or more of these five types together into a

more general type (e.g., lumping expository and technical

writing together as just expository writing); more experts,

though, split one or more of these five types into several

specialized types (e.g., splitting technical writing into business, high-tech, engineering, and scientific writing).

Regardless of how many and what types of writing there

are, none of them were designed from the start; rather, each

evolved slowly to meet a different communication need.

This evolutionary process has yielded a unique combination of communication strategy, format, and style for each

type of writing. Our ability to understand the strategy and

to master the format and style of a given type of writing is

directly related to our success in communicating via that

type of writing.

It’s likely that your high school and college instruction

in writing was in a type, or types, other than technical/

scientific. Accordingly, it’s probably worthwhile to introduce or review — depending on your background — the

basic communication strategy, format, and style of scientific writing.

Communication Strategy in Scientific Writing

We seek to address two fundamental needs in writing

papers about our research for other researchers. First, if the

reader of our paper has little or no background on the subject of our research (e.g., the first-year graduate student),

then we need to create a structure within the brain of that
Page 24

and efficiently disassemble it, store it at the appropriate

sites in his/her brain, easily compare it with existing similar

information, and reassemble it so that our research is now

part of his/her knowledge.

Both of the aforementioned needs in communicating

about our research, especially the latter one, operate more

— but not exclusively — through the linear-oriented, logical-thinking left side of the brain than through the spatiallyoriented, abstract-thinking right side of the brain. To deal

with such left-brain-dominated needs, a type of writing

known as technical writing, with its unique combination of

format and style, has evolved. Those of us in the sciences

use the subset of technical writing known appropriately as

scientific writing.

Format in Scientific Writing

The basic format of scientific writing follows the progression of the scientific method. Note the following table:

Scientific Method Scientific Writing

Component Component

Observation First part of “Introduction”

Hypothesis Second part of “Introduction”

Experiment “Study Area” (if appropriate),

“Sampling Gear” (if appropriate),

“Experimental Apparatus” (if

appropriate), “Test Specimens” (if

appropriate), “Methods,” and “Results”

Theory “Conclusions,” "Recommendations,”and

“Summary” (if appropriate)

Law or principle Not applicable

Within each component of scientific writing, the basic format follows one or more logical orders: chronological, serial, etc.

Style in Scientific Writing

To facilitate comparisons among the concepts of a research paper, scientific writing stresses four style principles:

reader not only for the storage and recall of information on

our research, but also for the subsequent storage of additional information from others’ research on the same subject, and for the effective and efficient comparison by the

reader of all such information. Second, if the reader of our

paper has a background on the subject of our research (e.g.,

the seasoned scientist), and thus has already created within

his/her brain the necessary structure for information storage, recall, and comparison on that subject, then we need to

present our information so that the reader can effectively

1) definition of technical terms or phrases, either implicitly

in context or explicitly in the text or in a table of definitions,

but always prior to the use of such technical terms in dealing with concepts; 2) repetition of chosen terms and phrases

(i.e., limited varying of expressions); 3) parallel construction of clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and sections when

dealing with components of one concept or with a series of

related concepts; and 4) example or analogy for explaining a

complex concept.

For researchers, the principle of scientific writing style

which they are typically most reluctant to adopt is the repetition of terms and phrases. Often, a researcher will say to

a technical editor, “I have a long list of related information,

and repeating the same term or phrase to describe that information would be monotonous.” Just about as often, the

technical editor will respond to the researcher, “You have

just argued for taking the information out of the text and

placing it in a narrative table.” The principle of scientific

writing style which these researchers are typically nextmost reluctant to adopt is the parallel construction of clauses

and sentences.

Conclusion

The above comments do not apply to all of our written

communications about our research. Occasionally, we find

ourselves in the position of communicating in writing about

our research to legislators, news reporters, K-12 students,

etc. Depending on whom we are communicating with, we

may need to rely more on expository writing, persuasive

writing, etc. For the bulk of our communications with other

researchers, though, technical/scientific writing is the best

choice.

ENDNOTE #3

We often don’t recognize those passages in our own

writing which are difficult for others to comprehend. We

typically first learn of those difficulties when our paper is

read by a colleague or a clearing official.

So, what do we do to improve the comprehensibility

of difficult passages in our writing? While there may be

several ways to improve our writing, the one which has

overwhelmingly worked the best for me in advising authors over four decades follows this course: 1) have a

face-to-face meeting with the author; 2) take all paper

copies of the writing away from the author; 3) read out

loud the difficult passage to the author; 4) turn on a tape

recorder, and 5) ask the author “What were you trying to

say?”. In almost all cases, when we’re separated from

our original written material and have to explain our meaning verbally, then our spoken words are more organized

and understandable than our written words. With only

minor editing, the transcribed passage on the tape recorder can usually be substituted for the previously difficult-to-comprehend written passage.
Page 25

If you have imagination, then you don’t need an editor

to engage in this process — just a tape recorder. If you

have a good imagination and a good memory, then you

don’t need the tape recorder either.

ENDNOTE #4

Readers of our papers are increasingly foreign, often

with only rudimentary skills in English comprehension.

Three aspects of English writing that especially can cause

problems for foreign readers are hackneyed phrases (e.g.,

“designed from scratch”), acronyms (e.g., “ANOVA”), and

abbreviations (e.g., “vs.”). In general, avoid using hackneyed phrases and abbreviations (except as components

of bibliographies and as units of measure where there are

international standards for such abbreviations), and define

all acronyms upon first mention. It’s increasingly common

in scientific and technical monographs to have either a listing of “Acronyms”at the end of the “Table of Contents,” or

even a separate “Glossary of Technical Terms, Acronyms,

and Units of Measure” among the report’s preliminary

pages.

ENDNOTE #5

Just as it’s important to consider the number of words

used to describe your research, it’s also important to consider the size and familiarity of the words used to describe

your research. There is nothing wrong in using a long word

or an unusual word if that word effectively and efficiently

conveys your meaning. Far too often, however, the young

researcher will use a long and/or unusual word to impress

his/her colleagues, when that word is neither the most effective nor efficient at conveying meaning, and when it’s

even misleading. By the way, in your most recent study, did

you employ certain “methods” or certain “methodologies”?

ENDNOTE #6

There is, nevertheless, a role for papers which synthesize results of several studies in different disciplines, particularly when those studies collectively bear on resource

and/or habitat management issues. If NMFS’s resource

and habitat researchers do not perform the synthesizing,

then NMFS’s resource and habitat managers must perform

that task. Unfortunately, such synthesizing by managers

often doesn’t seem to take place, or if it does, it seems

quickly to become a casualty of the political process (e.g.,

resource economic concerns taking precedence over resource status concerns).

Fortunately, there are now several journals which specifically carry synthesis papers (e.g., Reviews in Fisheries

Science and Conservation Biology).

ENDNOTE #7

The increasingly common practices by scientists of

reading the works of their colleagues directly from a computer monitor screen, and of sharing the components (e.g.,

an individual table) of their own works online with their

colleagues, have a major effect on how we should prepare

our tables from now on.

Screen Reading Concerns

Virtually all computer monitor screens — just as virtually all television viewing screens — have an “aspect ratio”

(i.e., the ratio of width to height) of 4:3. To the extent practical, you should construct your tables so that their overall

dimensions also have a 4:3 aspect ratio. If a table has an

aspect ratio >4:3 (i.e., a wide and shallow table), then the

horizontal “scrunching” of the table to get it to fit on the

screen can make the size of the table’s letters and numerals

so small that they are difficult or impossible to read. If a

table has an aspect ratio <4:3 (i.e., a narrow and deep table),

then the horizontal “stretching” of the table to get it to fill

out the screen can make the bottom of the table disappear,

with the reader needing to scroll down to see the bottom

matter, and then needing to scroll back up again to see the

column headings. Aspect ratios which significantly depart

from 4:3 particularly affect readers using small monitors (e.g.,

13-inch monitors, where the 13-inch measure refers to a

single diagonal measure since the aspect ratio is fixed).

Sometimes it’s nonetheless impractical to have our tables

conform to the 4:3 aspect ratio. There are two circumstances

which typically lead to such impracticality:

1) There may be so much data in the table (i.e., so many

columns and rows both), that even if the table perfectly fills out the screen both horizontally and vertically, then the size of the table’s letters and numerals

may be so small that they are difficult or impossible to

read. As a general rule, the size of the letters and

numbers in your typed table should be no smaller

than 9 points, when the “type area” has been set up

as 9.5 x 7.0 inches (i.e., the correct dimensions for a

4:3 aspect ratio on a landscape page). Any smaller

point size appearing on a small, low-resolution screen

is difficult to read. If you feel that you need to reduce

the point size in a table below 9 points in order for the

table to conform to a 4:3 aspect ratio, then jettison the

attempt to make the table conform to the 4:3 aspect

ratio, and try to reconstruct the table to reduce the

number of columns (i.e., it’s easier to comprehend a

table via up-and-down scrolling than via side-to-side

scrolling). There are three common editorial “maneuvers” to reduce the number of columns in a table:

a) “Field Spanners” — In most tables, the left-most column (i.e., stub) and sometimes even the second-leftmost column contain “collectivizing” terms. A collectivizing term applies equally to two or more rows.
Page 26

As an example, refer to original Table 4; note the two

collectivizing terms under the “Type of Dryer” stub

(i.e., “Direct flame dryer” and “Indirect flame dryer”).

Because this stub is composed of only collectivizing

terms, the whole column can be eliminated and the

collectivizing terms can be converted into “field spanners.” Refer to the following modification of original

Table 4 to see how such a conversion appears. The

use of field spanners is probably the most useful

technique that an author has for reducing the number of columns in a table.

b) “Subtables” — Any large table can be broken up

into two or more smaller subtables. Have no hesitation in breaking up larger tables, but take two

steps to avoid any confusion on the part of the

reader: 1) number the subtables in such a manner

as to indicate the relationship among them (e.g.,

Table 1 becoming Tables 1a and 1b); and 2) reword

the subtable titles to reflect the interconnections

among them (e.g., “Table 1. Total weight of haddock captured in each of 24 trawl tows in the special sampling area,” becoming “Table 1a. Total

weight of haddock captured in each of the initial

12 (of 24 total) trawl tows in the special sampling

area” and “Table 1b. Total weight of haddock captured in each of the final 12 (of 24 total) trawl tows

in the special sampling area.”)

c) “Rotated Text” — Often, the part of a table which

drives its overall width is the collective width of

its column headings (e.g., see the following modified Table 4). Data entries in the field normally

take up less width than their respective column

headings. By rotating the text of column headings

by 90 degrees counterclockwise, the width of column headings often can be dramatically reduced.

However, don’t underestimate the difficulty of trying to read rotated text on a computer monitor

screen. In the old days — when everything was

printed on paper — it was easy enough to just

rotate the page back and forth quickly by hand on

the surface of your desk. These days, however,

it’s not that easy nor that quick to do so with the

“rotate tool” provided by your computer’s software. In almost all cases, the use of rotated text

should be the third option behind either field spanners or subtables.

2) The nature of the data may be such that there is no

recourse to having either an extremely wide-and-shallow or an extremely narrow-and-deep table. In the fisheries science arena, I’ve seen two kinds of situations

which typically force such tables. First, there can be the

need to sample a large number of stations/specimens for

just one or two measurements per station/specimen (such

as quickly determining the concentrations of oil in the

Table 4. Effect of the type of dryer upon the vitamin content of the meal as compared with that in

the press cake

Material

Composition of Sample

Moisture

(%)

Oil

(%)

Vitamins (moisture- and oil-free basis)

Riboflavin

(mg/g)

Nicotinic

Acid

(mg/g)

Vitamin B12

(mg/g)

Direct Flame Dryer

Press cake A 56.5 5.55 4.7 90 0.33

Meal A 8.4 8.57 4.5 66 0.29

Indirect Flame Dryer

Press cake B 53.6 4.80 3.8 82 0.23

Meal B 7.5 7.85 3.8 80 0.24

Note: This table illustrates the correct format for many governmental publications and can be

considered as being the standard table.
Page 27

water following a widespread oil spill). Second, the economic or biological cost of obtaining a sample may be so

high that it makes sense to measure as many aspects of

each sample as possible (such as determining the complete contaminant and bacteriological profile of just a

couple of captured specimens of an endangered species). In such situations, be prepared to use all three of

the aforementioned editorial maneuvers, but especially

subtables.

Online Sharing Concerns

Again, in the old days — when everything was printed

on paper — it was acceptable for a monograph of several

chapters or sections to have the tables (and figures) of

each chapter or section be numbered from “1” onward.

There was no chance for confusing Table 1 of Chapter 1

with Table 1 of Chapter 8; each table was physically bound

within the correct chapter. Not so today. With the ability to

select a given table (or figure) within a work, and then share

just that table (or figure) with colleagues online, and with

the ability to refer colleagues to a numbered table (or figure)

within an online work, the chances for sharing or referring

to the wrong table (or figure) have greatly increased. Consequently, within any given monograph, you should adopt

one of two conventions: 1) number every table (and figure)

consecutively over the whole work, including all appendices (e.g., Table 1 through Table 37); or 2) use “English notation,” where each table (and figure) number is composed of

a unique alphanumeric string (e.g., the first table of Chapter

8 becomes Table 8.1, the twelfth table of Appendix A becomes Table A.12).

To minimize any distortion of your tables as they are

converted from word processing software to a digital

markup language, you should use the “table formatting”

function (i.e., row-and-cell architecture) of your word

processing software. To reduce the amount of “cleaning

up” of your tables when they are received by an editor,

webmaster, or publisher, you should place the table title

and any table footnotes within cells which are integral

to that single table.

Further, to avoid even momentary confusion by your

readers, you should use letters — not numbers — for all

superscripts in the table which are both appended to numerical data and referenced to footnotes.

ENDNOTE #8

Tables 2 and 3 do not show field spanners. Refer to

“Endnote #7/Screen Reading Concerns/1/a” for a brief discussion of field spanners.

ENDNOTE #9

To use the global-search-and-replace tool of your word

processing software for treating all of your tables (and figures) at one time, you may want to have all of your tables

(and figures) in just one large file. However, when the time

comes to forward the manuscript to an editor, webmaster, or

publisher, place a copy of every table (and figure) in a separate small file, and forward both the one large file of all

tables (and figures), as well as the collection of small files

for each table (and figure).

ENDNOTE #10

Refer to “Endnote #7/Online Sharing Concerns” for a

brief discussion of numbering — a consideration which

applies to figures just as much as tables.

ENDNOTE #11

Refer to “Endnote #7/Screen Reading Concerns/1/” for

a brief discussion of aspect ratios and point sizes — two

considerations which apply to figures as well as tables.

ENDNOTE #12

Refer to “Endnote #7/Screen Reading Concerns/1/c”

for discussion of rotated text — something seen more often

in figures than tables, especially in the labels of vertical

axes of coordinate-based graphs. Although unconventional,

you should consider “stacking” instead of rotating the labels of vertical axes. Refer to the modification of original

Figure 1 to see how such a stacked vertical axis label appears. Depending on circumstances, a stacked label can

also be placed inside the axis (as intentionally shown in

modified Figure 1) to save space.

ENDNOTE #13

If an illustration does not occupy the whole page, then

you may have the option — within some limitations — of

where you place the illustration on the page. Two aspects

of brain functioning guide us in choosing this placement

on the page.

First, the right side of the brain processes images, and

the left side of the brain processes language. Since the eyebrain nerve pathways criss-cross (i.e., the left eye is connected to the right side of the brain, and the right eye is

connected to the left side of the brain), there is reason to

believe that the brain more easily processes information
Page 28

look at the relative top-bottom placement of the text and image

in the advertisement.)

ENDNOTE #14

There is an apparent irony in the use of word processing software, instead of paper and pencil, to compose our writing — whether that composition be at the

outline stage or the manuscript stage. While it’s easier

to create, insert, delete, and move text around with word

processing software, we seem less likely to perform the

latter three operations with such software than with paper and pencil.

Among professional editors, there is consensus on the

ubiquitousness of this behavior, but there is no consensus

on the cause of this behavior. The leading candidate as the

cause, though, seems to be what has been called “showroom syndrome.” Text created with word processing software often looks so relatively finished and polished — even

though it’s not — that the author is hesitant to change the

original creation.

If you’re having a hard time bringing yourself to rewrite your work when using word processing software,

even if you know the work needs to be rewritten, then

experiment by printing out a double-spaced paper copy

of the work, grabbing a colored pencil with a big eraser,

and having at it. In not all cases, but in many cases, this

technique has worked for authors whom I’ve advised on

their writing approach.

ENDNOTE #15

Sanford worked with a manual typewriter, and his recommendations on headings are based on the limitations of

such. We work with word processing software, and the

following comments are based on the opportunities that

such software offers.

Headings can either be “stand-alones” or “in-lines.”

Stand-alone headings are separated from surrounding text

typically by two preceding blank lines and one following

blank line. Nested stand-alones (e.g., see “Preliminary Considerations/Give Thought to Importance” at the beginning

of this document) are separated from each other typically

by one blank line.

There are three factors that convey the level of importance (“Level”) of a stand-alone heading; in order of importance, they are: 1) location (i.e., centered on the page, centered on the column, flush left on the column, and increasingly indented from the left); 2) the combination of type size

(i.e., measured in “points,” where each point equals 1/72 of

an inch) and emphasis (e.g., bold, underline, and italic); and

3) case (i.e., all letters of each word upper case, or only the

initial letter of each word upper case). Following is a heading level “recipe” — but certainly not the only one — which

when the illustrations are on the left side of the page, and

the text is on the right side of the page.) Research in both

the neurological and communication sciences isn’t definitive, but is supportive, of this idea. (Next time you look at a

“high-end” magazine with some concordant “high-end”

advertisers, take a close look at the relative left-right placement of the text and images in the advertisements.)

Second, if the illustration occupies the full width of the

page, but not the full depth of the page, then you may have the

option of placing the illustration either towards the top or the

bottom of the page. This is where that aspect of brain functioning known as “geographic center of attention” comes into

play: our attention is initially drawn to the upper righthand

quadrant of any page. (That’s why you always see the lead

story on the front page of every daily newspaper occupying

the upper righthand quadrant.) If you want to draw attention

to the illustration, then place the image towards the top, and

the text towards the bottom, of the page. (Next time you look at

an advertisement for a “high-end” automobile, take a close

Modified Figure 1: See Endnote #12 for description.

 10 20 30 40 50

Temperature (o

C)

10

30

20

40

50

80

70

60

90

KNO3

Concentration

(g/100 g H2

O)
Page 29

agrees with the ranking factors for assigning levels of importance to headings. Also, shown after the recipe is an

example which corresponds with this recipe.

Level of Heading Location Type Size & Emphasis Case

I Centered on page Large & bold All capitals

II Centered on column Large & bold All capitals

III Flush left on column Large & bold Initial capitals

IV Flush left on column Regular & bold Initial capitals

V Flush left on column Regular & italic Initial capitals

VI Single left indent Regular & italic Initial capitals

VII Double left indent Regular & italic Initial capitals

LEVEL I HEADING

LEVEL II HEADING

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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Level III Heading

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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Level IV Heading

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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In-line headings appear on the same line as the first line

of the text with which they are associated. Refer to “Endnote

#7/Screen Reading Concerns/1/a” to note the use of “Field

Spanners” as an in-line heading. In-line headings typically:

1) are flush left on the block of text with which they are

associated; 2) are the same type size as the associated block

of text; and 3) use initial capitals only. Consequently, inlines are distinguished from the text by their emphasis (e.g.,

bold, underline, italic, quotation marks) and by their suffixial

punctuation (e.g., colon, em-dash).

Level V Heading

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Level VI Heading

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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Level VII Heading

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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ENDNOTE #16

The contemporary preference of almost all journals in

the natural sciences is for the quantitative, or “informative,” abstract. The contemporary preference of many journals in the social sciences is for the qualitative, or “indicative,” abstract. Following is text, excerpted from CBE (1972),

discussing these two types of abstracts:

Most journals specializing in primary publication of research results prefer, or even insist on, an informative abstract, a condensed version of the purpose, methods, results,

and conclusions of that research. Most journals specializing
Page 30

in review articles prefer an indicative abstract, a kind of

expanded table of contents that contains generalized statements and directs the reader to the full article for any quantitative or qualitative data.

If you are reporting original research, and you are writing an informative abstract, identify in the abstract — as you

did in the title — the main topic of your paper. Also, state the

basic reason for doing the research being reported, indicate

the methods used, list materials studied, and briefly summarize the results and conclusions. Do not merely describe or

recite the contents of your article, e.g., “Activity of largemouth bass at various times of the day is discussed.” Instead,

tell what you did and what you found: “Largemouth bass

were most active between the hours of 0900 and 1100.”

ENDNOTE #17

Throughout his report, Sanford used the term “procedure” as the heading of the section of a paper which describes what a researcher did, and how he/she did it. Contemporary scientific writing almost universally uses the term

“methods” instead of “procedure.” That change has been

made throughout the revised and updated report.

ENDNOTE #18

Since Sanford’s time, the practice of placing a summary

at the end of a research paper has largely been abandoned.

Contemporary practice is to place a robust informative abstract at the beginning of the paper, and dispense with the

summary. There is one specialized exception to this contemporary approach: the technical report with its “executive summary.” Executive summaries largely serve the same

purpose as a summary (i.e., restating in simple language the

key results, conclusions, and recommendations of the report, without introducing any new material), but are placed

either as the last section of the preliminary pages (i.e., those

using lower case Roman numerals) or as the first section of

the text (i.e., beginning on page “1”).

The format of an executive summary differs slightly

from the format of a summary. Often, the summary will

include nothing more than numbered or “bulleted” brief

statements on the key results, conclusions, and recommendations. The executive summary always begins with

a narrative section which is a synoptic version of the

report’s introduction; then appear the numbered or

“bulleted” brief statements on the key results, conclusions, and recommendations.

ENDNOTE #19

The record for the number of authors of a single paper

is over 900! (It was a clinical study in the medical sciences;

clinics all over world were involved; and there were numerous people at each clinic who qualified for authorship.)

Clearly, there has to be a rule on how many authors of a

multi-authored paper can be listed in the in-text citation of

the paper. The rule varies from journal to journal, and you

need to conform to rule of your target journal. In the absence of any journal rule, though, it’s recommended that

you use the traditional, conservative rule of listing both

authors for a two-author paper, but list only the first author

— followed by “et al.” — for papers authored by three or

more authors.

ENDNOTE #20

The contemporary practice is to split the category “literature cited” into two categories: 1) if all of the works in

the listing are in the primary literature (i.e., anonymously

peer reviewed), then the category label remains “literature

cited”; and 2) if some or all of the works in the listing are in

the secondary literature (i.e., transparently peer reviewed)

and/or tertiary literature (i.e., not reviewed), then the category label becomes “references cited.”

ENDNOTE #21

 In the absence of any guidelines on bibliographic style

by your target journal, it’s recommended that you follow

the guidance of the Council of Science Editors (CSE, the

former Council of Biology Editors). The “Bibliography” of

this report has been restyled to follow closely, although not

exactly, the CSE guidelines.
Table 1. Scale of organoleptic ratings

Description of Flavor and/or Odor of Fish Sticks

Whole Fish Stick Component Partsa Organoleptic Rating

Normal, characteristic of fresh

product; no off-flavor or off-odor.

Normal, characteristic of fresh

product; none to trace off-flavor or

off-odor; barely noticeable.

Good

(Grade A)

Lacking normal flavor or odor of

fresh product; none to slight offflavor or off-odor; barely

noticeable.

Lacking normal flavor or odor;

slight to moderate off-flavor or offodor; definitely noticeable but not

objectionable.

Reasonably good

(Grade B)

a Breading, dark meat (including the layer of skin fat), and light meat.

Table 2. The formal table and its major parts. [The text immediately following the table number is the

“heading.” Any text at the end of the heading which is enclosed by parentheses is a “headnote.”

The text in boldface type immediately below the heading is the “boxhead.” Any horizontal line

separating the heading from the boxhead is the “top rule.” All text below the stubhead, plus the

stubhead itself, constitute the “stub.” Each repetition of two or more rows of text in the stub is

a “block” (i.e., in this table, there are two blocks, each beginning with “CENTER HEAD,

followed by “Total line caption” and seven lines of “Line caption”). All text and data below the

spanner head, plus the spanner head itself, constitute a “panel.” All text and/or data below the

boxhead and to the right of the stub constitute the “field.” ]

Stubhead

Spanner head Spanner heada

Column

head

Column

head

Column

head

Column

head

Column

head

Column

head

CENTER HEAD

Total line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

CENTER HEAD

Total line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Line caption

Cell Cell Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell Cell

a Footnote.

Page 31
Table 3. Age of all persons and of citizens by sex, for the United States, urban and rural: 1940 (Age

classification based on completed years.)

Area and Age

All Persons Citizensa

Total Male Female Total Male Female

UNITED STATES

All ages

<5 yr

5-14 yr

15-24 yr

25-34 yr

35-44 yr

45 yr

21 yr

URBAN

All ages

<5 yr

5-14 yr

15-24 yr

25-34 yr

35-44 yr

45 yr

21 yr

988 475 513

769

 26

115

139

178

205

106

567

453

 15

 73

 86

104

116

 59

328

302 265

a Includes both native and naturalized.

Table 4. Effect of the type of dryer upon the vitamin content of the meal as compared with that of the press

cake

Type of

Dryer Material

Composition of Sample

Moisture

(%)

Oil

(%)

Vitamins (moisture- and oil-free basis)

Riboflavin

(mg/g)

Nicotinic

Acid

(mg/g)

Vitamin B12

(mg/g)

Direct flame

dryer

Press cake A

Meal A

56.5

 8.4

5.55

8.57

4.7

4.5

90

66

0.33

0.29

Indirect

flame dryer

Press cake B

Meal B

53.6

 7.5

4.80

7.85

3.8

3.8

82

80

0.23

0.24

Note: This table illustrates the correct format for many governmental publications and can be considered as

being the standard table.

Page 32
Table 5. An example of how not to present the data in Table 4

Composition of Samples

Type of Dryera

Direct Flame Dryer Indirect Flame Dryer

Press Cake A Meal A Press Cake B Meal B

Moisture (%)b 56.5 8.4 53.6 7.5

Oil (%) 5.55 8.57 4.80 7.85 

Vitamins (moisture- and oilfree basis):

Riboflavin (mg/g)

Nicotinic acid (mg/g)

Vitamin B12 (mg/g)

 4.7

 90

0.33 

4.5

 66

0.29 

 3.8

 82

0.23 

3.8

 80

0.24 

a Note that this heading does not tell you what the figures in the field are about, whereas the corresponding heading

in Table 4 does give this information. b Note that the units are wrongly in the line captions rather than at the head of the columns.

Table 6. Treatment of samples

Sample

Frozen

Immediately

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 48 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 72 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 168 hr

(no. of cans)

Raw skin 1⁄2 - - -

Raw caecae 2 2 2 -

Raw livers 2 2 2 -

Raw hearts 2 2 2 -

Raw loins 2 2 2 -

Cooked loins 2 - 2 2

Cooked heads 2 - 2 2

Note: Compare this table with Table 7 as to clarity.

Page 33
Table 8. Treatment of samples

Sample

Frozen

Immediately

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 48 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 72 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 168 hr

(no. of cans)

Raw skin 1⁄2 - - -

Raw caecae 2 2 2 -

Raw livers 2 2 2 -

Raw hearts 2 2 2 -

Raw loins 2 2 2 -

Cooked loins 2 - 2 2

Cooked heads 2 - 2 2

Note 1: Compare this table with Tables 7 and 9.

Note 2: This table has the format preferred by most readers.

Page 34

Table 7. Treatment of samples

Sample

Frozen

Immediately

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 48 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 72 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 168 hr

(no. of cans)

Raw skin 1⁄2 - - -

Raw caecae 2 2 2 -

Raw livers 2 2 2 -

Raw hearts 2 2 2 -

Raw loins 2 2 2 -

Cooked loins 2 - 2 2

Cooked heads 2 - 2 2

Note: This table has the minimum number of vertical and horizontal lines required for clarity. Compare this

table with Table 8.
Table 9. Treatment of samples

Sample

Frozen

Immediately

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 48 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 72 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 168 hr

(no. of cans)

Raw skin 1⁄2 - - -

Raw caecae 2 2 2 -

Raw livers 2 2 2 -

Raw hearts 2 2 2 -

Raw loins 2 2 2 -

Cooked loins 2 - 2 2

Cooked heads 2 - 2 2

Note: Compare this table with Tables 8 and 10.

Table 11. Preference of readers regarding lining and spacing in tables as determined by a poll of 53 readers

Tables Being

Compared

Readers Preferring:

Table 7

(N)

Table 8

(N)

Table 9

(N)

Table 10

(N)

Table 7 vs. Table 8 20 33

Table 8 vs. Table 9 44 9

Table 9 vs. Table 10 42 11

Page 35

Table 10. Treatment of samples

Sample

Frozen

Immediately

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 48 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 72 hr

(no. of cans)

Held at 56-66°F

for 168 hr

(no. of cans)

Raw skin 1⁄2 - - -

Raw caecae 2 2 2 -

Raw livers 2 2 2 -

Raw hearts 2 2 2 -

Raw loins 2 2 2 -

Cooked loins 2 - 2 2

Cooked heads 2 - 2 2

Note: Compare this table with Table 9.
Table 12. Degree of subdivision used in the outline of the paper by Brown and

coworkers

Degree of Subdivision Outline

First

First

Second

Second

Second

Second

Second

First

Second

Second

First

Second

Second

First

I. _________________

II. _________________

A. _______________

B. _______________

C. _______________

D. _______________

E. _______________

III. ________________

A. _______________

B. _______________

IV. ________________

A. _______________

B. _______________

V. _________________

Page 36
Publishing in NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE

Manuscript Qualification

This series represents a secondary level of scientific

publishing in the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

For all issues, the series employs thorough internal scientific

review, but not necessarily external scientific review. For most

issues, the series employs rigorous technical and copy editing.

Manuscripts that may warrant a primary level of scientific

publishing should be initially submitted to one of NMFS's

primary series (i.e., Fishery Bulletin, NOAA Technical Report

NMFS, or Marine Fisheries Review).

Identical, or fundamentally identical, manuscripts should

not be concurrently submitted to this and any other publication

series. Manuscripts which have been rejected by any primary

series strictly because of geographic or temporal limitations

may be submitted to this series.

Manuscripts by Northeast Fisheries Science Center

(NEFSC) authors will be published in this series upon approval

by the NEFSC's Deputy Science & Research Director. Manuscripts by non-NEFSC authors may be published in this series

if: 1) the manuscript serves the NEFSC's mission; 2) the

manuscript meets the Deputy Science & Research Director's

approval; and 3) the author arranges for the printing and binding

funds to be transferred to the NEFSC's Research Communications Unit account from another federal account. For all

manuscripts submitted by non-NEFSC authors and published

in this series, the NEFSC will disavow all responsibility for the

manuscripts' contents; authors must accept such responsibility.

The ethics of scientific research and scientific publishing

are a serious matter. All manuscripts submitted to this series

are expected to adhere -- at a minimum -- to the ethical guidelines

contained in Chapter 1 ("Ethical Conduct in Authorship and

Publication") of the CBE Style Manual, fifth edition (Chicago,

IL: Council of Biology Editors). Copies of the manual are

available at virtually all scientific libraries.

edition of the United States Government Printing Office Style

Manual. That style manual is silent on many aspects of scientific

manuscripts. NEFSC publication and report series rely more on the

CBE Style Manual, fifth edition.

For in-text citations, use the name-date system. A special

effort should be made to ensure that the list of cited works contains

all necessary bibliographic information. For abbreviating serial

titles in such lists, use the guidance of the International Standards

Organization; such guidance is easily accessed through the various

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts’ serials source lists (see http://

www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/JAS.htm). Personal communications must include date of contact and full name and mailing

address of source.

For spelling of scientific and common names of fishes, mollusks, and decapod crustaceans from the United States and Canada,

use Special Publications No. 20 (fishes), 26 (mollusks), and 17

(decapod crustaceans) of the American Fisheries Society (Bethesda,

MD). For spelling of scientific and common names of marine

mammals, use Special Publication No. 4 of the Society for Marine

Mammalogy (Lawrence, KS). For spelling in general, use the most

recent edition of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of

the English Language Unabridged (Springfield, MA: G.&C.

Merriam).

Typing text, tables, and figure captions: Text, tables, and

figure captions should be converted to WordPerfect. In general,

keep text simple (e.g., don't switch fonts and type sizes, don't use

hard returns within paragraphs, don't indent except to begin

paragraphs). Also, don't use an automatic footnoting function; all

notes should be indicated in the text by simple numerical superscripts, and listed together in an "Endnotes" section prior to the

"References Cited" section. Especially, don't use a graphics

function for embedding tables and figures in text.

Tables should be prepared with a table formatting function.

Each figure should be supplied both on paper and on disk, unless

there is no digital file of a given figure. Except under extraordinary

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Manuscript Preparation

Organization: Manuscripts must have an abstract, table

of contents, and -- if applicable -- lists of tables, figures, and

acronyms. As much as possible, use traditional scientific

manuscript organization for sections: "Introduction," "Study

Area," "Methods & Materials," "Results," "Discussion" and/

or "Conclusions," "Acknowledgments," and "References Cited."

Style: All NEFSC publication and report series are

obligated to conform to the style contained in the most recent

Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Operations, Management & Information Services Staff

Research Communications Branch

Editorial Office

Manuscript Submission

Authors must submit one paper copy of the double-spaced

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NEFSC authors must include a completely signed-off "NEFSC

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"Release of Copyright" form.

Send all materials and address all correspondence to: Jon A.

Gibson (Biological Sciences Editor), NMFS Northeast Fisheries

Science Center, 166 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1026.
Research Communications Branch

Northeast Fisheries Science Center

National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA

166 Water St.

Woods Hole, MA 02543-1026

Publications and Reports

of the

Northeast Fisheries Science Center

The mission of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is "stewardship of living marine resources

for the benefit of the nation through their science-based conservation and management and promotion of the health

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Center (NEFSC) supports the NMFS mission by "conducting ecosystem-based research and assessments of living

marine resources, with a focus on the Northeast Shelf, to promote the recovery and long-term sustainability of these

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However, to assist itself in providing data, information, and advice to its constituents, the NEFSC occasionally

releases its results in its own media. Currently, there are three such media:

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE -- This series is issued irregularly. The series typically includes: data reports of longterm field or lab studies of important species or habitats; synthesis reports for important species or habitats; annual reports of overall

assessment or monitoring programs; manuals describing program-wide surveying or experimental techniques; literature surveys of

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All issues receive internal scientific review and most issues receive technical and copy editing.

Northeast Fisheries Science Center Reference Document -- This series is issued irregularly. The series typically includes: data reports

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Resource Survey Report (formerly Fishermen's Report) -- This information report is a quick-turnaround report on the distribution

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publications/).

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MEDIA

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