You first must explain your instrumentation and the experiment. Be sure to include in your descriptions all the conditions under which your experiments were performed, e. g. , PMT voltages, temperatures, pressures, etc . You should give enough information that if someone wanted to repeat your experiments they would be able determine what your parameters were. In addition, if your results need to be compared to another's, apples will be able to be compared with apples. Finally, since these are experimental papers, a long and tedious calculation or derivation should appear in an appendix.
Abbreviations Define all abbreviations in the body of the text the first time they occur.
Never begin a sentence with an abbreviation or a symbol. Refer to the AIP style book for the agreed upon standard abbreviations. Each figure should have a descriptive caption. One should be able to look at a figure and discern its meaning without reading the text. For example, captions for a spectrum in the ultrasound experiment in liquids should state the substance, driving frequency and temperature under which the spectrum was obtained.