The contents of this web page are intended to provide a summary of the components of a research paper. Students should refer to their test Writing in the Biological Sciences and the 21 Suggestions web page for more detailed guidelines and suggestions. Probably the best way to learn how to write good research papers is to take the information from above and keep it in mind while reading papers in a scientific journal. We have several biology journals in the WSU library. A couple of good ones for use of examples are American Midland Naturalist and Canadian Journal of Zoology .
Ecology is also useful, but the papers are more detailed.
Two examples of student research papers are provided at the bottom of this page. Establishes the relevance of the topic and provide background information 3. You may think that tasks 1 and 3 are the same, but they are not. Read the first 2-3 sentences of a few research papers and you will see that there is a consistent trend. The topic will be different, but the approach taken is not.