How to write a scientific text

What type of text Opinion Expertise Popular science newspaper text Scientific announcement Conference abstracts, posters Presentations Lecture Journal paper Book chapter Review paper Review of submissions/applications Comment, Blog

http://www.aai.org/about/Publications/Additi onal/Docs/AAI_Dos_Donts.pdf

http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn97895142938 01/isbn9789514293801.pdf

Opinion

Prof. Dr. Werner Ulrich Chair of Ecology and Biogeography Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection.

UMK Toruń

Header

Review of the doctorial proposal of Łukasz Banasiak

Aim

General remarks … Specific remarks to content, style, literature, possible plagiarism. etc.

…

There are no formal rules for this type of text.

Conclusion Concluding, in my opinion the doctoral proposal of Łukasz Banasiak achieves the level defined by art. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 of the Polish law on scientific degrees and titles (Dz. U. Nr 65/03 pos. 595/; March 2003). I propose to pass the proposal to subsequent steps.

Toruń, 23.07.2013

Werner Ulrich

Any scientific text has a logical structure!! Each sentence should be the consequence of the previous sentences! Avoid redundancies!

Conference abstracts

The study of diversity patterns of ground beetles on lake islands

M. Zalewski & W. Ulrich*

The question how abiotic and biotic factors influence regional patterns of species diversity is central to macroecology. However, high quality data sets that allow for the study of important patterns of species diversity simultaneously are still scarce.

Here we present first results of a holistic research program aimed to infer and to model species interactions of a metacommunity of Carabidae on 15 lake islands and two mainland sites of a Mazurian lake (Northern Poland)[1,2]. Our results about core and satellite species (Fig. 1) and associated abundance distributions and patterns of co-occurrence (Tab. 1) strongly indicate that current models of niche division, species segregation and co-occurrence aimed to model regional diversity might dismiss important aspects if they do not explicitly refer to differential patterns of dispersal.

Island Area ha No.of traps Sobs Rarefied S ST.Dev. Jackknife I Sexp Jackknife II Individuals Table 1. Ground beetles found at the 17 study sites, island area, the number of traps used, observed species (Sobs), rarefied species number and its standard This work was supported by grants of the Polish Scientific committee to WU (Nr. 3 P04F 034 22) and to MZ (6 P04F 035 14).

Poganackie Kępy I Poganackie Kępy II Poganackie Kępy III Dębowa Górka Mainland I Gilma deviation, estimated total species number, and the number of individuals found.

Tables descriptions should be self-explanatory and highlight the major results.

Mainland II Wyspa Helena Wyspa Kormoranów Lipka Mała Ilma Sosnowy Ostrów Świtałowy Ostrów Terra Dobia Ilmy Wielkie Kępa Wronia N Kępa Wronia S Total 0.01 0.9 2.1 6.84 9.9 0.92 2.3 4.19 0.2 20.09 2.08 0.03 1 0.15 0.15 10 18 25 25 29 40 20 19 23 9 30 23 31 14 16 24 19 71 2 3 6 9 6 15 6 6 9 9 3 21 3 2 3 2 2 107 16 23 26 33 39 45 33 30 52 32 42 37 44 20 20 30 28 2 2 2 2 3 3 2 2 3 2 3 2 3 2 2 2 2 13 22 30 29 34 48 24 23 27 10 33 30 34 16 20 28 21 88 13 24 31 31 37 54 27 25 29 10 34 33 34 16 21 28 21 97 55 149 206 505 996 1895 476 325 3450 459 1410 829 1704 91 102 342 258 13252 References [1] Zalewski M. 2000. Colonization, extinction and species richness of ground beetles (Carabidae, Coleoptera) on Islands of Mazurian lakes. Thesis, Warsaw. [2] Zalewski M. 2004. Do smaller islands host younger populations? A case study on metapopulations of three carabid species. J. Biogeogr. 31: 1139-1148.

*Werner Ulrich, Department of Animal Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Environmental Protection, Nicolaus Copernicus University Toruń, e-mail: [email protected]

Presentations and lectures

A concise and meaningful title Full list of authors; All authors have to agree in the latest version of the presentation Logos or affiliations of the contributing institutes

Thank you for your attention

Acknowledgments

We thank Ela Zalewska, Tadeusz Plewka, Paweł Koperski, and Ichiro Tayasu for technical help, and Helena Hercman, Magdalena Maruszkiewicz, Paweł Leśniak and Paweł Zawidzki for advice on isotopic analysis.

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Polish Science Committee to WU (N N304 372839) and to MZ (NN 304 354538). The present study was conducted using a Joint Usage / Research Grant of the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University.

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White on black Red on black Blue on black White on black Red on black Blue on black White on black Red on black Blue on black

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White on green Red on green Blue on green White on green Red on green Blue on green Use an outlook that is readable at 10 m distance!!!

What looks nice on a computer screen might become unreadable at a larger screen White on green Red on green Blue on green

The font size

This is a 20 font test sentence

This is an 18 font test sentence This is a 16 font test sentence This is a 14 font test sentence This is a 12 font test sentence This is a 10 font test sentence

This is a 20 font test sentence

This is an 18 font test sentence This is a 16 font test sentence This is a 14 font test sentence This is a 12 font test sentence This is a 10 font test sentence The font style (14 font) This is a Calibri This is Arial This is Arial Narrow This is Times Roman This is Courier This is Greek This is a Calibri This is Arial This is Arial Narrow This is Times Roman This is Courier This is Greek

The logo is hard to read Logo of the host institution (hard to read) Thanks Short acknowledgments and funding agencies Don’t use too much artwork not related to the content!! Don’t use extensive graphical gadgets!!!

Too much gadgets become boring after a few minutes!!!

How to perform a biological study Literature Defining the problem Identifying the state of art Theory Planning Data Formulating specific hypothesis to be tested Study design, power analysis, choosing the analytical methods, design of the data base, Observations, experiments Meta analysis Analysis Statistical analysis, modelling Interpretation Comparing with current theory Publication Scientific writing, expertise

Scientific publications of any type are classically divided into eight major parts

Title

Affiliations and author contribution

Abstract and keywords Introduction Materials and methods Results Discussion Acknowledgments Literature

Electronic supplements and corroborating material Internet data storages (Press releases, video podcasts, video clips, animation)

Title, affiliations, author contribution, running head

A short and meaningful title that may contain already an essential result. Bad: Species co-occurrences and neutral models Good: Neutral models predict patterns of the spatial co-occurrence of epigeic spiders in an agricultural landscape Author contribution: NG outlined the project and provided the data set. WU analysed the data and wrote the first draft. MP contributed phylogenetic and trait data. All authors contributed equally to the final text.

Running title: Neutral models and species co-occurrences Optionally, you have to provide a press release, video podcasts, and a cover photo.

Abstract

The abstract is a short text containing the major hypothesis and results. The abstract should make clear why a study has been undertaken.

Check list: 1. What s interesting 2. Major theoretical background 3. Short methods 4. Major findings 5. Major implications Abstract. Current ecological theory predicts an allometric relation between the number of species with restricted range size (endemics) and area (the endemics–area relation EAR), a pattern similar to the common species–area relation (SAR). Using SARs and EARs we can estimate species loss after habitat loss. A comparison of the predictive power of both approaches (using a patch occupancy model and data from European butterflies) revealed that the EAR approach is less reliable than the SAR. Contrary to current theory it appeared that EARs are relations in their own right that describe spatial distributions of endemic species. They do not simply follow from the underlying SAR. The implications of these results for the applicability of SARs and EARs in biodiversity forecasting are discussed.

Introduction

First of all: try to tell a story!!!

The introduction should shortly discuss the state of art and the theories the study is based on. Describe the motivation for the present study. Do not review the literature extensively but discuss all of the relevant literature necessary to put the present paper into a broader context. Shortly review and explain the hypotheses to be tested Explain who might be interested in the study. Explain why this study is worth reading!

Show that you are familiar with the current literature and the state of art.

Do not repeat textbook knowledge!!

Be careful with the literature you cite. Do not cite questionable sources!!

Particularly be carful with the citation of internet pages.

Do not cite unpublished work.

Do not use formulations and text excerpts of others (including internet sources) without citation!!

Build your text in a logical way and clarify each step in the argument. Take care of logic!!!!

Methods

A short description of the study area (if necessary), the experimental or observational techniques used for data collection, and the techniques of data analysis used.

Indicate the limits of the techniques used.

• • • • • Place necessary study site descriptions into the electronic appendix.

Be as short as possible but be precise!!

Do not describe standard methods.

When using software provide the parameter settings.

Do only describe non-standard statistical methods.

• • • Provide information on missing data.

Provide information on measurement errors and methodological drawbacks.

Provide always error descriptors for central tendencies!!

Never use the same data for hypothesis development and hypothesis testing!!!

Methods Study Area

From 2005 to 2010, we studied the initial vegetation succession in the artificial catchment Chicken Creek in north-eastern Germany (Lusatia region). Constructed in 2004/ 2005 as headwaters of the Chicken Creek stream, this 6-ha study site is part of the reclamation of an open-cast lignite mine. Sand or loamy material originating from Pleistocene sediments was used for construction of the 1– 3-m top layer of the catchment (details in Gerwin et al. 2009). Place all necessary details in additional electronic supplements.

Results

This section should contain a description of the results of your study. Here the majority of tables and figures should be placed.

Do not double data in tables and figures.

Do not interpret or discus the results.

3. Results Table 1 shows the major results. Amino acid concentration was measured twice and did not correlate with metabolic rate (Fig. 1). Probably the low temperature limited metabolic rate because there was a significant correlation between temperature and metabolic rate (r = -0.5465, F = 3.5, P(no correlation) = 0.456; not shown). Average amino acid concentration was low and is shown in Fig. 2. Metabolic rates are given in Tab. 2 and Fig. 3. 3. Results Metabolic rate (Supplement A) did not correlate (r = 0.36; P > 0.3) with the generally low (Supplement B) amino acid concentrations but was negatively linked to ambient temperature (r = -0.55, P < 0.05; Fig. 1 ).

Discussion

This part should be the longest part of the paper. Discuss your results in the light of current theories and scientific belief. Compare the results with the results of other comparable studies. Again discuss why your study has been undertaken and what is new. Discuss also possible problems with your data and misconceptions. Give hints for further work.

Do not repeat results!

Refer to each part of the introduction.

Again take care of the logic!!!! Each sentence of a paragraph should be the logical consequence of the previous sentence.

Acknowledgments

Short acknowledgments, mentioning of people who contributed material but did not figure as co-authors.

Mention the fund giving institutions

Acknowledgements: I thank Nicholas Gotelli for helpful and encouraging comments on the manuscript. Miss H. Pearson kindly improved my English. This work was in part supported by a grant of the Polish Scientific Committee, KBN No. P04-034-22.

Acknowledgments

This study is part of the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 38 (SFB/TRR 38, “Structures and Processes of the Initial Ecosystem Development Phase in an Artificial Water Catchment”), which was financially supported by the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG], Bonn) and the Brandenburg Ministry of Science, Research, and Culture (Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur [MWFK], Potsdam). We thank the Working Group Z1 of the SFB/TRR 38, who helped us to perform this study, and the Vattenfall Europe Mining AG for providing the research site. H. S. Fischer gave an introduction into autocorrelation analyses. E. Nauck implemented the figures in LaTeX. Thanks to the Technische Universitat München Graduate School for financing one research trip to Torun´. W.U. was partly funded by the NCN grant N304 372839.

References

Kotze DJ, Niemela J, Nieminen M. 2000. Colonization success of carabid beetles on Baltic islands. J. Biogeogr. 27:807–19 Ikeda, H., Nishikawa, M. & Sota, T. (2012) Loss of flight promotes beetle diversification Nature Communications, 3, 648.

Zalewski M. et al. 2012. Ground beetles on islands: on the effects of habitat and dispersal. Ann. Zool. Fennici 49: 139-151 Each journal has a different style.

Software like Mendeley or Endnote help formating according to journal styles

Mendeley as a tool for free literature exchange

Research gate

Figures

Bad Use colours only if necessary.

Empty space must not be more than half of the Figure.

Use large fonts for axes descriptors.

Do not inlcude text into the Figure.

Good Unclear charts Too much empty space Too small fonts Figure captions have to be self explaining.

Figure 1: Isotopic ratios (A, B) of δ (black dots) and δ 13 C 15 N (open circles) and the respective variances (C, D) were neither significantly (all P > 0.1) linked to the numbers of islands colonized (A, C) nor to the total abundance (B, D, number of individuals). Data for 35 species with at least five individuals studied.

Tables

Not optimal Better

The submission process Open access or not?

Be careful when selecting possible referees and editors!!

Don’t choose friends and regular co authors

Don’t be afraid of colour pictures In the cover letter you show why this submission is worth of being published in exactly this journal

Good journals require all the necessary raw data to be placed in electronic supplements.

No publication without the full set of raw data to reproduce the major results.

After the first decision How to answer referees?

Ecography Editor in Chief Dr. Carsten Rahbek Dear Dr. Rahbek: Thank you very much for the reviews and your willingness to accept a revised version of our paper ECOG-00188 entitled “Longitudinal gradients in the phylogenetic community structure of European Tenebrionidae”. Below we answer to the suggestions and comments of the referees and the handling editor, Dr. Wiegand.

Handing editor

I have now received two excellent reviews of your manuscript ECOG-00188 “Longitudinal gradients in the phylogenetic community structure of European Tenebrionidae (Coleoptera) do not coincide with the major routes of postglacial colonization” submitted to Ecography. As…

We have included the suggested analysis and the new Figure. Please see our detailed answers to each comment/suggestion below.

- References … Cooper et al. 2008 citation is missing from the list. Please, check for additional errors as well.

We now included Cooper et al. and checked the reference list once again.

- Table 1 … please, explain in the table caption what χ2 metric represents in your case

Done.

- Table 2 … please, give R2 values for the presented relationships to show their strength

We included these values in Tabs. 2 and 3.

- Figure1 and Figure 2 … place these figures in the appendix, please, and use a map or other convenient graphics instead

Here we do not agree with the referee. Both figures contain important information and are central to our interpretation. In our view they are clear. However, we leave this point and the question whether to include a map to the decision of the editor. We hope that our revised version matched the requirements of Ecography.

Sincerely Werner Ulrich Simone Fattorini

Review Review of XXX: Simulation of virtual population models Yes, there are submissions that beam us back even before the golden age of theoretical ecology. In these dark times mathematicians thought that all ecologists were stupid and ecologists believed that old Isaac is the ultimate goal. But then Robert MacArthur appeared and told us that we are not stupid and that random numbers rule the world. Later on at least we younger guys believed in the Tallahassee mafia and its guru Dan Simberloff told us not to trust in basic statistics and any rules. Since then we rack our brains about the best null and swap and swap and swap…. After destruction new hope and the metapopulation lurked behind the Finish islands. Today we are back to the basics where neutral fractality is fractal neutrality and species do not exist but Fokker –Planck and Price equations rule the world. Today ecologists speak Spanish and read Kimura and Hubbell (they rarely read Gould and Krebs). Luckily all these complications do not worry the present author and she decided to stay in the dark times of equilibrium functions to demonstrate the surprised ecologists of that times her new toy in form of a manual of some internet game (by the way, don’t you know the Ecobeaker package for undergraduate pupils, it’s much better). And we learn that animals may have one or more offspring. Surely, otherwise we won’t exist (didn’t you hear anything about resource allocation and William Hamilton?). We also learn that simulations provide standard deviations (I prefer randomization and bootstrapping of real population data). And we learn from the title that the author wants to simulate virtual models (or virtual populations or virtual virtuality?). Oh yeah, this needs real second life virtual computers! In conclusion, I strongly advice reading a concise history of ecology before publishing anything. Beam me up, Scotty.

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