Cool Biology Resources To Fall In Love With – Handy Tips For Academic Writing

The study of biology incorporates everything imaginable related to life on Earth. It provides a journey through diverse life science fields, such as botany, conservation, evolution, genetics, proteomics, immunology, physiology, and zoology. We first delve into the world of plants, animals, habitats and then take a closer look at cells and microorganisms and the intriguing levels of macromolecular organization. However, choosing a research topic is an ongoing process—and it may be as difficult as finding a specialty within a broad life science field, at least for some. Once we focus on something, we search all available information about it in books and scholarly journals. Advanced web searches can be performed in Google Scholar, ResearchGate, or Mendeley Web Importer (never user-generated sources such as Wikipedia!). Then, we identify a gap in the existing knowledge and decide to be the one to bridge it. We develop a research hypothesis, test it, repeat this process several times, and then we have it: our research. All that now remains is to textually and/or graphically present our hours of labor in a well-structured research manuscript.

But where to begin when drafting your first research manuscript? Do not despair – for this road isn’t that bumpy, given that preparing a manuscript can be scary regardless of the stage of your career. For my Ph.D. research in ecology, working in the Kalahari Desert at scorching temperatures was easier than writing about it, until I found good academic writing resources, all recommending I keep it simple. I am now a published author of book chapters, articles, newsletters, and numerous technical reports––not restricted to the English language.

There are many tools and online resources that may help to craft life science papers more effectively so that you can master the skill. SciDev.Net offers practical guides on writing and submitting scientific papers and other communication skills. Nature Research journal editors have developed a series of Masterclasses, offering one-to-one interaction with experts to develop your research writing skills, with an impressive dedication to scientific writing and publishing. Whichever tool you use, be sure to visit the author information page of your target journal, as each has slightly different formatting requirements depending on readership, subject area, style, and other factors.

When it comes to style and formatting, there are some primary guidelines offered to scientific writers that indicate how to cite information and organize a research paper, such as those provided by the Council of Science Editors (CSE). Another primary style guide is the one designed by the American Psychological Association (APA) that defines the look for a professional paper (i.e., double-spaced margins on all sides), including the alphabetical arrangement of the references. The American Medical Association (AMA) also provides a must-have comprehensive style guide, covering the nuts-and-bolts topics of punctuation, capitalization, and grammar as well as recommendations on preparing your article for publication and even those issues we often tend to overlook, such as conflicts of interest or ethical misconduct. Another popular style guide developed by the American Chemical Society (ACS) is applied to the scholarly journals they publish. Simply put, their guidelines focus on the use of abbreviations (e.g., for citations) and not general formatting (e.g., font). The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) controls the conventions for publishing in their various scholarly journals in the field of microbiology. Most of these guidelines are frequently updated and have a quick guide version available, just a click away!

Let us not forget that to be a good biologist means that we name everything in a way laymen cannot easily understand. Typically, human gene symbols are italicized, with all letters in uppercase (e.g., NLGN1, for neuroligin1), unlike their protein counterparts whose symbols are not italicized (e.g., NLGN1). The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) is a resource for approved human gene nomenclature. Lucky for us, they are responsible for approving unique symbols and names for human loci (i.e., protein-coding genes, ncRNA genes, and pseudogenes) to allow unambiguous scientific communication across various life science and related disciplines. When it comes to describing species in microbiology, botany, and zoology research papers, the binomial nomenclature uses two identifiers: the genus (“generic epithet”) and the species (“specific epithet”), where only the former is capitalized but both are italicized. The Global Names Architecture provides a platform for the retrieval of names of all organisms along with information pertaining to their first publication.

As much research in biochemistry deals with the structures, bonding, functions, and interactions of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids—which form the focus of molecular biology—the IUBMB also has recommendations on biochemical and organic nomenclature, including symbols and terminology.

Another point that we must not forget in academic writing is to be thorough, pay attention to detail, and use your initiative. However, you need to follow informed-consent rules, respect confidentiality and privacy, and tap into ethics resources to minimize the risk of harm. Ethics in pharmacology research (to recognize the consumer’s health and well-being as their first priority) may not be the same as those in microbiology research (to avoid the use of microbes against the welfare of humankind). Ethical issues emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies is now a field of study––bioethics. This is essential, as most scholarly journals, if not all, require the details of all relevant ethical approval statements. Research involving human subjects must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki, a statement of ethical principles to provide guidance during medical research. Experiments with animals must also be performed in accordance with international, national, and institutional requirements. Humane treatment and minimizing animal use/number are the top priorities of most ethics committees and principles.

Before submitting your life science research manuscript for peer review, ensure that the text is organized and edited well (with respect to grammar, spelling, usage, and punctuation). The last item on your checklist should be a final run-through to fix all proofing (which are small yet significant) errors—but worry not as Editage’s English Editing with a team of expert editors is here to help you with this!

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