Papers should follow standard research publication format, such as that used in the journal Plant Physiology. They should include the following sections: introduction, methods, results, discussion, and literature cited. They do not need to include an abstract. Each student must write her/his own papers, even if you collected experimental data as a group. Papers plagiarized from another source will receive a grade of zero.
Length of papers will vary, but some guidelines follow. The introduction should probably be between 1-1/2 and 2 pages, typed, double-spaced. The methods section may be fairly brief, approx. « page. The results section may be quite brief, perhaps only one or two paragraphs of text and one or more tables and/or figures. The discussion should be approximately one page (at least). Based on these guidelines, your total paper length would be approximately four pages of text, excluding figures and references. This constitutes what I would consider to be a minimum guideline. Some papers may be longer, but quality is more important that quantity.
Following is a description of what you should include in each of the paper sections.
Introduction:
This should include a review of pertinent literature, providing background information and framework for the paper. A minimum of 4-6 publications should be cited here. It is O.K. to use textbooks, but you should also include some recent journal citations. You will need to use the search tools in the library to locate relevant articles. Since you may need to obtain materials through interlibrary loan, it is important to start on this project early.
Literature should be cited by primary author's last name and year of publication in parentheses. If there are two authors, list the last name of each author and the year of publication. If there are more than two authors, list the first author's last name, followed by et al. (Latin for "and others").
Ex. Higher plants contain both chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b (Hopkins 1995).
It is O.K. to use short direct quotes, but, if you use exact words of another author, be sure to bracket them with quotation marks and include the citation.
Your introduction should conclude with a statement describing your hypothesis or the experiment to be performed.
Methods:
Tell what you did. Be concise, specific and accurate in your description of the protocol you followed. Use past tense to describe what you did. It is O.K. to use the words "I" and "we".
Results:
Describe your results in paragraph form, referring to specific tables and figures by number. Include all tables and figures at the end of your paper. Each table or figure must have a number and a title at the top. You may want to point out maximum or minimum values, general trends, anomalous data points, etc...
Ex. Our results show an increasing trend in photosynthetic rate in response to increased light intensity (Fig. 1).
Discussion:
This section should include a discussion of your own data. Avoid simply restating your results. Instead, try to explain why you think you got the results you did, and what relevance they have for the plant under study.
Literature Cited:
List each reference cited in your paper in alphabetical order by senior author or editor's last name. This is not a bibliography; it should only include articles actually cited in your paper.
Examples:
Hartung, W., J. W. Radin, D. L. Hendrix. 1988. Abscisic acid movement into the apoplastic solution of water-stressed cotton leaves. Role of apoplastic pH. Plant Physiology 86:908- 913.
Hopkins, William G. 1995. Introduction to Plant Physiology; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Witham, Francis, H., David F. Blaydes, and Robert M. Devlin. 1986. Exercises in Plant Physiology, 2nd Edition; Prindle, Weber & Schmidt.
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