Title: It needs to be an actual title describing what you did, not just the name of the experiment.
Purpose/ Abstract:
Why is it important? What did you do? What significant value did you find in the experiment?
It shouldn’t just be a summary. This is just a hook for people to read your paper. Remember you already did the experiment, don’t say “we will test” you have to say “We tested” PAST-TENSE!
DO NOT MAKE IT A SETENCE LONG
(Less than 500 words)
Introduction:
Explain the background behind the experiment, and the reason why you did this experiment. State your hypothesis explicitly, either in the into or in a separate heading labeled Hypothesis. This section should be more than 2 paragraphs. Cite properly!
Materials and methods:
This is a step-by-step section. If another researcher wanted to do the same experiment, could they have replicated it? It should explain every single thing you did. The size of this section might vary, depends in the experiment you did. Do not list steps like a recipe, rather write this as a narrative. Do not analyze any data.
Results:
This is where you talk about your data, without analyzing it. Make sure you have a graph or a table of your results. You need to have a label on the top of every figure and short description under.
Discussion:
This is where you bring everything together. You will connect your results with your purpose. Make sure this is clear for the reader to understand your thinking. Why did these data support your hypothesis or why they didn’t. This section should be longest part of your paper. Why did this experiment work? How could you make it better?
Conclusion:
Lastly have a few-sentence summary about the whole experiment. This is almost like a follow up to your purpose. Wrap up the entire experiment and why it is important in the study of human physiology
References:
These sources must come from peer-reviewed scientific papers ONLY! NO youtube, websites or lectures!
They must be formatted correctly in alphabetical order (numbering is optional)
Here are some examples from my research:
Seebacher, F. and Franklin, C. E. 2011. Physiology of invasion: Cane Toads are constrained by thermal effects on physiological mechanisms that support locomotor performance. Journal of Experimental Biology 214:1437−1444.
Tinsley, R. C., Stott, L. C., Viney, M. E., Mable, B. K., and Tinsley, M. C. 2105. Extinction of an introduced warm-climate alien species, Xenopus laevis, by extreme weather events. Biological Invasions 17:3183−3195.
Don’t reference a single paper, and also don’t reference 50 papers. 4-5 is sufficient
Make sure to have proper in-text citations
*Side notes:
-Double-spaced
-Header including last name and page number
-Each section is labeled (purpose, hypothesis, introduction, etc).