how to structure a scientific essay

How to Write a Scientific Essay

When writing any essay it’s important to always keep the end goal in mind. You want to produce a document that is detailed, factual, about the subject matter and most importantly to the point.

Writing scientific essays will always be slightly different to when you write an essay for say English Literature . You need to be more analytical and precise when answering your questions. To help achieve this, you need to keep three golden rules in mind.

• Analysing the question, so that you know exactly what you have to do

Planning your answer

• Writing the essay

Now, let’s look at these steps in more detail to help you fully understand how to apply the three golden rules.

Analysing the question

• Start by looking at the instruction. Essays need to be written out in continuous prose. You shouldn’t be using bullet points or writing in note form.
• If it helps to make a particular point, however, you can use a diagram providing it is relevant and adequately explained.
• Look at the topic you are required to write about. The wording of the essay title tells you what you should confine your answer to – there is no place for interesting facts about other areas.

The next step is to plan your answer. What we are going to try to do is show you how to produce an effective plan in a very short time. You need a framework to show your knowledge otherwise it is too easy to concentrate on only a few aspects.

For example, when writing an essay on biology we can divide the topic up in a number of different ways. So, if you have to answer a question like ‘Outline the main properties of life and system reproduction’

The steps for planning are simple. Firstly, define the main terms within the question that need to be addressed. Then list the properties asked for and lastly, roughly assess how many words of your word count you are going to allocate to each term.

Writing the Essay

The final step (you’re almost there), now you have your plan in place for the essay, it’s time to get it all down in black and white. Follow your plan for answering the question, making sure you stick to the word count, check your spelling and grammar and give credit where credit’s (always reference your sources).

How Tutors Breakdown Essays

An exceptional essay

• reflects the detail that could be expected from a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of relevant parts of the specification
• is free from fundamental errors
• maintains appropriate depth and accuracy throughout
• includes two or more paragraphs of material that indicates greater depth or breadth of study

A good essay

An average essay

• contains a significant amount of material that reflects the detail that could be expected from a knowledge and understanding of relevant parts of the specification.

In practice this will amount to about half the essay.

• is likely to reflect limited knowledge of some areas and to be patchy in quality
• demonstrates a good understanding of basic principles with some errors and evidence of misunderstanding

A poor essay

• contains much material which is below the level expected of a candidate who has completed the course
• Contains fundamental errors reflecting a poor grasp of basic principles and concepts

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Scientific Writing: Structuring a scientific article

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• Structuring a scientific article
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How to Structure a Scientific Article

Many scientific articles include the following elements:

I. Abstract: The abstract should briefly summarize the contents of your article. Be sure to include a quick overview of the focus, results and conclusion of your study.

II. Introduction:  The introduction should include any relevant background information and articulate the idea that is being investigated. Why is this study unique? If others have performed research on the topic, include a literature review. 

III. Methods and Materials:  The methods and materials section should provide information on how the study was conducted and what materials were included. Other researchers should be able to reproduce your study based on the information found in this section. 

IV. Results:  The results sections includes the data produced by your study. It should reflect an unbiased account of the study's findings. 

V.  Discussion and Conclusion:  The discussion section provides information on what researches felt was significant and analyzes the data. You may also want to provide final thoughts and ideas for further research in the conclusion section. 

For more information, see How to Read a Scientific Paper.  

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A Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper: A Focus on High School Through Graduate Level Student Research

Renee a. hesselbach.

1 NIEHS Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

David H. Petering

2 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Craig A. Berg

3 Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Henry Tomasiewicz

Daniel weber.

This article presents a detailed guide for high school through graduate level instructors that leads students to write effective and well-organized scientific papers. Interesting research emerges from the ability to ask questions, define problems, design experiments, analyze and interpret data, and make critical connections. This process is incomplete, unless new results are communicated to others because science fundamentally requires peer review and criticism to validate or discard proposed new knowledge. Thus, a concise and clearly written research paper is a critical step in the scientific process and is important for young researchers as they are mastering how to express scientific concepts and understanding. Moreover, learning to write a research paper provides a tool to improve science literacy as indicated in the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards (1996), and A Framework for K–12 Science Education (2011), the underlying foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards currently being developed. Background information explains the importance of peer review and communicating results, along with details of each critical component, the Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results , and Discussion . Specific steps essential to helping students write clear and coherent research papers that follow a logical format, use effective communication, and develop scientific inquiry are described.

Introduction

A key part of the scientific process is communication of original results to others so that one's discoveries are passed along to the scientific community and the public for awareness and scrutiny. 1 – 3 Communication to other scientists ensures that new findings become part of a growing body of publicly available knowledge that informs how we understand the world around us. 2 It is also what fuels further research as other scientists incorporate novel findings into their thinking and experiments.

Depending upon the researcher's position, intent, and needs, communication can take different forms. The gold standard is writing scientific papers that describe original research in such a way that other scientists will be able to repeat it or to use it as a basis for their studies. 1 For some, it is expected that such articles will be published in scientific journals after they have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication. Scientists must submit their articles for examination by other scientists familiar with the area of research, who decide whether the work was conducted properly and whether the results add to the knowledge base and are conveyed well enough to merit publication. 2 If a manuscript passes the scrutiny of peer-review, it has the potential to be published. 1 For others, such as for high school or undergraduate students, publishing a research paper may not be the ultimate goal. However, regardless of whether an article is to be submitted for publication, peer review is an important step in this process. For student researchers, writing a well-organized research paper is a key step in learning how to express understanding, make critical connections, summarize data, and effectively communicate results, which are important goals for improving science literacy of the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards, 4 and A Framework for K–12 Science Education, 5 and the Next Generation Science Standards 6 currently being developed and described in The NSTA Reader's Guide to A Framework for K–12 Science Education. 7 Table 1 depicts the key skills students should develop as part of the Science as Inquiry Content Standard. Table 2 illustrates the central goals of A Framework for K–12 Science Education Scientific and Engineering Practices Dimension.

Key Skills of the Science as Inquiry National Science Education Content Standard

National Research Council (1996).

Important Practices of A Framework for K–12 Science Education Scientific and Engineering Practices Dimension

National Research Council (2011).

Scientific papers based on experimentation typically include five predominant sections: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion . This structure is a widely accepted approach to writing a research paper, and has specific sections that parallel the scientific method. Following this structure allows the scientist to tell a clear, coherent story in a logical format, essential to effective communication. 1 , 2 In addition, using a standardized format allows the reader to find specific information quickly and easily. While readers may not have time to read the entire research paper, the predictable format allows them to focus on specific sections such as the Abstract , Introduction , and Discussion sections. Therefore, it is critical that information be placed in the appropriate and logical section of the report. 3

Guidelines for Writing a Primary Research Article

The Title sends an important message to the reader about the purpose of the paper. For example, Ethanol Effects on the Developing Zebrafish: Neurobehavior and Skeletal Morphogenesis 8 tells the reader key information about the content of the research paper. Also, an appropriate and descriptive title captures the attention of the reader. When composing the Title , students should include either the aim or conclusion of the research, the subject, and possibly the independent or dependent variables. Often, the title is created after the body of the article has been written, so that it accurately reflects the purpose and content of the article. 1 , 3

The Abstract provides a short, concise summary of the research described in the body of the article and should be able to stand alone. It provides readers with a quick overview that helps them decide whether the article may be interesting to read. Included in the Abstract are the purpose or primary objectives of the experiment and why they are important, a brief description of the methods and approach used, key findings and the significance of the results, and how this work is different from the work of others. It is important to note that the Abstract briefly explains the implications of the findings, but does not evaluate the conclusions. 1 , 3 Just as with the Title , this section needs to be written carefully and succinctly. Often this section is written last to ensure it accurately reflects the content of the paper. Generally, the optimal length of the Abstract is one paragraph between 200 and 300 words, and does not contain references or abbreviations.

All new research can be categorized by field (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics, geology) and by area within the field (e.g., biology: evolution, ecology, cell biology, anatomy, environmental health). Many areas already contain a large volume of published research. The role of the Introduction is to place the new research within the context of previous studies in the particular field and area, thereby introducing the audience to the research and motivating the audience to continue reading. 1

Usually, the writer begins by describing what is known in the area that directly relates to the subject of the article's research. Clearly, this must be done judiciously; usually there is not room to describe every bit of information that is known. Each statement needs one or more references from the scientific literature that supports its validity. Students must be reminded to cite all references to eliminate the risk of plagiarism. 2 Out of this context, the author then explains what is not known and, therefore, what the article's research seeks to find out. In doing so, the scientist provides the rationale for the research and further develops why this research is important. The final statement in the Introduction should be a clearly worded hypothesis or thesis statement, as well as a brief summary of the findings as they relate to the stated hypothesis. Keep in mind that the details of the experimental findings are presented in the Results section and are aimed at filling the void in our knowledge base that has been pointed out in the Introduction .

Materials and Methods

Research utilizes various accepted methods to obtain the results that are to be shared with others in the scientific community. The quality of the results, therefore, depends completely upon the quality of the methods that are employed and the care with which they are applied. The reader will refer to the Methods section: (a) to become confident that the experiments have been properly done, (b) as the guide for repeating the experiments, and (c) to learn how to do new methods.

It is particularly important to keep in mind item (b). Since science deals with the objective properties of the physical and biological world, it is a basic axiom that these properties are independent of the scientist who reported them. Everyone should be able to measure or observe the same properties within error, if they do the same experiment using the same materials and procedures. In science, one does the same experiment by exactly repeating the experiment that has been described in the Methods section. Therefore, someone can only repeat an experiment accurately if all the relevant details of the experimental methods are clearly described. 1 , 3

The following information is important to include under illustrative headings, and is generally presented in narrative form. A detailed list of all the materials used in the experiments and, if important, their source should be described. These include biological agents (e.g., zebrafish, brine shrimp), chemicals and their concentrations (e.g., 0.20 mg/mL nicotine), and physical equipment (e.g., four 10-gallon aquariums, one light timer, one 10-well falcon dish). The reader needs to know as much as necessary about each of the materials; however, it is important not to include extraneous information. For example, consider an experiment involving zebrafish. The type and characteristics of the zebrafish used must be clearly described so another scientist could accurately replicate the experiment, such as 4–6-month-old male and female zebrafish, the type of zebrafish used (e.g., Golden), and where they were obtained (e.g., the NIEHS Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center in the WATER Institute of the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee). In addition to describing the physical set-up of the experiment, it may be helpful to include photographs or diagrams in the report to further illustrate the experimental design.

A thorough description of each procedure done in the reported experiment, and justification as to why a particular method was chosen to most effectively answer the research question should also be included. For example, if the scientist was using zebrafish to study developmental effects of nicotine, the reader needs to know details about how and when the zebrafish were exposed to the nicotine (e.g., maternal exposure, embryo injection of nicotine, exposure of developing embryo to nicotine in the water for a particular length of time during development), duration of the exposure (e.g., a certain concentration for 10 minutes at the two-cell stage, then the embryos were washed), how many were exposed, and why that method was chosen. The reader would also need to know the concentrations to which the zebrafish were exposed, how the scientist observed the effects of the chemical exposure (e.g., microscopic changes in structure, changes in swimming behavior), relevant safety and toxicity concerns, how outcomes were measured, and how the scientist determined whether the data/results were significantly different in experimental and unexposed control animals (statistical methods).

Students must take great care and effort to write a good Methods section because it is an essential component of the effective communication of scientific findings.

The Results section describes in detail the actual experiments that were undertaken in a clear and well-organized narrative. The information found in the Methods section serves as background for understanding these descriptions and does not need to be repeated. For each different experiment, the author may wish to provide a subtitle and, in addition, one or more introductory sentences that explains the reason for doing the experiment. In a sense, this information is an extension of the Introduction in that it makes the argument to the reader why it is important to do the experiment. The Introduction is more general; this text is more specific.

Once the reader understands the focus of the experiment, the writer should restate the hypothesis to be tested or the information sought in the experiment. For example, “Atrazine is routinely used as a crop pesticide. It is important to understand whether it affects organisms that are normally found in soil. We decided to use worms as a test organism because they are important members of the soil community. Because atrazine damages nerve cells, we hypothesized that exposure to atrazine will inhibit the ability of worms to do locomotor activities. In the first experiment, we tested the effect of the chemical on burrowing action.”

Then, the experiments to be done are described and the results entered. In reporting on experimental design, it is important to identify the dependent and independent variables clearly, as well as the controls. The results must be shown in a way that can be reproduced by the reader, but do not include more details than needed for an effective analysis. Generally, meaningful and significant data are gathered together into tables and figures that summarize relevant information, and appropriate statistical analyses are completed based on the data gathered. Besides presenting each of these data sources, the author also provides a written narrative of the contents of the figures and tables, as well as an analysis of the statistical significance. In the narrative, the writer also connects the results to the aims of the experiment as described above. Did the results support the initial hypothesis? Do they provide the information that was sought? Were there problems in the experiment that compromised the results? Be careful not to include an interpretation of the results; that is reserved for the Discussion section.

The writer then moves on to the next experiment. Again, the first paragraph is developed as above, except this experiment is seen in the context of the first experiment. In other words, a story is being developed. So, one commonly refers to the results of the first experiment as part of the basis for undertaking the second experiment. “In the first experiment we observed that atrazine altered burrowing activity. In order to understand how that might occur, we decided to study its impact on the basic biology of locomotion. Our hypothesis was that atrazine affected neuromuscular junctions. So, we did the following experiment..”

The Results section includes a focused critical analysis of each experiment undertaken. A hallmark of the scientist is a deep skepticism about results and conclusions. “Convince me! And then convince me again with even better experiments.” That is the constant challenge. Without this basic attitude of doubt and willingness to criticize one's own work, scientists do not get to the level of concern about experimental methods and results that is needed to ensure that the best experiments are being done and the most reproducible results are being acquired. Thus, it is important for students to state any limitations or weaknesses in their research approach and explain assumptions made upfront in this section so the validity of the research can be assessed.

The Discussion section is the where the author takes an overall view of the work presented in the article. First, the main results from the various experiments are gathered in one place to highlight the significant results so the reader can see how they fit together and successfully test the original hypotheses of the experiment. Logical connections and trends in the data are presented, as are discussions of error and other possible explanations for the findings, including an analysis of whether the experimental design was adequate. Remember, results should not be restated in the Discussion section, except insofar as it is absolutely necessary to make a point.

Second, the task is to help the reader link the present work with the larger body of knowledge that was portrayed in the Introduction . How do the results advance the field, and what are the implications? What does the research results mean? What is the relevance? 1 , 3

Lastly, the author may suggest further work that needs to be done based on the new knowledge gained from the research.

Supporting Documentation and Writing Skills

Tables and figures are included to support the content of the research paper. These provide the reader with a graphic display of information presented. Tables and figures must have illustrative and descriptive titles, legends, interval markers, and axis labels, as appropriate; should be numbered in the order that they appear in the report; and include explanations of any unusual abbreviations.

The final section of the scientific article is the Reference section. When citing sources, it is important to follow an accepted standardized format, such as CSE (Council of Science Editors), APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), or CMS (Chicago Manual of Style). References should be listed in alphabetical order and original authors cited. All sources cited in the text must be included in the Reference section. 1

When writing a scientific paper, the importance of writing concisely and accurately to clearly communicate the message should be emphasized to students. 1 – 3 Students should avoid slang and repetition, as well as abbreviations that may not be well known. 1 If an abbreviation must be used, identify the word with the abbreviation in parentheses the first time the term is used. Using appropriate and correct grammar and spelling throughout are essential elements of a well-written report. 1 , 3 Finally, when the article has been organized and formatted properly, students are encouraged to peer review to obtain constructive criticism and then to revise the manuscript appropriately. Good scientific writing, like any kind of writing, is a process that requires careful editing and revision. 1

A key dimension of NRC's A Framework for K–12 Science Education , Scientific and Engineering Practices, and the developing Next Generation Science Standards emphasizes the importance of students being able to ask questions, define problems, design experiments, analyze and interpret data, draw conclusions, and communicate results. 5 , 6 In the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, we found the guidelines presented in this article useful for high school science students because this group of students (and probably most undergraduates) often lack in understanding of, and skills to develop and write, the various components of an effective scientific paper. Students routinely need to focus more on the data collected and analyze what the results indicated in relation to the research question/hypothesis, as well as develop a detailed discussion of what they learned. Consequently, teaching students how to effectively organize and write a research report is a critical component when engaging students in scientific inquiry.

Acknowledgments

This article was supported by a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) grant (Award Number R25RR026299) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. The SEPA program at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee is part of the Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, Community Outreach and Education Core, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Award Number P30ES004184). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

Writing an Introduction for a Scientific Paper

Dr. michelle harris, dr. janet batzli, biocore.

This section provides guidelines on how to construct a solid introduction to a scientific paper including background information, study question , biological rationale, hypothesis , and general approach . If the Introduction is done well, there should be no question in the reader’s mind why and on what basis you have posed a specific hypothesis.

Broad Question : based on an initial observation (e.g., “I see a lot of guppies close to the shore. Do guppies like living in shallow water?”). This observation of the natural world may inspire you to investigate background literature or your observation could be based on previous research by others or your own pilot study. Broad questions are not always included in your written text, but are essential for establishing the direction of your research.

Background Information : key issues, concepts, terminology, and definitions needed to understand the biological rationale for the experiment. It often includes a summary of findings from previous, relevant studies. Remember to cite references, be concise, and only include relevant information given your audience and your experimental design. Concisely summarized background information leads to the identification of specific scientific knowledge gaps that still exist. (e.g., “No studies to date have examined whether guppies do indeed spend more time in shallow water.”)

Testable Question : these questions are much more focused than the initial broad question, are specific to the knowledge gap identified, and can be addressed with data. (e.g., “Do guppies spend different amounts of time in water <1 meter deep as compared to their time in water that is >1 meter deep?”)

Biological Rationale : describes the purpose of your experiment distilling what is known and what is not known that defines the knowledge gap that you are addressing. The “BR” provides the logic for your hypothesis and experimental approach, describing the biological mechanism and assumptions that explain why your hypothesis should be true.

The biological rationale is based on your interpretation of the scientific literature, your personal observations, and the underlying assumptions you are making about how you think the system works. If you have written your biological rationale, your reader should see your hypothesis in your introduction section and say to themselves, “Of course, this hypothesis seems very logical based on the rationale presented.”

• A thorough rationale defines your assumptions about the system that have not been revealed in scientific literature or from previous systematic observation. These assumptions drive the direction of your specific hypothesis or general predictions.
• Defining the rationale is probably the most critical task for a writer, as it tells your reader why your research is biologically meaningful. It may help to think about the rationale as an answer to the questions— how is this investigation related to what we know, what assumptions am I making about what we don’t yet know, AND how will this experiment add to our knowledge? *There may or may not be broader implications for your study; be careful not to overstate these (see note on social justifications below).
• Expect to spend time and mental effort on this. You may have to do considerable digging into the scientific literature to define how your experiment fits into what is already known and why it is relevant to pursue.
• Be open to the possibility that as you work with and think about your data, you may develop a deeper, more accurate understanding of the experimental system. You may find the original rationale needs to be revised to reflect your new, more sophisticated understanding.
• As you progress through Biocore and upper level biology courses, your rationale should become more focused and matched with the level of study e ., cellular, biochemical, or physiological mechanisms that underlie the rationale. Achieving this type of understanding takes effort, but it will lead to better communication of your science.

***Special note on avoiding social justifications: You should not overemphasize the relevance of your experiment and the possible connections to large-scale processes. Be realistic and logical —do not overgeneralize or state grand implications that are not sensible given the structure of your experimental system. Not all science is easily applied to improving the human condition. Performing an investigation just for the sake of adding to our scientific knowledge (“pure or basic science”) is just as important as applied science. In fact, basic science often provides the foundation for applied studies.

Hypothesis / Predictions : specific prediction(s) that you will test during your experiment. For manipulative experiments, the hypothesis should include the independent variable (what you manipulate), the dependent variable(s) (what you measure), the organism or system , the direction of your results, and comparison to be made.

If you are doing a systematic observation , your hypothesis presents a variable or set of variables that you predict are important for helping you characterize the system as a whole, or predict differences between components/areas of the system that help you explain how the system functions or changes over time.

Experimental Approach : Briefly gives the reader a general sense of the experiment, the type of data it will yield, and the kind of conclusions you expect to obtain from the data. Do not confuse the experimental approach with the experimental protocol . The experimental protocol consists of the detailed step-by-step procedures and techniques used during the experiment that are to be reported in the Methods and Materials section.

Some Final Tips on Writing an Introduction

• As you progress through the Biocore sequence, for instance, from organismal level of Biocore 301/302 to the cellular level in Biocore 303/304, we expect the contents of your “Introduction” paragraphs to reflect the level of your coursework and previous writing experience. For example, in Biocore 304 (Cell Biology Lab) biological rationale should draw upon assumptions we are making about cellular and biochemical processes.
• Be Concise yet Specific: Remember to be concise and only include relevant information given your audience and your experimental design. As you write, keep asking, “Is this necessary information or is this irrelevant detail?” For example, if you are writing a paper claiming that a certain compound is a competitive inhibitor to the enzyme alkaline phosphatase and acts by binding to the active site, you need to explain (briefly) Michaelis-Menton kinetics and the meaning and significance of Km and Vmax. This explanation is not necessary if you are reporting the dependence of enzyme activity on pH because you do not need to measure Km and Vmax to get an estimate of enzyme activity.
• Another example: if you are writing a paper reporting an increase in Daphnia magna heart rate upon exposure to caffeine you need not describe the reproductive cycle of magna unless it is germane to your results and discussion. Be specific and concrete, especially when making introductory or summary statements.

Where Do You Discuss Pilot Studies? Many times it is important to do pilot studies to help you get familiar with your experimental system or to improve your experimental design. If your pilot study influences your biological rationale or hypothesis, you need to describe it in your Introduction. If your pilot study simply informs the logistics or techniques, but does not influence your rationale, then the description of your pilot study belongs in the Materials and Methods section.  

How will introductions be evaluated? The following is part of the rubric we will be using to evaluate your papers.

Inquiry and Analysis in Biology

3 the structure of scientific writing.

Learning Objectives

Understand the basic sections of scientific papers.

Develop a plan for how to read science and write your paper.

3.1 Pieces of Papers

There are millions of scientific papers in published journals and thousands of university lab courses that require scientific papers in some form. The vast majority have these sections:

Introduction

Later chapters of this book will discuss each of these in detail. In this chapter, we briefly introduce each section and then provide a guide for how to approach your writing project so that these rigid sections become a fluid and interesting scientific story. The lecture for this section is here: Lecture Link

• Short and descriptive
• One or two sentences that introduce the topic.
• One sentence that states your hypothesis.
• One sentence that briefly states what you did for methods.
• Two-three sentences of the main results with some quantitative information as needed (but no p-values).
• One or two sentences that summarize the main finding.
• What big question are you going to answer for us?
• Why is this question important?
• Lots of references
• 4-5 paragraphs is usually plenty.
• What did you do to answer this important question?
• How did you analyze your data?
• Write what you did in a way that other people could repeat it.
• Doesn’t matter that your instructor knows what you did. It just matters that other scientists could understand it.
• Few references.
• 2-8 paragraphs is usually plenty.
• Write what you discovered.
• Clear and simple and quantitative.
• Don’t interpret anything. Just report the basic results.
• Usually zero references here.
• 1-4 paragraphs is usually plenty.
• Now you can interpret
• The most important result of this study was…
• Lots of references.
• 4-6 paragraphs is usually plenty.
• What is known and unknown?
• Establishes trust between writer and reader.
• Gives credit to other ideas.
• Pick one format (there are lots of ways to write citations) and stick to it.
• Summary statistics or raw data
• Make the font readable
• Make them as simple as possible
• The reader should be able to guess what the figure axes will be based on the written sections above. No surprises.

3.2 Putting it all together

You are probably familiar with some or all of these sections of a scientific paper. The next challenge is harder - finding a way to put these sections together so that they result in an understandable and perhaps even enjoyable thing to read. That is the hard part, and it’s why you’re taking this class or reading this book. Here are some tips to get you started.

• Hourglass Structure

Think of a scientific paper as having a beginning that sets out the broad ideas, a middle that has all of the technical details, and an end that leaves you with a core take-home message. A common way to visualize that is with an hourglass in which each each section of the paper moves from top to bottom (Fig. 1). The narrower sections have technical details that are relevant to your specific study. The broader sections relate those details to broader ideas. Often it can be easier to write the middle parts first.

Figure 3.1: The hourglass structure of a scientific paper. The width of the hourglass reflects the purpose of each secion. The overall paper leads the reader from a broad concept to specific methods and results. Then it tells the reader how those specific results have changed our understanding of the broader concept in the introduction.

• Figures First

One of our favorite ways to start writing a paper is to not write at all, but instead to work on the figures first. By figures, we mean the plots (or charts or data visualizations, etc) that show your scientific results.

Here’s an example using a manuscript that one of us wrote (Wesner et al. 2020) .

Figure 3.2: The final paper for Wesner et al. 2020 had lots of technical details and broader context about COVID hospitalizations (left). But it started with only a single figure (right).

Figure 3.3: The initial figure. We made this first and then wrote the rest of the paper around it.

We spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this figure, because we used it to guide our writing. A well-made figure is more than just a visualization. It it also an outline for the paper itself. Here are some examples, linking parts of the graph to sections of the written text.

y-axis The y-axis says “Cumulative Hospitalizations”. As a reader, if this figure was all we had seen, we could deduce that the paper had something to do with hospitalization trends over time. That’s not trivial. There are millions of scientific papers published each year on a vast array of disciplines (biology, physics, math, sociology, etc). With just the y-axis here, we now know that this paper is probably in the field of medicine or public health. The axis also starts at zero, so we can surmise that this study is measuring hospitalizations at the beginning of whatever is causing them.

x-axis The x-axis has abbreviations for seven months, so we can assume that one predictor variable here is time and that the duration of the study is less than one year.

key There are three time trends presented. One of them is for All of South Dakota. The others are for a county (Minnehaha County) and everything Outside of Minnehaha County. As a reader, we would use this information to guide us by finding the definitions of these groups in the text.

panels The three time trends are presented across two models (Model 1 and Model 2), shown in the upper and lower panels. We can’t tell much about those models from the plot alone, but this gives us something to search for in the text.

data The plot appears to show individual data points, presumably of the number of cumulative hospitalizations on each day. If we counted them all up, we could know exactly how many data points are in the analysis.

fitted lines Corresponding to the data are a green, orange, or purple line with some shading. It is not clear from the plot along what these represent, and there is an odd-looking change in the shading after the data points.

Even from this seemingly simple plot, we can glean a lot about the study before we’ve ever read a word of the paper. But there is a lot we still don’t know. Who is being hospitalized? What are they being hospitalized for? What are the two models? What’s up with the change in shading after the data end? As a writer, it is your job to explain these things in the text.

A well-written paper provides details and context in the written sections of the paper that make it clear why the study was done (and why the plot is important to understand). Here are some examples.

Title: Forecasting hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in South Dakota, USA. The title sheds a lot of light on the figure. We can assume that the y-axis in the figure is probably hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients in South Dakota.

Anticipating the number of hospital beds needed for patients with COVID-19 remains a challenge. Early efforts to predict hospital bed needs focused on deriving predictions from SIR models, largely at the level of countries, provinces, or states…

The first two sentences of the abstract give further clues as to why the y-axis in the figure is important to know about. We want to know about hospitalizations COVID-19 so that we can better anticipate the health care infrastructure that might be needed. According to the authors, doing that is a “challenge”, and other studies have addressed that challenge in varying ways.

• Introduction:

Here are the first sentences of each paragraph of the introduction.

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and has since spread globally. The disease is caused by SARS-CoV-2… Predicting hospitalization needs due to COVID-19 may be particularly challenging in rural areas. For example, relative …. To our knowledge, there are no published studies that model hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in rural and low resource settings. Here, we modeled cumulative hospitalizations in an urban (Minnehaha) versus rural population within South Dakota using a Bayesian non-linear Weibull function. Because early predictions …

From skimming just the first sentences of the introduction, we’ve discovered that the study is important (according to the authors, anyway) because it represents hospitalization trends in an urban (Minnehaha) and rural setting. This helps to explain the key in the plot above. We shouldn’t just take the author’s word for it. If we were skeptical about why this is important to study, then we could find more justifications in the rest of the introduction. But scanning the first sentences gives us a quick way to judge the paper’s context.

We fit the Weibull function to two sets of data that describe 1) the cumulative hospitalizations for the state of South Dakota and 2) the cumulative hospitalizations for subgroups of Minnehaha County and the rest of South Dakota.

This sentence from the methods resolves the two panels . Now we know that the authors fit the data in two ways and that model 2 appears to use data that are subgroups of model 1.

At the state level, model 1 predicted a total of 876 hospitalizations (median) in South Dakota (90% CrI: 834-926, Table 2). The inflection point was predicted at 37 days after the first hospitalization, suggesting that the peak rate of hospitalizations occurred around April 20, 2020 (Table 2). In contrast, the model with group-level effects clearly showed that hospitalizations trends differed in Minnehaha County verses the rest of South Dakota…

The results section here is three paragraphs long, and we’ve only pasted a few sentences from it. In the results, we can expect to find quantitative summaries that describe what we see in the graph.

• Discussion:

The most important result of this study is that modeling trends separately in urban versus rural parts of a state population reveal different projections of cumulative hospitalizations than if modeled only using state-level data. In particular, the model…

The discussion continues to provide context for the details in the rest of the paper. Now we can see what the authors think is the most important result, and how the patterns in the plot reinforce that result. We don’t have to agree with this. There are other parts to the paper and maybe we think those are more important…or that the paper is not really interesting at all. That is all fine. The main point is that we are able to judge the work based on clearly written text.

This method - Figures First - is helpful in two ways. 1) It helps us to organize our writing, and 2) It helps us to quickly read and understand other scientific papers. Try it out!

3.3 How to Read a Scientific Paper

The same features that help you write a scientific paper can also help to read one. Here are some tips that no one ever told us as undergraduates:

You don’t need to start at the beginning

Just because a scientific paper starts with an Introduction doesn’t mean you need to read that part first. In our own reading, we often do this:

Read the abstract and look for the main conclusions

Look at the figures or tables. Are the main conclusions obvious in the figures or tables? If not, there is reason to worry. For example, if the abstract says “Insect abundance declined by 40% in the acid treatment relative to the control”, then we better be able to find a figure that shows insect abundance on the y-axis and the two treatments (control and acid) on the x-axis. If we see instead a figure with insect diversity on the y-axis and three treatments on the x-axis, then we know this paper is going to be difficult to understand. Maybe we should move on.

After checking the abstract and the figures, we then read the introduction. It should tell us why the authors think this study is important. If we were reading the paper to learn about gene methylation, but the introduction is focused on a statistical procedure, then perhaps this paper isn’t going to answer the question we thought. Maybe we should move to a different paper.

If we’ve committed to the paper, then we read the main results section and perhaps skim the discussion, looking for clues as to what the most important findings are and how they generate new knowledge.

Finally, we parse the methods and analyses. Do we agree with these methods? Did they reflect the goals of the study? Do the analyses make sense? Sometimes we discover that the methods are faulty, even if the paper is in a peer-reviewed journal. If we like the conclusion, but disagree with the methods, then maybe the conclusion is wrong, too.

If all of the above boxes check out, then we can decide to use that paper in our own work and cite it.

It doesn’t need to take forever to read a paper

Once you get a feel for parsing papers, then you can usually proceed through the steps above pretty quickly. Often we might skim 4-5 papers before finally finding one that reports on a topic we’re interested in. Of those, we might fully read only a handful of the most relevant papers. The whole process of deciding on a paper can take just a few minutes. In fact, you can probably tell within 30-seconds whether you want to commit more time to the paper or move on.

You don’t need to understand every word

You will rarely read a scientific paper in which you understand everything right off the bat. For one of us (Wesner), our field of study is insect and fish ecology. When reading papers in our expertise, we can usually understand them pretty easily, but only after doing it repeatedly over 15 years. But every other paper in a new discipline has new terminology. It’s slower for us. That’s OK. Don’t get caught up in the jargon . You can learn that later. If it seems important to know right away, then just look it up. Otherwise, get comfortable with not knowing everything. When reading a paper, focus on the broad picture. Look at the discussion to see what the authors thought was important. If it isn’t clear from the discussion, then maybe the authors themselves don’t actually know what was important. Move on to a different paper and come back again later.

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Did you ever imagine that essay writing was just for students in the Humanities? Well, think again! 

For science students, tackling a science essay might seem challenging, as it not only demands a deep understanding of the subject but also strong writing skills. 

However, fret not because we've got your back!

With the right steps and tips, you can write an engaging and informative science essay easily!

This blog will take you through all the important steps of writing a science essay, from choosing a topic to presenting the final work.

So, let's get into it!

• 1. What Is a Science Essay?
• 2. How To Write a Science Essay?
• 3. How to Structure a Science Essay?
• 4. Science Essay Examples
• 5. How to Choose the Right Science Essay Topic
• 6. Science Essay Topics
• 7. Science Essay Writing Tips

What Is a Science Essay?

A science essay is an academic paper focusing on a scientific topic from physics, chemistry, biology, or any other scientific field.

Science essays are mostly expository. That is, they require you to explain your chosen topic in detail. However, they can also be descriptive and exploratory.

A descriptive science essay aims to describe a certain scientific phenomenon according to established knowledge.

On the other hand, the exploratory science essay requires you to go beyond the current theories and explore new interpretations.

So before you set out to write your essay, always check out the instructions given by your instructor. Whether a science essay is expository or exploratory must be clear from the start. Or, if you face any difficulty, you can take help from a science essay writer as well. 

Moreover, check out this video to understand scientific writing in detail.

Now that you know what it is, let's look at the steps you need to take to write a science essay. 

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How To Write a Science Essay?

Writing a science essay is not as complex as it may seem. All you need to do is follow the right steps to create an impressive piece of work that meets the assigned criteria.

Here's what you need to do:

Choose Your Topic

A good topic forms the foundation for an engaging and well-written essay. Therefore, you should ensure that you pick something interesting or relevant to your field of study. 

To choose a good topic, you can brainstorm ideas relating to the subject matter. You may also find inspiration from other science essays or articles about the same topic.

Conduct Research

Once you have chosen your topic, start researching it thoroughly to develop a strong argument or discussion in your essay. 

Make sure you use reliable sources and cite them properly . You should also make notes while conducting your research so that you can reference them easily when writing the essay. Or, you can get expert assistance from an essay writing service to manage your citations. 

Create an Outline

A good essay outline helps to organize the ideas in your paper. It serves as a guide throughout the writing process and ensures you don’t miss out on important points.

An outline makes it easier to write a well-structured paper that flows logically. It should be detailed enough to guide you through the entire writing process.

However, your outline should be flexible, and it's sometimes better to change it along the way to improve your structure.

Start Writing

Once you have a good outline, start writing the essay by following your plan.

The first step in writing any essay is to draft it. This means putting your thoughts down on paper in a rough form without worrying about grammar or spelling mistakes.

So begin your essay by introducing the topic, then carefully explain it using evidence and examples to support your argument.

Don't worry if your first draft isn't perfect - it's just the starting point!

Proofread & Edit

After finishing your first draft, take time to proofread and edit it for grammar and spelling mistakes.

Proofreading is the process of checking for grammatical mistakes. It should be done after you have finished writing your essay.

Editing, on the other hand, involves reviewing the structure and organization of your essay and its content. It should be done before you submit your final work.

Both proofreading and editing are essential for producing a high-quality essay. Make sure to give yourself enough time to do them properly!

After revising the essay, you should format it according to the guidelines given by your instructor. This could involve using a specific font size, page margins, or citation style.

Most science essays are written in Times New Roman font with 12-point size and double spacing. The margins should be 1 inch on all sides, and the text should be justified.

In addition, you must cite your sources properly using a recognized citation style such as APA , Chicago , or Harvard . Make sure to follow the guidelines closely so that your essay looks professional.

Following these steps will help you create an informative and well-structured science essay that meets the given criteria.

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How to Structure a Science Essay?

A basic science essay structure includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. 

Let's look at each of these briefly.

• Introduction

Your essay introduction should introduce your topic and provide a brief overview of what you will discuss in the essay. It should also state your thesis or main argument.

For instance, a thesis statement for a science essay could be, 

"The human body is capable of incredible feats, as evidenced by the many athletes who have competed in the Olympic games."

The body of your essay will contain the bulk of your argument or discussion. It should be divided into paragraphs, each discussing a different point.

For instance, imagine you were writing about sports and the human body. 

Your first paragraph can discuss the physical capabilities of the human body. 

The second paragraph may be about the physical benefits of competing in sports. 

Similarly, in the third paragraph, you can present one or two case studies of specific athletes to support your point. 

Once you have explained all your points in the body, it’s time to conclude the essay.

Your essay conclusion should summarize the main points of your essay and leave the reader with a sense of closure.

In the conclusion, you reiterate your thesis and sum up your arguments. You can also suggest implications or potential applications of the ideas discussed in the essay. 

By following this structure, you will create a well-organized essay.

Check out a few example essays to see this structure in practice.

Science Essay Examples

A great way to get inspired when writing a science essay is to look at other examples of successful essays written by others. 

Here are some examples that will give you an idea of how to write your essay.

Science Essay About Genetics - Science Essay Example

Environmental Science Essay Example | PDF Sample

The Science of Nanotechnology

Science, Non-Science, and Pseudo-Science

The Science Of Science Education

Science in our Daily Lives

Short Science Essay Example

Let’s take a look at a short science essay: 

Want to read more essay examples? Here, you can find more science essay examples to learn from.

How to Choose the Right Science Essay Topic

Choosing the right science essay topic is a critical first step in crafting a compelling and engaging essay. Here's a concise guide on how to make this decision wisely:

• Consider Your Interests: Start by reflecting on your personal interests within the realm of science. Selecting a topic that genuinely fascinates you will make the research and writing process more enjoyable and motivated.
• Relevance to the Course: Ensure that your chosen topic aligns with your course or assignment requirements. Read the assignment guidelines carefully to understand the scope and focus expected by your instructor.
• Current Trends and Issues: Stay updated with the latest scientific developments and trends. Opting for a topic that addresses contemporary issues not only makes your essay relevant but also demonstrates your awareness of current events in the field.
• Narrow Down the Scope: Science is vast, so narrow your topic to a manageable scope. Instead of a broad subject like "Climate Change," consider a more specific angle like "The Impact of Melting Arctic Ice on Global Sea Levels."
• Available Resources: Ensure that there are sufficient credible sources and research materials available for your chosen topic. A lack of resources can hinder your research efforts.
• Discuss with Your Instructor: If you're uncertain about your topic choice, don't hesitate to consult your instructor or professor. They can provide valuable guidance and may even suggest specific topics based on your academic goals.

Science Essay Topics

Choosing an appropriate topic for a science essay is one of the first steps in writing a successful paper.

Here are a few science essay topics to get you started:

• How space exploration affects our daily lives?
• How has technology changed our understanding of medicine?
• Are there ethical considerations to consider when conducting scientific research?
• How does climate change affect the biodiversity of different parts of the world?
• How can artificial intelligence be used in medicine?
• What impact have vaccines had on global health?
• What is the future of renewable energy?
• How do we ensure that genetically modified organisms are safe for humans and the environment?
• The influence of social media on human behavior: A social science perspective
• What are the potential risks and benefits of stem cell therapy?

Important science topics can cover anything from space exploration to chemistry and biology. So you can choose any topic according to your interests!

Need more topics? We have gathered 100+ science essay topics to help you find a great topic!

Continue reading to find some tips to help you write a successful science essay. 

Science Essay Writing Tips

Once you have chosen a topic and looked at examples, it's time to start writing the science essay.

Here are some key tips for a successful essay:

• Research thoroughly

Make sure you do extensive research before you begin writing your paper. This will ensure that the facts and figures you include are accurate and supported by reliable sources.

• Use clear language

Avoid using jargon or overly technical language when writing your essay. Plain language is easier to understand and more engaging for readers.

• Referencing

Always provide references for any information you include in your essay. This will demonstrate that you acknowledge other people's work and show that the evidence you use is credible.

Make sure to follow the basic structure of an essay and organize your thoughts into clear sections. This will improve the flow and make your essay easier to read.

• Ask someone to proofread

It’s also a good idea to get someone else to proofread your work as they may spot mistakes that you have missed.

These few tips will help ensure that your science essay is well-written and informative!

You've learned the steps to writing a successful science essay and looked at some examples and topics to get you started. 

Make sure you thoroughly research, use clear language, structure your thoughts, and proofread your essay. With these tips, you’re sure to write a great science essay! 

Do you still need expert help writing a science essay? Our science essay writing service is here to help. With our team of professional writers, you can rest assured that your essay will be written to the highest standards.

Contact our essay service now to get started!

Also, do not forget to try our essay typer tool for quick and cost-free aid with your essays!

Write Essay Within 60 Seconds!

Betty is a freelance writer and researcher. She has a Masters in literature and enjoys providing writing services to her clients. Betty is an avid reader and loves learning new things. She has provided writing services to clients from all academic levels and related academic fields.

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Keep reading

A clear, arguable thesis will tell your readers where you are going to end up, but it can also help you figure out how to get them there. Put your thesis at the top of a blank page and then make a list of the points you will need to make to argue that thesis effectively.

For example, consider this example from the thesis handout : While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake”(54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well”(51) is less convincing.

To argue this thesis, the author needs to do the following:

• Show what is persuasive about Sandel’s claims about the problems with striving for perfection.
• Show what is not convincing about Sandel’s claim that we can clearly distinguish between medically necessary enhancements and other enhancements.

Once you have broken down your thesis into main claims, you can then think about what sub-claims you will need to make in order to support each of those main claims. That step might look like this:

• Evidence that Sandel provides to support this claim
• Discussion of why this evidence is convincing even in light of potential counterarguments
• Discussion of cases when medically necessary enhancement and non-medical enhancement cannot be easily distinguished
• Analysis of what those cases mean for Sandel’s argument
• Consideration of counterarguments (what Sandel might say in response to this section of your argument)

Each argument you will make in an essay will be different, but this strategy will often be a useful first step in figuring out the path of your argument.  

Strategy #2: Use subheadings, even if you remove them later  

Scientific papers generally include standard subheadings to delineate different sections of the paper, including “introduction,” “methods,” and “discussion.” Even when you are not required to use subheadings, it can be helpful to put them into an early draft to help you see what you’ve written and to begin to think about how your ideas fit together. You can do this by typing subheadings above the sections of your draft.

If you’re having trouble figuring out how your ideas fit together, try beginning with informal subheadings like these:

• Introduction  
• Explain the author’s main point  
• Show why this main point doesn’t hold up when we consider this other example  
• Explain the implications of what I’ve shown for our understanding of the author  
• Show how that changes our understanding of the topic

For longer papers, you may decide to include subheadings to guide your reader through your argument. In those cases, you would need to revise your informal subheadings to be more useful for your readers. For example, if you have initially written in something like “explain the author’s main point,” your final subheading might be something like “Sandel’s main argument” or “Sandel’s opposition to genetic enhancement.” In other cases, once you have the key pieces of your argument in place, you will be able to remove the subheadings.  

Strategy #3: Create a reverse outline from your draft  

While you may have learned to outline a paper before writing a draft, this step is often difficult because our ideas develop as we write. In some cases, it can be more helpful to write a draft in which you get all of your ideas out and then do a “reverse outline” of what you’ve already written. This doesn’t have to be formal; you can just make a list of the point in each paragraph of your draft and then ask these questions:

• Are those points in an order that makes sense to you?  
• Are there gaps in your argument?  
• Do the topic sentences of the paragraphs clearly state these main points?  
• Do you have more than one paragraph that focuses on the same point? If so, do you need both paragraphs?  
• Do you have some paragraphs that include too many points? If so, would it make more sense to split them up?  
• Do you make points near the end of the draft that would be more effective earlier in your paper?  
• Are there points missing from this draft?  
• picture_as_pdf Tips for Organizing Your Essay

How To Structure A Scientific Essay

Writing a scientific essay can be a daunting task. They should add value to the field they researched and they should do it in a way that proves its real value to the audience. Offering all the research in a chronological order will not satisfy your readers. You need to add value by presenting the results of your research and how they will affect your specific field of study.

Apart from that, scientific essay’s main objective is to offer a report to its audience. To do that they must be informative, they shouldn’t be written to impress their audience. If you want to have a top-notch scientific essay you need to structure it in a way that will be easily understandable. During this phase of the essay, many scientists ask for professional help. A good research paper writing service can structure your essay in a way that will make it stand out. If you choose to do it yourself, here’s how your essay should be structured.

Introduction

The introduction should specify the essay’s incentive and should provide readers a framework of the essay. These things should be done in two stages.

• Background and motivation – Your introduction should start by describing the essay’s background and context. When doing this you should have a funnel-like approach, from abstract to in-depth information. The motivation should be no longer than a sentence and it should highlight the main purpose of the essay and the actions undertaken.
• Responsibilities and purposes – The third part of the introduction will clearly define the duties undertaken by the scientist, meanwhile the last part will draw up a sketch for the essay.

It should have a very clear and logical structure . You can achieve this by dividing your essay’s body into categories and subcategories. This way the reader will be able to have a glimpse at the content of each structure of your essay.

The body of your essay should also contain the following elements:

• Components and procedures -This part of the essay should explain why you used certain components for your research, why you considered them the most suitable. You should also explain the procedures used during your research, even if it’s a very simple or a very complex one.
• Conclusions and interpretations – In the last part of the body you should focus on providing firm and clear conclusions regarding your research. Once you do that, you need to interpret them in a coherent way, one that will help the reader understand the final result of your scientific essay.

This part of the essay is vital because you need to highlight the most relevant results of your research. Here you should have a more informal approach, you should relate to your reader. You should prove the high value of your research for the reader and how it can be useful for him.

Every author should offer its audience a synopsis of his research. It can help the reader find out the most relevant information about the research. This can ease his decisional process and will intrigue him. A good synopsis should contain the most important information regarding the studied subject. It should focus on the reasons behind the research and its results, hence it should correlate the introduction and the closure of your essay.

Conducting a research and writing a scientific essay can be a very difficult job. Apart from the fact that it should add value to the field it focuses on, it should also be written in a very attractive manner. Every writer can achieve this by having a clear and logical essay. If you make use of the presented structure, you won’t have any trouble in creating a one of a kind scientific essay.

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• Books & Arts
• Published: 11 April 2012

In retrospect: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

• David Kaiser 1  

Nature volume  484 ,  pages 164–165 ( 2012 ) Cite this article

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David Kaiser marks the 50th anniversary of an exemplary account of the cycles of scientific progress.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition

• Thomas S. Kuhn

Fifty years ago, a short book appeared under the intriguing title The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Its author, Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996), had begun his academic life as a physicist but had migrated to the history and philosophy of science. His main argument in the book — his second work, following a study of the Copernican revolution in astronomy — was that scientific activity unfolds according to a repeating pattern, which we can discern by studying its history.

Kuhn was not at all confident about how Structure would be received. He had been denied tenure at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few years before, and he wrote to several correspondents after the book was published that he felt he had stuck his neck “very far out”. Within months, however, some people were proclaiming a new era in the understanding of science. One biologist joked that all commentary could now be dated with precision: his own efforts had appeared “in the year 2 B.K.”, before Kuhn. A decade later, Kuhn was so inundated with correspondence about the book that he despaired of ever again getting any work done.

By the mid-1980s, Structure had achieved blockbuster status. Nearly a million copies had been sold and more than a dozen foreign-language editions published. The book became the most-cited academic work in all of the humanities and social sciences between 1976 and 83 — cited more often than classic works by Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault or Jacques Derrida. The book was required reading for undergraduates in classes across the curriculum, from history and philosophy to sociology, economics, political science and the natural sciences. Before long, Kuhn's phrase “paradigm shift” was showing up everywhere from business manuals to cartoons in The New Yorker .

Kuhn began thinking about his project 15 years before it was published, while he was working on his doctorate in theoretical physics at Harvard. He became interested in developmental psychology, avidly reading works by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget about the stages of cognitive development in children.

Kuhn saw similar developmental stages in entire sciences. First, he said, a field of study matures by forming a paradigm — a set of guiding concepts, theories and methods on which most members of the relevant community agree. There follows a period of “normal science”, during which researchers further articulate what the paradigm might imply for specific situations.

In the course of that work, anomalies necessarily arise — findings that differ from expectations. Kuhn had in mind episodes such as the accidental discoveries of X-rays in the late nineteenth century and nuclear fission in the early twentieth. Often, Kuhn argued, the anomalies are brushed aside or left as problems for future research. But once enough anomalies have accumulated, and all efforts to assimilate them to the paradigm have met with frustration, the field enters a state of crisis. Resolution comes only with a revolution, and the inauguration of a new paradigm that can address the anomalies. Then the whole process repeats with a new phase of normal science. Kuhn was especially struck by the cyclic nature of the process, which ran counter to then-conventional ideas about scientific progress.

At the heart of Kuhn's account stood the tricky notion of the paradigm. British philosopher Margaret Masterman famously isolated 21 distinct ways in which Kuhn used the slippery term throughout his slim volume. Even Kuhn himself came to realize that he had saddled the word with too much baggage: in later essays, he separated his intended meanings into two clusters. One sense referred to a scientific community's reigning theories and methods. The second meaning, which Kuhn argued was both more original and more important, referred to exemplars or model problems, the worked examples on which students and young scientists cut their teeth. As Kuhn appreciated from his own physics training, scientists learned by immersive apprenticeship; they had to hone what Hungarian chemist and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi had called “tacit knowledge” by working through large collections of exemplars rather than by memorizing explicit rules or theorems. More than most scholars of his era, Kuhn taught historians and philosophers to view science as practice rather than syllogism.

Most controversial was Kuhn's claim that scientists have no way to compare concepts on either side of a scientific revolution. For example, the idea of 'mass' in the Newtonian paradigm is not the same as in the Einsteinian one, Kuhn argued; each concept draws meaning from separate webs of ideas, practices and results. If scientific concepts are bound up in specific ways of viewing the world, like a person who sees only one aspect of a Gestalt psychologist's duck–rabbit figure, then how is it possible to compare one concept to another? To Kuhn, the concepts were incommensurable: no common measure could be found with which to relate them, because scientists, he argued, always interrogate nature through a given paradigm.

Perhaps the most radical thrust of Kuhn's analysis, then, was that science might not be progressing toward a truer representation of the world, but might simply be moving away from previous representations. Knowledge need not be cumulative: when paradigms change, whole sets of questions and answers get dropped as irrelevant, rather than incorporated into the new era of normal science. In the closing pages of his original edition, Kuhn adopted the metaphor of Darwinian natural selection: scientific knowledge surely changes over time, but does not necessarily march towards an ultimate goal.

Scientists have no way to compare concepts on either side of a scientific revolution.

And so, 50 years later, we are left with our own anomaly. How did an academic book on the history and philosophy of science become a cultural icon? Structure was composed as an extended essay rather than a formal monograph: it was written as an entry on the history of science for the soon-to-be-defunct International Encyclopedia of Unified Science . Kuhn never intended it to be definitive. He often described the book (even in its original preface) as a first pass at material that he intended to address in more detail later.

To me, the book has the feel of a physicist's toy model: an intentionally stripped-down and simplified schematic — an exemplar — intended to capture important phenomena. The thought-provoking thesis is argued with earnestness and clarity, not weighed down with jargon or lumbering footnotes. The more controversial claims are often advanced in a suggestive rather than declarative mode. Perhaps most important, the book is short: it can be read comfortably in a single sitting.

For the 50th-anniversary edition, the University of Chicago Press has included an introductory essay by renowned Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking. Like Kuhn, Hacking has a gift for clear exposition. His introduction provides a helpful guide to some of the thornier philosophical issues, and gives hints as to how historians and philosophers of science have parted with Kuhn.

The field of science studies has changed markedly since 1962. Few philosophers still subscribe to radical incommensurability; many historians focus on sociological or cultural features that received no play in Kuhn's work; and topics in the life sciences now dominate, whereas Kuhn focused closely on physics. Nevertheless, we may still admire Kuhn's dexterity in broaching challenging ideas with a fascinating mix of examples from psychology, history, philosophy and beyond. We need hardly agree with each of Kuhn's propositions to enjoy — and benefit from — this classic book.

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David Kaiser is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. His latest book is How the Hippies Saved Physics (Norton, 2011).,

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Kaiser, D. In retrospect: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Nature 484 , 164–165 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/484164a

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Published : 11 April 2012

Issue Date : 12 April 2012

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/484164a

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