Biomedical Science - SPF Assignment Examples/Tips

Hello,

I am a biomed student in my second year and I will have assignments coming up where I need to write in scientific paper format. My first year we didn't have anything like these assignments so I was wondering if anyone would have any examples of SPF biomed assignment that I could look through? or if you had any tips on how to get above 70% on an SPF.

Thank You.

Hi,

Biomed is one degree I must admit I have not done. However, I have experience writing and editing research papers in medicine, so hopefully I can provide some tips.

For a scientific paper, the usual format required is to have the following:-

Abstract: This should be concise, to the point and should include the salient points in brief of the rest of the paper i.e. you should include a couple of lines of intro, then a summary of the experimental techniques used followed by a summary of the results and then your conclusions [whether this abstract needs to have sub-headings [in real life] will depend on the target journal's specs, but in your case your lecturers might tell you].

Introduction: A summary of the knowledge-base hitherto, together with the basic principles of the subject matter and with ref to work done by other researchers

Materials and methods: Describe in detail the investigative methods used, including any apparatus used [with manufacturer name, city and country in parentheses], or in clinical research-based papers, the inclusion and exclusion criteria of patients/volunteers selected for your study. This should be followed by a description of any statistical methods used.

Results: Lay out your results in detail, with tables and figures if these make the observations clearer; however, the text should not repeat what is already evident in tables and figures. You should state the means and standard deviations of numerical data, and the significance or otherwise of your results and parts thereof, by stating e.g. p values.

Discussion: Delineate what your conclusions are from the results section and compare them with the results of other workers [use citations to specify these papers]. Attempt to explain the logic, causes and mechanisms that might underlie your findings. This section can take up 2-3 pages or more. Finally, mention the limitatioons of your study e.g. any confounding factors that might lead to invalid interpretation or [if applicable] a small sample size, which may not be representative of the population in question.

References: This should list all the citations used in your manuscript, either in numerical order of first mention or alphabetically [there are a few thousand different reference styles stiplulated for each journal - your uni will specify which style they require e.g. Vancouver, Harvard, APA, etc. [the ref style dictates the number of authors to list before using "et al", the location of the year, whether the journal name should be abbreviated and whether it should be in italics, whether to include part numbers of volumes, etc]]. The journal will also specify other formatting guidelines e.g. to insert page and/or line numbers, margin size, font type, etc.

For more detail, look at some actually published papers in e.g. the NCBI website [National Library of Medicine].

Best of luck!

M.