Now that our students are deep into their projects,  time to start thinking about sharing their results and writing their final paper. Dr. Fred Dobbs lead a writing workshop this week and led the students to think about what goes into writing a scientific paper. Generally, the form that most papers follow is an introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRAD). The advice starts with how to start your paper broadly on the topic, to then focus on your piece and connect their ideas back to the big picture. Students also got valuable tips to help them start the writing process.  Post-it notes were used as a tool to order their points from important to least and decide what thoughts really belong together. Next, the students wrote down all of the parts that make up a research paper and put them around the room. Writing up a paper does not mean that it is done, and  “ Writing is re-writing”. The students learned about the peer review process, and sometimes that means re-writing parts even when it seems perfect to make sure that the best and most accurate science is being published.  Finally, students worked on was a little creative writing,  on Haikus and other science poetry.

Here is a small selection of poems from the workshop:

Trichodesmium
Bacteria of the Sea
Can fix Nitrogen

Sea level rises
Flooding our town streets daily
Water everywhere

Marine Snow gathers

Uniting in sync for virtue

Bye bye bad carbon

IP25 – Ice

Decaying through the water

Highly branched alkene

Microbial Biomass

Is

Challenging to

Review when

Only

Bacteria is

Easy to

Spot