5. References tasks

A. Read the part of the lecture on references and answer the following questions:

1. How long can a list of references be?

2. Why does the author think that the references are the most con­centrated part of the paper?

3. What is the author's attitude to a paper without references?

4. How many methods of producing references are generally accepted?

B. Now read again and write down a list of recommendations about title citation.

You should

You shouldn't

6. The Style of a Scientific Report

TASKS

A. Read the passage on the style of a scientific report, and write down a list of recommendations of what you should or shouldn't do when writing a paper.

You should

You shouldn't

7. Bibliography and Appendices

TASKS

A. Read a part of the lecture about bibliography and appendices. Complete the table with the relevant information.

	Bibliography	Appendix
1. Information to be included
2. Purpose
3. Location in a paper
4. Type of papers that contain a target item

B. Read again and fill in the gaps in the following:

However, there are lots of more things involved in report writing: 1)__________, 2)__________, the things that are there although you don't always think of them as being there, which in fact often 3)__________or 4)__________the report. They determine whether the report is, I don't mean a 5)__________report — that's this part — but whether the report really 6)__________, really does 7)_________ to the work that was done.

How to Write a Scientific Report

1. The Title

Hello,

This morning I want to take up with you the question of the report. Most scientific experiments, most scientific experimental activities fin­ish up as a report of one kind or another....

Now, what does a scientific report consist of? Well, the first item is the title. This is perhaps the most important single part of the report. This is important because it acts as a sorting mechanism. All those peo­ple who shouldn't be reading the report are hereby warned to stay away and all those, who should be reading the report, are told," Come and get it! This is the kind of thing that you ought to be looking at."

Now there are lots of mistakes that people make in titles – they make them so general that it doesn't act as the filtering mechanism that it should be acting. Some of them are so long that people who have to quote the title repeatedly – and in many situations one does have to put the title of the report – well, these people can be driven to madness at a title that's about seven lines long as some might be. Some of them are irrelevant, often when you write a paper, a report, you're first asked to supply a title and then three months later, the actual report or paper itself. And by that time your views may have changed, you may be stuck with a title that you now don't find suitable. Well, change it by all means. Don't ever produce a title that doesn't fit the paper – that's not pro­ductive for anybody.

Then the other kind of mistakes, for example, this might be a typ­ical title that somebody might come up with: "A Preliminary Report on an Experimental Investigation of the Refractive Index of Martini." Well now, what's wrong with that? This may describe the report per­fectly. But actually often after you have produced a title, it's worth­while starting at the beginning and going through the title towards the end to see how far you can go, and how far you can chop before you hit some real hard wood. In this case, the fact that the report is "prelimi­nary" is usually not of any particular consequence to anybody. So far it's the best report that there is, may be there won't ever be a further report, if there is it's clear that the second one supersedes the first. I think it's very seldom that warning words like preliminary are helpful in a report. To say it's a report is pretty redundant – it's obvious that the thing's a report. So why say it? Experimental investigation – I suspect, by what comes later, it's fairly clear that it's not a theoretical investigation. So experimental can go out. And I suppose it's fairly clear that the thing is investigation as well. Let's take that out as well. Well, now we've really whittled ourselves down to nothing – now the thing is: "The Refractive Index of Martini." Now that we have shortened it to that extent, we can start to shape the report. And this is perhaps one of the most important functions of a good title and one that people often make a mistake on. And that is, try to indicate something about why you are doing it, what the purpose is. Now, this doesn't necessa­rily influence the experimental data but it often helps the reader to know the context in which you did the work, in which he might read the work and this often tells him whether the thing is actually in his interest to pursue further. For example, you might make the title "The Refractive Index of Martini as a Measure of Alcohol Content." Now, that tells the reader something: you've got a new method of finding out how strong Martinis are or it might be a method of detecting Martini that isn't safe to drink.

I mean, there're all sorts of things one can put in but the point is, if you take up too much of the title by this "preliminary'' stuff, then you don't have the space to put in the important things, the purpose of the investigation. Make sure that that's the best title you can find that really describes the work that you've done and will really help the reader decide whether to go ahead. Well, I suppose that of the thousands of people, who may read this title, most of those who should be deterred, for whom the report isn't intended, will decide that after they've read the title, this isn't their bag, they'll turn the page to the next report.