Scientific essays require you to produce a piece of work which has all the necessary details and facts around the topic. This may sound just like any other essay (for example, discussion, critical or compare and contrast), but there are some key differences which set a scientific essay apart.
The most important is that a science essay must be analytical and precise in the delivery of answers. This is because in science essays, there is no room for your opinion or a vague perspective – the aim is to identify objective or impartial logic and accurate knowledge, as well as giving you a forum to demonstrate your judgement and analysis skills. Our guideline to structure can ensure you deliver a premium level scientific paper.
Structure of a Scientific Paper
Introduction
All essays need to encourage readers to want to read more. This is the main goal of the introduction. Defining the problem or research area clearly, so that readers understand what the work is about should be combined with a background context, and how your work fits into the current theoretical perspectives of the subject area.
The introduction is also where you state your own perspective on the potential outcomes of your evaluation and analysis. Once you have hooked your reader into reading further, you can then deliver a review of relevant literature.
Review of Relevant Literature
This is an important facet of your scientific essay, because it is where you clearly explain the different perspectives in the topic area, and crucially critically examine and evaluate these views. This is vital for showing clear and logical evaluation and analysis of the facets of the problem.
Present Relevant Data and Interpretation
The next important stage is to provide evidence, either from your own research or the literature review, using factual, unbiased language, of relevant data which supports your overall arguments. It is vital in this section to ensure that you credit all your sources, and that they come from viable, credible sources and are correctly cited in text and listed in full at the end of your essay. This section should be presented in clear, separate paragraphs for each point, accompanied where appropriate with graphs or tables to support your arguments.
Once you have presented the data you need to demonstrate that you have interpreted the presented information correctly. To do this you need to relate your interpretation to the previously presented theoretical frameworks and use this relationship to support or refute your arguments for and against. When presenting your interpretation there should be a back-up from credible, viable sources, that are fully referenced at the end of your work. This phase of the essay should again be structured in the one point/one paragraph format so that your viewpoints are clear. Following on from this interpretation, there is a process of synthesis which indicates how the evidence you have gathered and presented supports the proposition you put forward in your introduction.
Once you have presented and synthesised the data, it is vital to indicate why the evidence presented refutes or confirms the major views in the topic area which you identified in the literature review. The main body of the work should then be summed up with an identification of any issues or limitations of the data you have used to reach your conclusions.
Conclusion
As with any essay, the conclusion should not present any new information. Instead, it should be a summation of everything presented in the essay, the arguments presented along with how your work will fit in with previous works and future assessment in the topic area.
In this section, you can include recommendations for improvement and extensions, (Note: this is not essential in all scientific essays but can lead to additional marks as it shows a recognition of the need for more research / evaluation). To help you lift your essay even further we have provided a list of key phrases that can be used to ensure your writing is scientifically appropriate and your essay is first class.
Key Phrases for a Scientific Essay
When presenting evidence:
- It is suggested that…
- Evidence available indicates that….
- It has been indicated that…
- Aspects of the work suggest that…
- The evidence presented supports the view that…
- The evidence presented however overlooks…
- Closer examination suggests….
- Evidence in support of this view can be found in the work of…
For summarising, the following phrases are useful:
- The most important
- Finally
- Lastly
- First of all
When introducing clear evidence
- There is no doubt that…
- It is clear that…
- From this evidence, it can be concluded that…
