Scientific Writing

Title Page

• Title page with German and English title (the title should reflect the main statement/ main finding; for example "Molecular analysis of Aspergillus nidulans light regulation")
• Place of origin (institute/AG, university, company)
• Specification of referees/supervisors of the work Date Author
• Date
• Author

Acknowledgements and Indexes

• Acknowledgements
• Table of contents
• This should normally not take up more than one page (two for doctoral theses)
• To avoid too many subchapters, it is advisable to summarize chapters
• There are often many sub-chapters in the material and methods section, but many are on one page and can also be listed as a sub-chapter List of figures and tables List of abbreviations
• As this is a scientific paper, no terms such as DNA, RNA, H2O or species names should be included here (not even Fig. or Tab.)
• Only include abbreviations if they appear frequently in the text (>5!), write them out the first time they are used and put the abbreviation in brackets: Example: "Homologous recombination (HR) is an important process...These bullet points are often numbered with Roman numerals Summary/ Abstract

Summary/Abstract

• The first sentence should already convey what it is roughly about, the most important words should be included (e.g. Bacteria can breathe metals..., The abilities and lifestyles of many microbes are not yet understood...)
• Starts with a short introduction, moves on to concrete values/figures (results) and ends with a summarizing sentence that takes up the main statement again This section should not be longer than one page (possibly two for doctoral theses)
• Is normally always at the beginning of the thesis (but can also be at the end after the discussion)
• Is aligned with the objective

Introduction and Objective

• What does the reader need to know in order to be able to correctly classify the groundbreaking results of my work? Only these aspects should be presented, not a complete summary of the entire field Comprehensible for the reader
• The introduction must be "broad" and possibly interdisciplinary. The more details an introduction needs, the more likely the reader is to assume that the publication itself only adds details to what is already known.
• The introduction must lead to a question, which is also written down at the end and the rest of the work deals with the answer to this question.
• The introduction should not be too long. 10-20 pages is the maximum for bachelor, diploma and doctoral theses.
• KISS: Keep it simple but scientific; What is it about? What question is being asked? Why is the question important/interesting? What was the motivation for the work? Tense: Present tense when older results are described
• Imperfect tense
• Procedure, what is to be achieved?
• =>Transition to the objective
• Goal setting Tense: Imperfect
• Should be concise (about half a page in a Bachelor's thesis)
• it is often helpful to formulate the objective in question form at the end (this helps to get to the point - if you cannot formulate it as a question, you have not understood your task).

Material and Methods

• How did the experiment actually work?
• What needs to be written down so that the results can be reproduced?
• You have to describe your biological material precisely (this also means that you know which strain, which mutant, which species you are working with, where it comes from, this also means that you know and have read the mode of action of your inhibitors)
• All deviations and special features (from the script) must be indicated
• Only list necessary points (e.g. whether a sample was tempered in a water bath or thermoblock (and by which manufacturer) is usually irrelevant), and protocol steps should also be summarized in a meaningful way
• If possible, avoid passive
• The materials and methods section may appear here, but in some journals it is placed after the discussion
• Avoid laboratory slang ("Eppis" (from the manufacturing company Eppendorf) are called reaction vessels in laboratory German)
• Sequence should not be chronological, but sensible
• Times and concentrations of a treatment must be clearly named and indicated
• Principle: everyone must be able to repeat the experiment (this is the principle of science)

Results

• Starting with a short introductory sentence or paragraph about the experiment. For every experiment, the motivation should be disclosed at the beginning (what did you want to ask with the experiment?). Experiments are realities structured for a specific purpose. This purpose must be disclosed.
• It is helpful to work with subheadings that briefly and succinctly state what the results are.
• The results should also not be arranged chronologically, but should be meaningful in terms of content
• Results do not contain any evaluations/interpretations; these belong in the discussion section
• Results should be presented and described in your own words What specifically came out?
• What are important and what are less important results?
• How often was the result achieved, what deviations were there?
• How were the results achieved?
• Are the observed differences significant in the statistical sense?
• What went wrong?
• It will help you and your readers if you briefly list your results at the end of the (or each) results section. This will give you a common thread for the discussion
• All major results must be supported by illustrations, which should make it possible to understand what it is about and what came out, but the number of illustrations should be reduced to the bare minimum (only those that are important for the "narrative" should appear in the results section)
• IMPORTANT: Figures need legends, these roughly describe the conditions of the experiment (e.g. how much protein was loaded), they should be informative and self-explanatory and not just consist of a title
• IMPORTANT: Figures have captions and tables have headings
• Figures and tables are numbered consecutively from the introduction (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, ..., Tab. 1, ...)
• Please note: Separate observation and interpretation clearly. When describing, you should explain what can be seen, not what you think about it (this belongs in the discussion).

Discussion

• At the beginning, it should be stated briefly and concisely what the questions were and what the central results were
• In general: interpretation of the results in comparison to known literature (possibly with an outlook)
• This should not be a repetition of the results section, but the results can be briefly summarized and examined for reliability (here comes the reference to possible sources of error that should be considered in the interpretation, these should also be discussed)
• Initially close to the specific experiment, becoming more general towards the end (How could the work be continued? Are there any modifications, suggestions for improvement or new approaches for new experiments?) You should look ahead and say what is still open and how this could be tackled in the future.
  A proper discussion also involves developing a hypothesis from which to derive this future work. Likewise, a proper discussion includes a section where you look at the limitations of your methodology and state how certain or uncertain the data is.
• This part shows the scientific skills of the author, it should not be too short and should make a connection between your own and already known results, this also shows whether the author has understood his own results and can classify them
• At the end of the discussion, the questions from the introduction should be explicitly answered once again so that it is well-rounded. Draw conclusions and summarize the results once again

Bibliography

• Examiners also look at the bibliography and this can easily show whether someone has made an effort with the work or has worked inaccurately, which is why particular attention should be paid to accuracy and correct citation when writing the bibliography
• All references cited in the text must appear here, but you should only cite what you have read yourself
• The structure depends on the form used in the text: either numbered or alphabetical (even if a reference is used several times in the text, it is only listed once in the bibliography)
• IMPORTANT: The bibliography must be uniform: e.g. same abbreviations of the journals, uniform capitalization
• If references are taken from Pubmed, they must be reformatted (titles should not only consist of capital letters)
• Internet references are citations of inferior quality and should be avoided (no peer review)
• There are different opinions on the subject of abbreviations of journal names, either: If the title consists of more (!) than one word, it should be abbreviated e.g. The EMBO Journal to EMBO J. (The abbreviations can be written with or without a period, but uniformly) OR the name is always written out in full.
• When citing books: title and chapter/paragraph heading, editors, publisher, place and year of publication, page number of the first and last page from which the citation was made, ISBN number if applicable.

Examples of Citations:

• One author: (Müller 2017)
• Two authors: (Müller and Mustermann, 2017)
• Three or more authors: (Müller et al., 2017)

In the bibliography:

• Author(s)(year). Title. Journal volume number, page number
  Ex: Zekert, N. & Fischer, R. (2009). The Aspergillus nidulans kinesin-3 UncA motor moves vesicles along a subpopulation of microtubules. Mol Biol Cell 20, 673-684.

Formalities

• In the vast majority of cases, the words "I" and "we" must be avoided. Exceptions are applications for e.g. scholarships in which you MUST state yourself. However, there are different practices and opinions, because there must be a person behind the data who also takes responsibility for the data. Here it is best to act in consultation with the supervisor
• Replace nominal style with verbal style if possible, this contributes to readability. So instead of "a TCA precipitation was carried out with the supernatants" "the supernatants were precipitated with TCA"
• Genes small and in italics (cymA) Proteins large and not in italics (CymA) Genus and species name of organisms in italics, strain name not in italics (Shewanella oneidensis MR-1)
• IMPORTANT: also pay attention to italics in references! (Use the Molecular Microbiology citation style!)
• Space between number and unit! Only for degrees alone (angular measure) without spaces Line spacing 1.5, Times New Roman 12 font, justified text no laboratory language (not "prepped" but "isolated", not "digested" but "cut with restriction enzyme" etc.)
• Table with Tab. X: abbreviate, heading, period at the end (Tab. 22: Components of the 2x protein loading buffer.)
• Figure with Fig. Y: abbreviate, caption, also period at the end (Fig. 7: Schematic structure of the semi-dry western blot).
• Tables and figures must not stand alone. Even in the materials and methods section, an introductory sentence is required. "Table XY lists the primers used in this work."