In your laboratory reports, it is important to make clear the source of the information you are writing about. Most of our scientific work "stands on the shoulders of giants" -- that is to say that the foundation for our work is based on knowledge amassed by other people. Thus, it is imperative to give credit when credit is due. Aside from the portions of the report where you are contributing new information (such as the details of your methods/procedures or the data reported in the results section), you must attribute credit to, and support your claims with, in text citations. These citations tell the reader where the information comes from. These published sources are then listed in a standardized format on a reference or works cited page. This information makes it possible for the reader to have adequate details about the source so that they may access the information themselves.
When writing laboratory reports this semester, certain expectations will be made clear as to the references that are acceptable. However, for all work you may not reference the Laboratory Manual or textbooks (either the book used in Genetics lecture or any other textbook). This Research Guide, therefore, is intended as a resource to help you search for acceptable references to use in your reports.
Each writing assignment will be provided with detailed instructions to help guide you through content expectations, verb tense usage, format, organization and in text citation rules. Additionally, you should be aware of common style points and conventions typically used in scientific writing, including (but not limited to) shorthand for nucleotides and amino acids, units, numbers and decimal points, gene and protein designations, use of italics, probability, and restriction enzyme names. Accepted style points are explained in the NCBI Style Guide, Chapter 5. You may also want to reference other chapters of the guide for additional writing information.
