Procedure
TITLE (1 points): A 5-15 word description of the subject of the paper. Be as specific as possible.
ABSTRACT (5 points): A capsule summary of the work. Consists of one paragraph that contains the purpose of the research, a brief discussion of methods, the most important results, interpretation, and a concluding statement that ties in your results to the “big-picture” (i.e., how your results fit into the current body of knowledge).
INTRODUCTION (5 points): Clearly state the nature of the general problem and use the scientific literature to highlight what is known and unknown about your research. In addition, describe how this research fits into the current body of knowledge. Provide an explicit statement of your hypothesis and/or predicted outcome.
METHODS (5 points): Describe your methods in sufficient detail so that others could repeat your study. Use a paragraph format, not a numbered or bulleted list of instructions. Use past-tense, state what you did and not what should have done. If the research involved field work, provide a brief description of the field site, including location, soil and vegetation type, and overall climate characteristics. Describe the experimental design, and as applicable, the experimental and/or sampling unit, replication, randomization, and other procedures used to design and implement the experiment and/or field sampling. Describe how data were analyzed, including statistical tests used to test hypotheses and whether data needed to be transformed to fulfill assumptions of the statistical tests.
RESULTS (5 points): This section utilizes two approaches to present your results (1) a narrative, which is in paragraph form, where your results are presented to the reader, and (2) display items, such as figures and tables, where your data are presented. These display items are used to show the reader your summarized data and support your narrative such as in the following example; “hydroseeding led to a 2-fold reduction in the cover of woody shrubs (Table 1).” Use the most appropriate summary statistics (mean, standard deviation or standard error) to display your results. Design these display items (tables and figures) to facilitate comparison among treatment groups. For each figure and table include a self-explanatory caption that describes what is displayed in the figure and/or table (NOT the results).
DISCUSSION (5 points): This is not a repeat of the results section. Rather, this section interprets your results and discusses why you obtained the results. Often, this section begins by stating whether you accept or reject the hypothesis stated in the introduction. Use the scientific literature to help you interpret your results, as there are undoubtedly hundreds of research papers on similar topics. The discussion section is also an appropriate place to discuss possible biases, qualifications, and other problems that may have affected your results. Finally, this section usually concludes by placing your research in the context to the “big-picture” (i.e., what does it all mean and how your results add to the current body of knowledge).
LITERATURE CITED (2 points): You must include a minimum of two peer-reviewed and published citations for the paper, and your grade will be based on completeness and proper format. All literature referred in the paper must be cited in this section and all literature listed in this section must be referred to at least once in the paper. You must also use a standard format for citing your results, both in the text and the literature cited sections (review papers in the journal Ecology for the proper format for referencing cited literature).
OTHER (2 points): Additional points based on style, grammar, and spelling.
