Papers

Structure and Components of Your Paper

• Title Page
• Title
• Abstract
• Your Name
• Your Institution
• Body
• Introduction
• …
• Conclusion
• References
• Other Parts
• Figures and Figure Captions. Your captions should make figures self contained – someone should be able to look at your figures and understand them without reading the full text.
• Number Equations

Papers should be double-spaced with the references, figures and tables appearing at the end. Following the body, the remaining sections should appear in the following order:

(1) the body of the paper,

(2) the references,

(3) the tables and

(4) the figures and figure captions

or

(5) the figures captions and

(6) the figures.

Detailed Description of Various Parts

Abstract

This is to be a short, one paragraph statement of what was done and what the results are. This should be from only a few sentences. In the first sentence state what was done - do not explain or defend what you did. Next, give the results.

Introduction

You should use the introduction to say more about what you did. You can also use this section to talk about why this is important and what your report will show. For example, in the sound wave experiment you will compare an experimental value for the velocity based on standing waves in a column of air to one determined by the ratio of the specific heats and the propagation of mechanical waves. If you find a disagreement this may tell you something about your assumption for g or your implicit assumptions associated with the method you used. If there you discover something fundamentally new or something really interesting, you should mention it in the introduction. You probably do not want to advertise poor experimental technique or carelessness on the part of the experimenter in the introduction, however. This section should be one to three paragraphs. As with any writing, you may find it easier to write the introduction last.

Experiment & Apparatus

In this section you should give the details of your experiment and how they were performed. You should describe the instrumentation, the procedure (how data was obtained, how instrumentation was calibrated, etc.) and the samples used along with any special features of your experiment, if appropriate. You should be as specific as possible but concise.

Background Information (Optional)

Sometimes it will be necessary to give background information so that your results can be understood.

Results/Discussion

Here you will have to be selective about what you include. You will always take more data than you can present in a report. For example, you will most likely make a few calibration runs; these results do not belong in the final report. In addition, you will make several measurements of the resonant frequency for a give L and n. You will only want to report one result, however, your best estimate of the true value. Note, this should be representative of your measurements and not just the one that happened to work or the so-called "best value."

You will have to use your best judgment as to if a table or a plot will be the best way to report the data. For example, in the sound wave experiment you are most interested in the speed of sound, not the resonant frequencies. Thus, presenting the frequency data in a table may be less desirable than collecting them neatly in a single plot. In this case, the plot has the advantage that you probably would want to include it anyway since you will extract the speed of sound from various plots. You should include error bars, in both the x- and y- directions if you like, to indicate how well you feel you believe the various values on the plot. Note, you can take errors in the x-direction and augment your errors in the y-direction for analysis. After your analysis, you need to present a clear, unambiguous result.

Finally, if your theory and experimental results disagree you will need to spend time discussing why. You will need to propose a plausible reason for the discrepancy and why you feel this is the case. The more concrete you make this, i.e., with data, the more believable your conjecture will be.

Conclusion

Summarize what you did and what you learned in the conclusion. If it becomes clear during the course of your analysis or data collection that a different method would have given better results (define what you mean by better) or a change in conditions under which the data were collected would have enhanced your chances of getting better results, so state. Again, the more concrete you can make this the better off you will be. The conclusion, however, should be concise. If you need to present data to make your case for a new or different approach, you should have presented it in the previous section and just point back to it in the conclusion.

References

Tables

Figure Captions & Figures