Guidelines for writing Competition and individual size lab report (F and t tests)

We will follow the general format of a scientific journal for your this report; this will help you prepare for
writing an article for a scientific publication. These notes should be used to supplement the instructions given
in the outline for the exercise.
Top of the write up. The title of the exercise should go first, center justified, followed by your name, a line
space below, also center justified. The Abstract should follow with the title Abstract center justified, then a one
line gap then the abstract itself (not to exceed 250 words) fully justified.
Report must be written in your own words. Do not copy and paste chunks from other members of your
group. This includes all sections of the report. Dont think that because the introduction is different, that I
wont notice that the methods, results and discussion are not. However, you may use figures and tables
generated by members of your group in your report, but if you do, you must take responsibility for any errors
that occur in these tables and figures. Do not just copy and paste from the handouts into your write-up;
you need to put this information into your own words. Also do not copy and paste from websites (this is
plagiarism a serious offense that gets a zero) without referring to the work in the references and
rewriting it in your own words. For referencing the handout see References, below. Your report is not a
narrative of what was done we all met at the Arboretum, it was a lovely sunny day and the birds were singing
etc. etc. Keep it impersonal just the facts.
Terminology and other notes on grammar, calculations etc.
Fully justify text. The text in this guideline that wraps around a line (such as this one) is fully justified.
The first line of a paragraph is always indented by one tab key.
Tenses for different sections of the report the introduction will use past tense when referring to previous
studies and future tense when describing what you will do in the lab exercise. Check on present tense use
especially in the introduction. However, reference to previous work on the topic is in the past tense. While the
final paragraph saying what will be done is in the future tense. The methods section is always in the past tense.
The results section is in the past tense. The discussion of your results is in the past tense as is the comparison
of your results with other studies. However, suggested further work is in the future tense.
The word data is plural, the singular is datum. Therefore, you should write data were collected not
data was collected; or data are collected not or data is collected (but you will rarely need to use this
tense because data you collected will be reported in the past tense and data that will be collected (e.g. in the

introduction) will be in the future tense.

Spacing In the text, two spaces follow a period (.) and a colon (:), and one space follows a comma (,) and a
semicolon (;). Double space the lines in the text throughout the report, including references with the
following exceptions. Lines may be single spaced in Tables (for sure) and in Table and Figure titles.
Numbers A zero must always be put before a decimal point if there is not another number before it, e.g. 0.45
not .45. This applies all through the report including in figures and tables. Do not use more than three
decimal places. In the text, numbers less than 10 are written out in full e.g. one not 1, three not 3, but 10 not
ten, 12 not twelve, and 125 not one hundred and twenty-five. If the numbers are less than 10 are associated
with a unit of measurement then the number is given along with the unit of measurement, e.g. 1 m 2, not one
m2, 5 cm, not five cm. However, you cannot start a sentence with a number unless it is spelled out, e.g. Five
quadrats were used to sample the herbaceous vegetation.
See below for numbering tables, figures and appendices.
Calculations Show an example of your calculations of values of F-tests, and t-tests.
Results section: You must always use words to summarize your results and link the tables and figures. The
first sentence will normally say. The data collected for the sand pines are presented in Appendix I. More
appendices may be needed depending on how many different types of data sheets were used or sites were
examined. Never start a sentence Figure 1 shows, or Table 1 shows, or with an abbreviation! Always use
the following style: The species-area curve plot for the herbaceous species became asymptotic at 13 species
(Figure 1). Or: The data for N, f , and ID for the woody species at sites A and B are summarized in Table 1.
Tables and Figures
Try to be economical with your tables and figures; use as few as possible to report your results.
You need to have stand alone titles for figures and tables. That is the figure or table and their title could be
lifted out of the report and still make sense. For example:
Figure 1. Species-area curve for herbaceous plant species collected at Troy Arboretum.
Figure 2. Logarithmic plots (log base 10) of species-area relationship for woody plant species collected at
Troy Arboretum.

Numbering Tables and Figures should be numbered in increasing Arabic numerals (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.) in the
order that they are first cited in the text. The word Table or Figure is always capitalized in the text when
referring to a specific table or figure (e.g. Table 1 not table 1, or Figure 1 not figure 1). Dont use abbreviated
titles for figures and tables (i.e. dont use Fig. 1 or Tab. 1) Appendices are numbered in Roman Numerals (I,
II, etc.).
Tables and figures used in the report should preferably be pasted into the relevant section of the report or
placed in order (tables first and then figures) following the references and before the appendices.
Tables: These are prepared with the Table button on the toolbar of your word processing program. Type the
title in first, then leave a line then insert the table.
Figures: If you use graphics programs to print off your figures, you may not know which order you will put
them in when you print them and so may not be able to fully labe1 the figure at that time. If this is the case,
then give each figure a short label, then either cut and paste your figure number and title on it, or label the top
of the page with the figure number (hand written is ok here) and provide a list of figures with their numbers
and full titles on a page entitled Figures, which will precede all of your figures.
On pie diagrams, make sure that you use the same colors for a particular species in all of you pie
diagrams. Use a new color for each new species. Use a standard color (e.g. brown) for bare patches. If you
have a number of rare species you can pool them in a category called others, again make sure this category is
in the same color on all of your pie diagrams.
Data sheets you should attach your field data sheets as an appendix. If they are readable and have not
suffered too badly from the weather you may use the originals. If you choose to type your data sheets up, that
is fine as well. If you missed a lab and you used someone elses data sheets in your group to get your data,
then you must either photocopy them or type them up and acknowledge whose data you used. Data sheets are
put into the Appendix. If there are multiple data sheets in your appendix, then a cover sheet should be added
containing the word Appendix, in bold type, followed by a list of the data sheets in the order they appear in
the appendix and numbered as described in the next sentence. They should be labeled Appendix I, II, III etc. in
Roman numerals in the order they appear in the appendix. You should label each data sheet with its respective
number at the top in hand writing. Appendices are just for your data sheets.
References

References are listed in alphabetic order of the first authors last name. Do not number the references for
papers or book chapters etc. Only URLs are numbered. This is the only thing that will be different than in the
instructions to authors given by the American Fisheries Society: http://fisheries.org/books-journals/writingtools/style-guide/
All references cited should be put into a reference section with the following format for parts of the text or
papers (use hanging indent except for numbered URLs):
McClave, J. T, and T. Sincich. 2009. Inferences based on a single sample. Pages 316-319 in Statistics, 11 th
Edition, Prentice Hall.
Gotelli, N. J., and L. G. Abele. 1982. Statistical distributions of West Indian land-bird families. Journal of
Biogeography 9:421-435.
Reference to lab handouts: Lab handouts should be referenced along with the text or papers as follows:
Billington, N. 2016 (or date of the year in question). Competition and individual size. Research Methodolgy
and Experimetal Design handout, Department of Biological Sciences, Troy University, 3 (or relevant
number of pages in the handout) pp.
Similarly reference a relevant PowerPoint by giving the lecture number and PowerPoint title.

It would be cited as Billington (2016) or (Billington 2016) in the text. If you need to cite two of
them, then label them 2016a and 2016b.
Web sites should be numbered in the order first cited (after all of the other references) and include a URL and
title (if available):
(1) http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ecophysiology/hilaria.htm Intraspecific Competition in Hot Deserts
You must retain the computer files of your work for this course until after you receive the final grade for
the class or your lab report is returned to you a disk version or other information storage method (e.g.
memory stick) is highly recommended.
Effin Publications