The abstract of a technical document serves as a summary, which presents the con

Question

The abstract of a technical document serves as a summary, which presents the conclusions and all results of general interest in the document. It is usually one short paragraph, and does not include mathematical equations, footnotes, references, graphics, or tabular material. In other words, an abstract briefly summarizes what has been achieved, what method has been used, and how it was done; and the language of an abstract should not be technically specific so that readers of general background can easily understand it. In the report for this lab, please write an abstract, which will be graded using the following rubric (The rubric is adapted from the abstract requirement of a physics journal, Applied Physics Letter). Format Item 0 points 2 points Paragraph spacing The abstract is NOT double spaced. The abstract is double spaced. Abstract length The abstract is either too short or too long. The abstract is one paragraph of no more than 250 words. Font Non-standard font used for report. Regular Times New Roman font of size 12 is used for abstract. Grammatical tense (4 points) Lab activities are not reported in past tense. All lab activities are reported in past tense. Content Item 0 points 5 points Lab finding The finding of the lab activities is NOT summarized. The finding of the lab activities is summarized. (What do you obtain through the lab activities?) Lab method The lab method is NOT described. The lab method is described. (How did you reach the finding?) Lab activities The major lab activities are not summarized. The major lab activities are summarized. Language Informal language with more than 8 grammar errors. Formal language with fewer than 3 grammar errors.

Explanation / Answer

For the main body of the text, there are no explicit requirements for section organization. According to the authors' preference, the text may be organized as best suits the research. As a guideline and in the majority of cases, however, we recommend that you structure your manuscript as follows:

A specific order for the main body of the text is not compulsory and, in some cases, it may be appropriate to combine sections. Figure legends are limited to 350 words. As a guideline references should be limited to 60 (this is not strictly enforced). Footnotes should not be used.

We suggest that Articles contain no more than 8 display items (figures and/or tables). In addition, a limited number of uncaptioned molecular structure graphics and numbered mathematical equations may be included if necessary. To enable typesetting of papers, the number of display items should be commensurate with the word length — we suggest that for Articles with less than 2,000 words, no more than 4 figures/tables should be included. Please note that schemes are not used and should be presented as figures.

Authors must provide a competing financial interests statement within the manuscript file.

Submissions should include a cover letter, a manuscript text file, individual figure files and optional supplementary information files. For first submissions (i.e. not revised manuscripts), authors may incorporate the manuscript text and figures into a single file up to 3 MB in size; the figures may be inserted in the text at the appropriate positions, or grouped at the end. Supplementary information should be combined and supplied as a single separate file, preferably in PDF format.

ONLY the following file types can be uploaded for Article text:

A submission template is available in the Overleaf template gallery to help you prepare a LaTeX manuscript within the Scientific Reports formatting criteria.

Scientific Reports is read by scientists from diverse backgrounds. In addition, many are not native English speakers. Authors should, therefore, give careful thought to how their findings may be communicated clearly. Although a shared basic knowledge of science may be assumed, please bear in mind that the language and concepts that are standard in one field may be unfamiliar to non-specialists. Thus, technical jargon should be avoided and clearly explained where its use is unavoidable.

Abbreviations, particularly those that are not standard, should also be kept to a minimum. Where unavoidable, abbreviations should be defined in the text or legends at their first occurrence, and abbreviations should be used thereafter. The background, rationale and main conclusions of the study should be clearly explained. Titles and abstracts in particular should be written in language that will be readily intelligible to any scientist. We strongly recommend that authors ask a colleague with different expertise to review the manuscript before submission, in order to identify concepts and terminology that may present difficulties to non-specialist readers.

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