STOMATOLOGY EDU JOURNAL 2017, Volume 4, Issue 2 2 | Page 20

HOW TO SET UP, CONDUCT AND REPORT A SCIENTIFIC STUDY Figure 5. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of flexural strength of Zirconia specimen bars as influenced by surface grinding (surface) and heat treatment (heat). Note that heat has not a significant influence but surface condition has. There are no significant interactions. If a reader has been drawn into the paper by the title, then the abstract is the next thing he/she will look at. Therefore it is important that the abstract is well done and informative, because it will then motivate the reader to continue reading. Furthermore abstract, title and keywords are extremely important Table 1a-d: SI Units (Taylor and Thompson 2008) Table 1a. SI Base Units. Base quantity Figure 6a. Example of reporting parametric data as bar graphs with standard deviation. Tensile strength of composite bonded to two ceramics after different cleaning procedures of saliva contaminated ceramics. is high. All the recommendations given above to write the “Introduction” and “Materials & Methods” apply of course. There are a few more however. The working title must be now converted into the final title of the publication. Some journals limit the number of words. A title is the first thing a potential reader sees. Therefore it should be appealing and motivate the reader to continue. The title should: • Be concise, precise • Adequately represent the contents of the article • May not promise something it can not deliver • Must specify animal species/clinical, in vivo/in vitro, methodology Key words must be assigned to the paper. The authors sequence is a topic that often raises conflicts, despite the fact that the rules about who should be where are obvious. 20 Only persons who have contributed to a significant degree scientifically/intellectually to the paper are included in the author line. Other contributions can be accounted for in the Acknowledgements at the end of the paper. Each author should know the article and be able to take on scientific responsibility for it. Who had the most scientific/intellectual input 96 Figure 6b. Example of reporting non parametric data as box plots. Margin quality (% of excellent margin) of six different adhesives (c=control). for the paper to be found in databases, since only these are used to index the paper. 21, 22, 23 The chapters "Introduction" and "Materials and Methods" are already done, so in the phase of writing the first version of the manuscript, they can be taken with only slight modifications. So the next chapter is "Results". Here the results are displayed in form of tables and figures. Examples are shown in Tab 2, Fig. 6a and b. The text can be short and should mention the outcome of the statistical analysis as well which can be printed as a table. Furthermore the text should point to the reader some specifics of the results and highlight important outcomes. No explanations and interpretations should be given in the chapter “Results”. Common errors are that the data are directly copied from the statistical analysis, where the computer calculates as many digits after the dot as instructed thus suggesting a precision which does not reflect the data (5,79438 ± 3,22459 instead of 5,8 ± 3,2). The graphic display of the data should correspond with the type of analysis: bar graphs with mean and SD for results of parametric tests and box-plots for non parametric tests. It is not recommended to use 3D graphics unless there is a need for (displaying the relationship of 3 parameters in one graph). And finally table and graphics must should be the first author. Conflicts may occur in mentor-student situations. My personal view here is that the amount of contribution of the student should determine whether he/she is first author or not. If the idea came from the student, the mentor helped and advised, the student performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript (even with help of the mentor), then it is clear that the student is the first author. On the other hand, if the idea and the experimental design are from the mentor, the student performed the experiment, but the mentor wrote the manuscript, then the mentor should deserve the first place in the author’s list. To avoid conflicts more and more journals require disclosure of the contribution of every author. The next thing to write is the "Abstract". This is a difficult task for many reasons. Very often the journal guidelines restrict its number of words and imply a specific structure. The abstract must summarize in a very condensed form the objective, what was done, how it was done and the results. Usually a conclusion is the final point of an abstract. It is important to include the statistics and hard numbers of the results. Stoma Edu J. 2017;4(2): 90-101 http://www.stomaeduj.com SI base unit Name Symbol Name Symbol length mass time, duration electric current thermodynamic temperature amount of substance luminous intensity l, x, r, etc. m t I, i T n I v meter kilogram second ampere kelvin mole candela m kg s A K mol cd HOW TO SET UP, CONDUCT AND REPORT A SCIENTIFIC STUDY Table 1b. Examples of coherent derived units in the SI expressed in terms of base units. Derived quantity SI base unit Name Symbol Name Symbol area volume speed, velocity acceleration wavenumber density, mass density surface density specific volume current density magnetic field strength amount concentration, (a) concentration mass concentration luminance refractive index (b) relative permeability (b) A V v a σ, ṽ r r A v j H c square meter cubic meter meter per second meter per second squared reciprocal meter kilogram per cubic meter kilogram per square meter cubic meter per kilogram ampere per square meter ampere per meter mole per cubic meter m 2 m 3 m/s m/s 2 m -1 kg/m 3 kg/m 2 m 3 /kg A/m 2 A/m mol/m 3 r,g L V n m r kilogram per cubic meter candela per square meter one one kg/m 3 cd/m 2 1 1 (a) In the field of clinical chemistry this quantity is also called "substance concentration" (b) These are dimensionless quantities, or quatities of dimension one, and the symbol "1" for the unit (the number "one") is generally omitted in specifying the values of dimensionless quantities Stomatology Edu Journal 97