HOW TO SET UP , CONDUCT AND REPORT A SCIENTIFIC STUDY
Original Articles
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 .
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 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 .
96 Stoma Edu J . 2017 ; 4 ( 2 ): 90-101 http :// www . stomaeduj . com