A note for my bird paper

In writing the abstract, I found it is a better way to show my results:

1. describing the RANGE of effective spatial scales of birds and butterflies individually, and explaining the probable reasons leading to difference in Ch.3.
2. focusing on the common spatial scale, i.e. the suitable scale, which describes comprehensive biodiversity in Ch.4. The suitable scale should be included in effective scales.

This idea is based on my abstract.

The suitable spatial scale(s) is very important to conduct comprehensive rural landscape research and planning projects for biodiversity. Therefore, this study aims to use cross-species biodiversity to define the explanatory power of different spatial scales, and discuss the effect at the suitable scale(s).

Since both birds and butterflies are representative to describe rural biodiversity, this study uses cross-species birds and butterflies as indicator groups of species to examine the effect of landscape structure, indicated with landscape structure metrics, at different spatial scale, which is delimited according to birds and butterflies life range.

This study finds that the suitable spatial scales for describing comprehensive biodiversity disagree with the ones for discussing the effect of the most significant land cover types. In particular, although the scale with extent 100 m and grain size 10 m seems suitable to meanwhile give consideration to bird and butterfly, the most critical land cover type, woodland, has more significant correlation with indicators of biodiversity at larger extent (i.e. 200 or 250 m). These findings effectively help building a specific spatial scale system for protecting or improving biodiversity in rural landscape. Furthermore, this study also provides an approach to solve the spatial issue in landscape research and planning.

academic writing 07 constructing a research paper I

There are two chapters talking about constructing a research paper: unit 7 and unit 8.

To begin with, unit 7 introduces how to write a short communication, which is no concern of mine.I focus on a typical organizational patter for my paper, the so-called IMRD (Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion) format. What I should write and what the book can help me are including:

1. Title
2. Abstract-unit 5 (Summary writing)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
3. Introduction-unit 2 (General-specific), unit 3 (Problem-solution), unit 6 (Critique)
4. Methods-unit 3 (Process descriptions)
5. Results-unit 4 (highlighting statements; qualifications)
6. Discussion-unit 4 (explanations), unit 6 (literature comparisons)
7. Acknowledgement
8. Reference

Table 21 is very useful because it lists the frequencies of important features in RP sections. For example, the frequency of present tense in introduction and discussion is high, while in methods and results is low. On the other hand, the frequency of past tense in introduction and discussion is mid, while in methods and results is high. Other features are including passive voice, citations, qualifications, and commentary.

The direction begins at methods instead of introduction. In different fields, people have different strategies to develop their methods sections. In many of the social sciences, describing all the detail is very important in methods sections because developing methodology could be one of the main points of an research paper. However, in natural science, engineering and parts of medical research, previous researchers have established many standard procedures and methods, which are widely available. Table 22 provides 8 tips to condense or extend the methods sections based on different requirements.

About result, unit 4 (data commentary) has covered many skills. Therefore, unit 7 emphasizes the organization of results sections.

(Swales, J. M. and Feak, C. B. 2007, Academic Writing for Graduate Students, University of Michigsn Press, Ann Arbor.)