Biology Essay Writing Guide All You Need to Know

Biology Essay Writing Guide All You Need to Know Scientific writing is an essential element of the whole educational process. Nonetheless, it is often neglected in the undergraduate courses in favor of consideration of scientific theories. Besides, the ability to present research findings effectively is essential for success in biological sciences. Not to mention, graduate students are encouraged to publish scientific essays quite often to become professional scientists. Thus, it is of vital importance for students to have a solid basis in scientific writing in order to develop their academic careers. It can be challenging for the students studying biology to develop sufficient writing skills as most of them are focused solely on the scientific process. Thus, the first advice to you is not to neglect the scientific writing process. It is frequently a difficult task as it needs a unique format and differs in structure from how you may be initially trained to write. Scientific writing differs from how you can currently write in English 101, Art, or Social Science courses. Aforementioned can make the scientific writing process hard; mainly when you are presented with new and sophisticated content. Nevertheless, the effective essay can deepen the perception of the topic enforcing you to submit a coherent and logical article that is backed by credible investigations. A professional scientific essay should follow a proper format and consist of such sections as an introduction of a topic; the hypothesis to be tested in the composition; description of methods to be used; key results of the investigation; a discussion that links the results of the analysis to the broader understanding of the topic. The format mentioned above is a general format that is required in most scientific writing. Not to say, the correct arrangement of an essay facilitates the smooth delivery of information from the author to the reader. Picking a Suitable Topic for a Biology Essay When you are composing an essay in the field of biology, you should make sure that the issue to be discussed is up to date. What is more, you may choose a popular topic and make your essay highly relevant. Nonetheless, it can be a challenging task as there are a lot of different issues worth attention. At the same time, it is often difficult to limit a broad field of investigation to one particular theme. Thus, to make it easier, you can regard the samples of the topics mentioned below: Rewriting of Human DNA; Viruses as the Most Dangerous Weapon; Can Vaccination Stop the Epidemics? Effects of Birth Control; Flu Viruses. Choosing a topic for your investigation, make sure that some background information about the issue is known to you. You can subscribe to the biology-related digest to get some fresh ideas. By monitoring, reading, and searching for the relevant data, you will keep your hand on the relevant biological investigations. At the same time, the title of your essay should include well-chosen words reflecting the subject of the composition. The title should indicate the scope of the essay carefully. Thus, do not title your essay Evolutionary Developmental Biology if you are discussing the topic of wildlife conservation and biology. Create a Solid Outline Starting the writing process, you may face a lot of difficulties. As you will be required to analyze scientific articles and incorporate their arguments into your paper, it can be challenging to evaluate the board variety of the materials correctly. Thus, you should compose the outline before starting to write the entire body of your essay. As a matter of fact, successful essays begin by examining how your theme fits into the existing scientific discussion, crafting a compelling topic, and deciding how to best aim your message at the intended readers. The Prewriting Stage of the Writing Process To compose a successful essay in the field of biology, you ought to identify the audience clearly. You should decide what you want your readers to comprehend from the essay. Decide what story you want them to read. While this may seem self-evident, some students fail to submit a suitable article because they probably fail to report the scientific findings correctly. Thus, you should keep in mind that the aim of science writing is not to reveal what you did or what you discovered, but rather what you want your readers to explore. Accordingly, you can determine your audience by asking yourself such questions as: Who are my target readers? What is the purpose of my audience reading the essay? What information do I want it to take away from my essay? If you want to publish a scientific paper in an academic journal or specific website, you should consider the journal mission statements or the submission guidelines. It will help you to determine how an essay should be structured to be published. The Ultimate Structure of Biology Essay In general, scientific essays have two types of audience: first, the readers of scientific journals; and second, the editors or professors, who have profound knowledge in the field of investigation. Consequently, you should be able to convince the audience that the research presented in your paper is relevant, accurate, and credible. For that purpose, you should clearly emphasize both the aim of the work and the result of it. Thus, present enough data to prove the validity of your investigation. The abstract is the part of the essay that the investigators often examine when deciding whether they are interested in studying the rest of the paper. Therefore, the data presented in the abstract should reflect all the critical issues of the essay to make the readers interested and help them to decide whether the paper reveals the relevant facts of their field of interest. The abstract should summarize the research and include one or two sentences for each of the sections presented in the body of the essay. To do that, you can introduce the rationale, primary objectives, and the purpose of the study. Further, indicate the methods that were used in the investigation. In the final section, the abstract should contain the summary of the results and the main conclusions. Provide Your Essay with a Hooking Introduction As the next step, you should compose the introduction section. The introduction is of vital importance for a successful essay as it sets the tone of the paper. Thus, at the beginning of the composition, you can provide the relevant background data and mention the problem you aim to address. Think about the introduction of your essay as the beginning of a funnel. There you can explicitly specify the broader implications of your composition in the field of study. Do not forget to present enough background data so that the reader could understand the topic. Perform a thorough consideration of the relevant literature, but do not write everything you find. Background information should only involve materials that are directly connected to your essay. In other words, the composition should not contain the whole scope of information about the field of interest. After choosing the ideas to be used, do not forget to incorporate the in†text citations in the proper paper format. Create the Informative Paragraphs of the Main Body The body paragraphs should incorporate such sections as methods, results, and discussion. First of all, you should clarify the aim of the work and determine the structure of the paper for the readers. You should make sufficient consideration of the scientific investigations in the field of interest. Then, it is required to present and review the research outcomes. Results can be combined into one section. Nevertheless, the readers can require the presentation of the results accompanying interpretation so that the readers need to be informed what the results mean. Then, you can mention the conclusion of the essay. The conclusion section displays the consequence of the work by explaining the findings of the investigation. At the end of a composition, in the discussion section, you can relate these judgments to the motivation stated in the introduction. Tips That Will Make Your Writing Better: What Our Writers Suggest Before you start writing, you should comprehend the differences between plagiarism, quoting, and paraphrasing. Note that paraphrasing is a critical and punishable offense that will result in a zero mark or worse it quite possibly can provoke expulsion from your educational institution. In general, plagiarism can be defined as the act of introducing the thoughts or statements of another person as your own. Thus, while it may be claimed that some opinions are original, you should define all the sources that are applied in your essay. With this in mind, to act as an honest and academically responsible student, you should mainly write an essay entirely in your own words. Paraphrasing does not mean using ones sentence and replacing a few words. All the statements in the essay should be the result of you reading relevant articles and repeating each in your own words while referring to the original text. Therefore, you must indicate all the sources of information that were used in the essa y to eliminate plagiarism. Hence, you should appropriately cite the quotations and restated thoughts. All the students should keep in mind that nothing in science can be considered as â€Å"proven.† Thus, in the biology essay, you can write that some data is correlated with the hypothesis. If you consider that one statement is accurate, you can indicate that the weight of evidence for the particular theory is solid. For instance, you can state that the weight of evidence for the hypothesis concerning evolution by natural selection is overwhelming. Not to mention, in the field of biology, the word â€Å"theory† is rarely used, so you should apply such terms as hypothesis and prediction. Some hypotheses may be suggested to explain a pattern; they are usually not mutually exclusive, so you cannot state that one hypothesis is entirely right or wrong. As an illustration, a particular breeding site may be selected as it is free of predators; however, it does not indicate that the site was not chosen due to the availability of food nearby. Kindly note that the most successful science writers: are familiar with the background of the discipline; have a clear topic that they want to cover; expertly draft the message they want to present to their audience. Note that even though you have finally completed data collecting and drafting the essay, you are not done yet. Revising the paper and consolidating constructive feedback will be entirely useful in order to avoid rejection and get a positive mark. To do that, you should begin your paper early enough to be able to take your time to edit the essay. Then, edit the draft to examine if the paper is free of mistakes. To check the coherence of the essay, verify if there is a common thread that ties each paragraph to the introducing one, and furthermore, that each sentence within a paragraph confirms the previous conviction. Ultimately, re†read the paper with a more exceptional lens. Editing sentence structure and word choice should be the finishing touches on your essay. The absence of grammatical and spelling mistakes is just as critical as a scientific background of an essay. Kindly note that if your essay is poorly written, it will have a limited impact on the readers, regardless of the concepts shown. After revising your biology essay, ask someone else to evaluate it. You can ask a classmate. It can be an ideal option as your classmate will possibly know the requirements of the assignment. If a classmate cannot proceed with it, try asking a friend or even a family member. Having a fresh set of eyes will help you recognize sections of the essay that need editing. This method will also help you to understand the peer review process, which is an essential element of professional science writing. It is of vital importance to not be discouraged by some negative comments. You should remember that combining the feedback of reviewers will only strengthen your biological essay, so you need constructive criticism to progress. References How to Write Guide: Sections of the Paper. (2018). Retrieved from http://abacus.bates.edu/~ganderso/biology/resources/writing/HTWsections.html Scientific Papers | Learn Science at Scitable. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/scientific-papers-13815490 Turbek, S., Chock, T., Donahue, K., Havrilla, C., Oliverio, A., Polutchko, S. et al. (2016). Scientific Writing Made Easy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Undergraduate Writing in the Biological Sciences. The Bulletin Of The Ecological Society Of America, 97(4), 417-426. doi: 10.1002/bes2.1258 Writing a Scientific Research Article. (2018). Retrieved from columbia.edu/cu/biology/ug/research/paper.html Writing Scientific Papers. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.colby.edu/biology/BI17x/writing_papers.html

Aztec Origins and the Founding of Tenochtitlan

Aztec Origins and the Founding of Tenochtitlan The origins of the Aztec Empire are part legend, part archaeological and historical fact. When the Spanish conquistador Hernn Cortà ©s arrived in Basin of Mexico in 1517, he found that the Aztec Triple Alliance, a strong political, economic and military pact, controlled the basin and indeed much of central America. But where did they come from, and how did they get to be so powerful? The Origins of the Aztecs The Aztecs, or, more properly, the Mexica as they called themselves, were not originally from the Valley of Mexico but rather migrated from the north. They called their homeland Aztlan, The Place of Herons., but Aztlan is a location which has not as yet been identified archaeologically and was likely at least partly mythical. According to their own records, the Mexica and other tribes were known as a group as the Chichimeca, left their homes in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States because of a great drought. This story is told in several surviving codices (painted folding books), in which the Mexica are shown carrying with them the idol of their patron deity Huitzilopochtli. After two centuries of migration, at around AD 1250, the Mexica arrived in the Valley of Mexico. Today, the Basin of Mexico is filled with the sprawling metropolis of Mexico City; but underneath the modern streets are the ruins of Tenochtitln, the site where the Mexica settled, and the capital city for the Aztec empire. Basin of Mexico Before the Aztecs When the Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico, it was far from an empty place. Because of its wealth of natural resources, the valley has been continuously occupied for thousands of years, the first known substantial occupation established at least as early as the second century BC. The Valley of Mexico lies ~2,100 meters (7,000 feet) above sea level, and it is surrounded by high mountains, some of which are active volcanoes. Water coursing down in streams from these mountains created a series of shallow, marshy lakes that provided a rich source for animals and fish, plants, salt and water for cultivation. Today the Valley of Mexico is almost entirely covered by the monstrous expansion of Mexico City: but there were ancient ruins as well as thriving communities when the Aztecs arrived, including the abandoned stone structures of two major cities: Teotihuacan and Tula, both referred to by the Aztecs as the Tollans. Teotihuacn: Almost a thousand years before the Aztecs, the huge and carefully planned city of Teotihuacn (occupied between 200 BC and AD 750) flourished there. Today Teotihuacan is a popular archaeological site a few miles north of modern Mexico City that attracts thousands of tourists each year. The word Teotihuacn is a Nahuatl (the language spoken by the Aztecs) word meaning The Birthplace of the Gods. We dont know its real name, but the Aztecs gave this name to the city because it was a sacred place associated with the legendary origins of the world. Tula: Another city that developed in the Valley of Mexico before the Aztecs was the city of Tula, the early post-classic capital of the Toltecs between AD 950 and 1150. The Toltecs were considered by the Aztecs to be the ideal rulers, brave warriors who excelled in the arts and sciences. Tula was so revered by the Aztecs that the king Motecuhzoma (aka Montezuma) sent people to dig up Toltec objects for use in the temples at Tenochtit ln. The Mexica were awestruck by the massive structures built by the Tollans, considering Teotihuacan to be the sacred setting for the creation of the current world or Fifth Sun. The Aztecs carried away and reused objects from the sites: more than 40 Teotihuacan-style objects have been found in offerings within Tenochtitlans ceremonial precinct. Aztec Arrival in Tenochtitln When the Mexica arrived in the Valley of Mexico about 1200 AD, both Teotihuacn and Tula had been abandoned for centuries; but other groups were already settled on the best land. These were groups of Chichimecs, related to the Mexica, who had migrated from the north in earlier times. The late-coming Mexica were forced to settle on the inhospitable hill of Chapultepec or Grasshopper Hill. There they became vassals of the city of Culhuacan, a prestigious city whose rulers were considered the heirs of the Toltecs. As acknowledgment for their assistance in battle, the Mexica were given one of the daughters of the King of Culhuacan to be worshiped as a goddess/priestess. When the king arrived to attend the ceremony, he found one of the Mexica priests dressed in the flayed skin of his daughter: the Mexica reported to the king that their God Huitzilopochtli had asked for the sacrifice of the princess. The sacrifice and flaying of the Culhua Princess provoked a ferocious battle, which the Mexica lost. They were forced to leave Chapultepec and move to some marshy islands in the middle of the lake. Tenochtitln: Living in a Marshland After they were forced out of Chapultepec, according to the Mexica myth, the Aztecs wandered for weeks, searching for a place to settle. Huitzilopochtli appeared to the Mexica leaders and indicated a place where a great eagle was perched on a cactus killing a snake. This place, smack dab in the middle of a marsh with no proper ground at all, was where the Mexica founded their capital, Tenochtitln. The year was 2 Calli (Two House) in the Aztec calendar, which translates in our modern calendars to AD 1325. The apparently unfortunate position of their city, in the middle of a marsh, actually facilitated economic connections and protected Tenochtitln from military attacks by restricting access to the site by canoe or boat traffic. Tenochtitln grew rapidly as both a commercial and military center. The Mexica were skillful and fierce soldiers and, despite the story of the Culhua princess, they were also able politicians who created solid alliances with the surrounding cities. Growing a Home in the Basin The city grew rapidly, with palaces and well-organized residential areas and aqueducts providing fresh water to the city from the mountains. At the center of the city stood the sacred precinct with ball courts, schools for nobles, and priests quarters. The ceremonial heart of the city and of the whole empire was the Great Temple of Mexico-Tenochtitln, known as the Templo Mayor or Huey Teocalli (the Great House of the Gods). This was a stepped pyramid with a double temple on top dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, the main deities of the Aztecs. The temple, decorated with bright colors, was rebuilt many times during Aztec history. The seventh and final version was seen and described by Hernn Cortà ©s and the conquistadors. When Cortà ©s and his soldiers entered the Aztec capital on November 8, 1519, they found one of the largest cities in the world. Sources Edited and updated by K. Kris Hirst Berdan FF. 2014. Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory. New York: Cambridge University Press.Healan D. 2012. The Archaeology of Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Research 20(1):53-115.Smith ME. 2013. The Aztecs. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.Van Tuerenhout DR. 2005, The Aztecs: New Perspectives. Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO Inc.