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Mistakes In A Research Paper
Author : Stewart Wrighter
Submitted : 2012-02-22 Word Count : 7 Popularity: Not Rated
Tags: term papers, essays, research papers, thesis, dissertation, book report
Oversimplification
We have used a spectrophotometer to determine protein concentrations for all our samples. We also used an oscilloscope to measure the resting potentials in crayfish muscles.
The oscilloscope or the spectrophotometer may be a novel, mystery, and a versatile device to you, but according to what I have suspected, even an expert biochemist might have a hard time in finding a protein concentration while using only a spectrophotometer. The first statement, however, leaves out the dye reagent, pipettors, standards, etc. that you require for the assay. The second statement omits the references to the micropipettes or the specialized electronic instrumentation that is again required to measure the transmembrane potentials.
What was the information that you intended to convey? If you are planning to describe the methodology, then you should write a complete description. If you intend to just summarize the procedures then you may just seek for a phrase that sums up all that was done without oversimplifying.
Superficiality
The purpose of a discussion is to solely interpret the results and not to state them in a different way. In most of the cases a superficial discussion might ignore the mechanisms or fail to explain them completely. You should always make it clear to the reader why and how a specific result came to pass. The statement, The result already agreed with the known theoretical value, does not tell us anything about the mechanism itself that are behind the results. What can be the basis of expecting a particular result? Explanations would not be easy in this case, nor would the explanations be correct, but you would get the most or all of the available credits for bringing about a reasonable explanation, even if it is not quite the right way. On the other hand the superficial statements will cost you.
Anthropomorphism
Sometimes, it is not easy to find the right wording that is in order to explain a cause and effect statement or relationship, and you may not even understand the concept well enough in order to write an explanation of it. A type of oversimplification is Anthropomorphism that helps the writer to avoid the real explanation that lies of a mechanism. A couple of examples should make the point easy for you.
Sodium wants to move towards the compartment, down the chemical gradient with a lower concentration.
However, the thought behind this statement might be correct, but this statement does not represent the correct mechanism that is actually required. Sodium does not have a free will to move around. It tends to move towards the compartment with a lower concentration because the probability increases of a sodium ion while it moves through a channel on the more concentrated side of the membrane and that the ion will move on the less concentrated side through a channel. In case you do not want to explain the principle that is behind osmosis, you may simply state the osmosis pressure that tends to drive sodium from the higher to a less concentrated side of a membrane.
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