how to write a biology essay

how to write a biology essay

Effective Strategies for Writing a Biology Essay

1. Introduction to Writing Biology Essays

Another important item that differentiates essays for bio-scientists from other essays is the use and citation of sources. Pretty well all college-level science essays require many sources. Unlike other types of essays, however, those in the physical sciences tend to rely more on primary sources as well as popular and trustworthy non-science works. That is, we like to examine the data for ourselves. No scientific experiment or discovery is worth its salt unless others can look at the experimenters’ research and replicate the findings. Therefore, you should always rely on a wide range of sources as much as possible—reputable primary sources (the original research, clinical data, surveys, polls, experiments and their results) with secondary sources (popular accounts of trials, experiments, and data, or well-researched books and journal articles). Always use the best sources. Because online material can be spotty or pure propaganda (very common), it should be used sparingly if at all. Freely available sources may also be outdated. Very often, you may want to supplement your research material with data-driven primary sources, working papers in biology, or preprint archives in biological fields. Always ensure that your data source remains as reliable as possible.

In your college classes, nearly every essay that you are assigned should be tailored to the audience of that class. This means that we expect essays to be written with professional obedience to the rules and expectations of those in the physical sciences or who are studying to become scientists. Here are a few pointers to help you in your efforts. For starters, a non-scientific audience may find statistical prose uninviting. This is sometimes seen as the “robot-speak” of science. But if you give the readers what they have come to see—an interesting account of a scientific concept or discovery—then you will be rewarded with their attention.

2. Key Components of a Biology Essay

Introduction: The introduction in an essay will include both an attention grabber and a thesis statement. The introduction should outline the main points to be discussed in the essay. For example, the introduction in a biology essay will have an attention grabber, any necessary historical information from research, a thesis statement, an overview of the main points of the paper, hypothesis, and the studies performed until now. The essay will afterward provide the evidence and feedback based on the thesis. Although some people wrote their introduction last for their biology essay, it is advisable to write this first since it will capture the reader’s mind and inform you on where to take the content of the biology essay.

To write an effective essay on biology, one needs to have a clear and specific understanding of what a biology essay entails, as well as an organized understanding and thinking of the paper. One of the effective strategies in writing a good biology essay is organization. One sure way to write a good biology essay is to correctly outline the essay. An effective biology essay is one that clearly answers the objectives. More than one outline has been used by people to write essays. Depending on the type of essay, a person can use a chronological or a spatial organization of information. This involves arranging your essay so as to discuss the main point in one paragraph.

3. Research and Literature Review Techniques

1. ‘Interpreter’ Papers: Papers of this sort ask the writer to analyze, understand, and interpret some kind of text within the context of another text (or course theme). The writer does not analyze an author’s specific argument, but instead gauges the underlying issues at play within the view expressed by an author. When using this assignment, students get practice in analyzing and understanding a variety of different types of readings, and they also develop their sense of discipline-specific rhetorical conventions and forms.

Students who read carefully and critically about course materials and then respond to those materials through their writing typically enhance their own understanding of that content. The following assignments are meant to develop those habits of reading and writing. They guide students to various types of readings representing different courses and disciplines, and to the different types of writing these different types of readings stimulate. The assignments move from helping students, first, to understand the rhetorical conventions in interpreting course related texts, to, secondly, responding to them, and, finally, to use readings to help them define their positions and communicate them effectively to other readers.

4. Structuring and Formatting Guidelines

Main Body This is the most important section of the essay. The main body of your essay should consist of how you analyze your research properly and present your work in a manner in which the reader will understand. Discuss them in a flow that the reader will feel that his questions about the material have been answered without asking for a glossary. Doing so implies that you have achieved writing coherence and you have supplied factual information that increases your credibility.

Title You should clearly state in the first paragraph what the essay will address. The introduction is also used to introduce the structure of the essay and summarize the content. You need to be able to express yourself in a clear and concise manner. A biology essay should have an appropriate title. It should be clear but brief. Do not use abbreviations in the title unless you will define them later. The material in the essay requires that the reader is already familiar with the basic concepts of science. Scientific terms should not be explained unless they relate to the way the essay question is to be answered. If the essay question has a specific topic, ensure that the essay has a title that mainly covers the topic.

Introduction Main body of text Conclusion References

Heading The essay should be divided into sections called headings. It is often desirable to use the following structure:

5. Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Avoiding waffle. A clear and concise style is crucial to the essay. Lengthy pieces beginning with tedious truisms or historic details, or with swathes of sources, invariably irritate the reader, who is keen to get to the meat of it – the answer to the question. Small introductions can be effective; many paragraphs devoted to introductions are not. Equally, avoid meandering from the topic. Every sentence, every example must be relevant to the essay question. If in doubt, if you cannot see direct relevance, leave it out.

Suitably cautious use of lecture material. It is important to demonstrate evidence of engagement with the lecture course in your essay. However, beware of borrowing too much from lecture notes, and be sure to express your understanding in your own words. The essay is yours; the style and tone embodied in, and delivered by, a submitted piece should match the qualities of the individual submitting it as a whole. Even if all this is heeded though, borrowing too much from the lecture course is often at best unnecessary, at worst irrelevant and counterproductive in the presentation of the answer.

Excessive detail. Every point must bear some direct relationship to the question. Having vividly conveyed your understanding of a concept once, it is unnecessary to present minute details of minutely related aspects. This distracts from the central issues, causes the really important sections of your account to be lost in a maze of trivia, and diminishes the clarity of the whole endeavor. You will not score more marks for including everything you know; in fact, you may have marks deducted for failing to address the question directly and clearly.