This chapter explains academic integrity and plagiarism, which is a failure of academic integrity and is an increasing problem. It begins by defining in more detail what plagiarism is. It then looks at some of the reasons students give for plagiarizing in their work. The chapter then outlines a method to avoid plagiarism and highlights some of the many good reasons for doing so. It is important to note that, although most forms of plagiarism probably occur in the context of essays and practical reports, it is possible to plagiarize in any form of communication. As such, this chapter argues that the study skills required to help avoid plagiarism in writing are essential to success in every area of academic work.
Chapter
Academic integrity and avoiding plagiarism
Johnson Stuart and Scott Jon
Chapter
Applications of differentiation
This chapter reviews differential calculus, which gave a tremendous impetus to the development of both pure and applied mathematics. It covers optimization and polynomial approximation of functions, together with a powerful numerical method for finding roots. It also shows how calculus can provide all the ‘pre-calculus’ results about roots and turning-points for the basic functions, including an analysis of more complicated differentiable functions. The chapter emphasizes the crucial step of interpreting the function or graph in order to extract significant information from which practical conclusions can be drawn. It highlights the use of the function f (x) and its first and second derivatives f '(x) and f ''(x) to identify significant features of the graph of a general smooth function f (x).
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Arithmetic and algebra
This chapter gives an abstract approach that builds up the rules from basic concepts of real numbers and arithmetic operations. It presents mathematics in a bioscience context and includes case studies that show how a range of different mathematical techniques are needed in the development of a biological topic. It also introduces geometric growth, which is used to model colonies of certain populations in situations where the birth rate exceeds the mortality rate, there are sufficient supplies of food, and there is an absence of predators or diseases. The chapter describes a mathematical model that expresses the rates of change of the densities of the three types of cell: healthy, stage one cancer, and angiogenic cells. It examines the evaluation of numerical expressions and algebraic expressions involving fractions, exponents, and roots.
Chapter
Bar charts for qualitative data
This chapter explains how to use bar charts to express qualitative data or categorical data. Even if bar charts can simultaneously display nominal data and ordinal data, different data types can influence the design of the bar charts themselves. Bar charts are an effective way to display data due to their linear arrangement of bars, their visibility of valued categories, category labels, and easy data set comparison. Moreover, grouped bar charts are ideal for presenting qualitative data on the same categories from across multiple samples. The chapter looks into the advantages and disadvantages of bar chart y-axes at a non-zero value. It also presents the basic code for bar charts when using the R data.
Chapter
Choosing the right writing style
Johnson Stuart and Scott Jon
This chapter looks at conventions of writing style, such as the use of the passive form and an impersonal, rather than personal, expression. Writing for scientific purposes is often very different from the styles of writing used for other forms of communication, as it normally requires the use of a formal, impersonal style. It is important to use words accurately and to avoid slang, informal phrases, and generalities. To that end, this chapter discusses voice, sentences and phrases, punctuation, paragraphs, abbreviations, and illustrations. It has also revised some of the principles of basic grammar and construction. Finally, this chapter highlights the importance of referencing.
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Communication
This chapter describes communication in the context of biomedical science practice ranging from the everyday interactions between colleagues regarding clinical matters to the dissemination of the results of research. It outlines how to communicate effectively with various colleagues, such as presenting the findings of studies internally or externally as abstracts to learned societies, writing formal documents, and preparing data for publication in a journal. It also describes the key aspects of the layout of a PowerPoint presentation, the major sections of a written communication, the significant elements of an abstract, and the leading features of a research paper. The chapter promotes the correct passage of information, which is crucial for the safe and efficient working of a routine laboratory and is a key part of good laboratory practice. It emphasizes how failing to communicate in a clinical setting endangers life or can lead to poor experimental or process results.
Book
Communication Skills for the Biosciences looks first at essential communication skills useful for the sciences. It examines recording and managing information and ethics in communication. It provides an introduction to the scientific literature available, how to conduct effective literature searches, and reviewing the literature. The text shows the reader how to write a literature review, a research proposal, a research paper, and an abstract. It also explains in detail how to prepare tables and figures, as this is one of the essential skills required for writing about biosciences. The text looks at beyond degree level and gives some tips on how to develop a Masters dissertation or a PhD thesis, and how to deliver an effective presentation or introduce a research poster. The last chapter of the book talks about networking.
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Comparing multiple samples: boxplots and histograms
This chapter discusses using boxplots and histograms when comparing multiple samples. It explains how multiple samples can be graphed for comparison through boxplots, histograms, and bar charts. Bar charts are generally less informative than boxplots, giving the reader less detail about each sample. The chapter mentions how boxplots are better than histograms when you need to explore several samples together. Even though histograms are great for showing the distribution of each sample, there can be issues when trying to compare multiple histograms or when interpreting overlapping ones. Thus, boxplots are the best option when you are looking at grouped multiple-sample data. This refers to logically different samples grouped in a figure.
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Conducting effective literature searches
This chapter aims to equip the student with the necessary skills to construct and implement a systematic search of the literature and retrieve information, which is most relevant to the topic of the search in a time-efficient way. It begins with a description of the key features of an effective literature search. The chapter argues that the ability to search and retrieve particular types of information is an essential part of academic work. The chapter elaborates on the search tools that we can use to locate particular types of publications: library catalogues, specialist databases, and gateways. Then, the chapter details the strategy for planning and implementing a comprehensive literature search. Finally, it explores how we can keep track of scientific literature using alerting services and RSS feeds.
Book
Martin B Reed
Core Maths for the Biosciences consists of two parts. Part 1 looks atconsiders arithmetic, algebra, and functions. Here, chapters cover precision and accuracy, data tables, graphs, molarity and dilutions, variables, functions, equations, and linear functions. They also look at quadratic and polynomial functions, fitting curves, periodic functions, and exponential and logarithmic functions. Part 2 looks atfocusses on calculus and differential equations. It Chapters examines instantaneous rate-of-change, the rules of differentiation, applications of differentiation, techniques of integration, and the definite integral.
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Creating academic posters
Johnson Stuart and Scott Jon
This chapter explains the purpose of academic posters and suggests seven key steps for creating them effectively. Poster presentations are a common academic format and are a regular feature at academic conferences. Though conferences are unlikely for the undergraduate, the poster format is sometimes used as a form of assessment for undergraduate courses. Designing academic posters can be a difficult and time-consuming task. As such, the chapter discusses the purpose of posters and the key steps involved in creating them, to make designing and producing quality academic posters become an achievable goal. Designing posters is a particularly useful skill for studies beyond undergraduate level.
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Customizing everything using R: day-to-day
This chapter discusses the features and functions that concern plotting figures in R code. R has a vast range of customizable graphical parameters that enable people to control the way their figures are displayed. Thus, controlling the way the figures are displayed means that the figures can improve their respective functionality and aesthetic appeal through design components, such as colour, font, points, and lines. The chapter cites the importance of legends, which allows easy interpretation when multiple design features are used in a single figure. It also explains how axes can be used to control in R to express data even more clearly.
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Customizing everything using R: more specialist
This chapter outlines walk-throughs of R code using specific data examples. The aim of this is to provide generic and editable code for a range of plotting and design features. The chapter showcases the R code using examples of a bar chart and a scatterplot as a base to reference its respective customization. Design components (frames, images, background images, arrows, symbols, and shapes) can be added to figures with relatively little effort. Moreover, high-quality figures with inset plots can be achieved by modifying plot space parameters in an effort to avoid misleading readers when using a non-zero y-axis. The chapter also considers tricks used how to annotate images or geographic maps in the R plotting space.
Book
Andrew D. Blann
Data Handling starts off with an analysis of information in the biomedical sciences. It then considers handling quantities which encompasses mass, volume, and concentration. It moves on to obtaining and verifying data. Next, it looks at presenting data in graphic form. Another chapter considers quality, audit, and good laboratory practice. The next three chapters are about research, setting the scene, the analysis of modest data sets, and large data sets. Finally, the text ends with an examination of communication methods.
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Data tables, graphs, interpolation
This chapter talks about finding patterns as the essence of mathematics, which can be done if the data involves measurement of two or more physical variables. It illustrates how to plot graphs of data-points on paper and in MS Excel, and it demonstrates the basic patterns to look for, such as direct and inverse proportion, and linear relations. It also elaborates how to construct a data table and a data plot, which begins by tabulating the data and then plotting the data values as points on a graph. The chapter highlights a typical experiment, wherein the experimenter allows the independent variable to increase or decrease and measures the value of the dependent variable. It clarifies how data-point plots show the relationship between the variables through a graph.
Chapter
The definite integral
This chapter provides a geometric and physical interpretation of the integral, which leads to the concept of the definite integral as a numerical quantity instead of a function. It highlights practical applications of the definite integral, including a powerful method for evaluating definite integrals numerically. It also demonstrates how to calculate a definite integral by working out the indefinite integral F(x)| = (x) dx and omitting the constant of integration. The chapter points out that areas below the x-axis are counted as negative, noting the importance of checking that the function does not cross the x-axis anywhere within the interval. It talks about a concept of the definite integral that is independent of the idea of differentiation, which can be used to define the definite integral mathematically as a process that involves taking the limit called Riemann integration.
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Delivering effective oral presentations
This chapter offers some guidelines for the preparation and delivery of effective oral presentations. It notes that it is expected for a scientist to communicate orally in different environments and to different types of audiences, adding that it is also essential that they learn how to communicate their work in an informative and coherent way. The chapter examines how to plan an effective oral presentation and how to organize and structure a talk. It also investigates how to design effective visual aids to support the presentation and the techniques for rehearsing the talk and managing nerves. Next, the chapter explores the use of body language and voice to complement the content of the talk. It also considers how to deal effectively with questions and how to evaluate the success of the presentation.
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Delivering scientific presentations
Johnson Stuart and Scott Jon
This chapter is devoted to the delivery of scientific presentations. It expands on the previous chapter’s topic by demonstrating how to effectively communicate content. Communicating the content involves a very different set of skills to preparing the content, hence why it is important to develop the skills to communicate content effectively. The chapter begins by highlighting common concerns people have about presentations and how to address them. Written and spoken presentations are differentiated here. Next, it considers how to use visual aids effectively and appropriately so as to keep them from becoming too distracting. And finally, the chapter provides some key techniques to help one’s presentations run smoothly.
Chapter
Differential equations I
This chapter deals with the differential equation, which is an equation involving a derivative and its solution requires finding y as a function of x. It points out that finding solutions for differential equations require basic algebra, the theory of functions, and differential and integral calculus. It also classifies the different types of differential equation, including methods for solving first-order differential equations. The chapter covers solution techniques applied to mathematical models of biological processes and numerical techniques implemented in MS Excel, which produce the solution as a set of data-points that can be graphed. It mentions the main classification of differential equations in terms of their order and the concept of boundary conditions.
Chapter
Differential equations II
This chapter introduces numerical methods that can be used on problems that are too hard to solve by standard algebra, such as finding roots of complicated equations. It demonstrates numerical methods for solving a first-order ordinary differential equations (ODE) with an initial condition. It also looks at problems involving two or more simultaneous ODEs, particularly the equations relating the growth of populations of different species in a predator–prey situation. The chapter explains how a numerical method produces a set of data-points that lie on or close to the true solution curve. It analyses the accuracy of Euler's method, which can be improved by reducing the steplength or taking shorter steps between data-points.
