510-scientific writing lecture2

Scien&fic Wri&ng Physics 6510/4410 Spring 2012 Eun-­‐Ah Kim Thanks to Kyle Shen and others for materials. References: Lecture notes from previous years, Lecture notes from scien&fic wri&ng course at stanford. www.stanford.edu/~kcobb 3-­‐lecture series 1.  Bare-­‐bone guideline. 2.  Prac&cal how-­‐to: From outline to abstract, figures, tables and paragraphs. 3.  Rewri&ng at macroscopic and microscopic scales. Outline •  Main message: state what you have to say in one sentence. •  Introduc&on (~2 points) •  Relevant theory (~3 points) •  Apparatus and method with a diagram (~ 3 points) •  Analysis and discussion = your physics (~ 6 points & 2-­‐4 figures) •  Conclusion (~ 2 points) An example will be placed on the Blackboard Abstracts 1. 
2. 
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4. 
Why: the background. What: ques&on asked. How: experiments done. What: key specific (quan&ta&ve) results found 5.  Meaning: the answer to the ques&on asked. Your main message! 6.  So what: implica&ons. Kicker. Grading wri&ng aspects [10] •  Outline 5 –  a message statement –  one bullet point for each paragraph –  Built in list of Figures • 
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One missing element in the abstract -­‐1 A figure not following the figure guideline -­‐1 A paragraph without a topic sentence -­‐1 A un-­‐necessary paragraph -­‐1 Outline Ø Start a file with place-­‐holders. Ø Think about the main message. Try typing it. Ø “ Analysis & Discussion “ sec&on. Plan how to use figures. Ø Revise the main message, if necessary. Ø “Apparatus and Methods” sec&on. Ø “Conclusion” sec&on. Ø Revise the main message. Ø “Introduc&on” . Taylor it around the message. Ø “Theory”. Just enough for the logical flow. Example PRL PRL 106, 127004 (2011)
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS
week ending
25 MARCH 2011
Bulk Superconducting Phase with a Full Energy Gap in the Doped Topological
Insulator Cux Bi2 Se3
M. Kriener, Kouji Segawa, Zhi Ren, Satoshi Sasaki, and Yoichi Ando
Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University, Osaka 567-0047, Japan
(Received 1 December 2010; published 23 March 2011)
The superconductivity recently found in the doped topological insulator Cux Bi2 Se3 offers a great
opportunity to search for a topological superconductor. We have successfully prepared a single-crystal
sample with a large shielding fraction and measured the specific-heat anomaly associated with the
superconductivity. The temperature dependence of the specific heat suggests a fully gapped, strongcoupling superconducting state, but the BCS theory is not in full agreement with the data, which hints
at a possible unconventional pairing in Cux Bi2 Se3 . Also, the evaluated effective mass of 2:6me (me is the
free electron mass) points to a large mass enhancement in this material.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.127004
In the past two years, the three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator (TI) has been attracting a lot of interest
as a new state of matter [1–3]. It is characterized by
the existence of a gapless surface state that emerges because of the nontrivial Z2 topology of the insulating bulk
PACS numbers: 74.25.Bt, 74.25.Op, 74.62.Dh, 74.70.Ad
the topological surface state may turn into a 2D topological
superconductor as a result of a SC proximity effect [4].
Therefore, it is important to confirm whether the superconductivity is really occurring in the bulk of Cux Bi2 Se3
and, if so, to elucidate the fundamental nature of its
Examples •  Samples 1& 5, clear and complete outlines •  Sample 4, great outline but missing figure plans. •  Sample 2 & 3, great outlines but missing &tle and message sentence. •  Sample 6, not concrete. •  Sample 7, hard to understand Outline <-­‐> Abstract •  Tie each sec&on of outline to the abstract. •  Make sure results are presented in a concrete manner. •  Make sure the ques&on (purpose) and answer are clear. Outline <-­‐> Paragraphs •  Outline bullet point = topic sentence + stress point •  Structure of paragraph: •  Topic sentence •  Suppor&ng material •  Stress sentence Outline <-­‐> Figures and Tables •  Use big fonts for figures labels and legends (24~32 pt) •  Use vector images (pdf or ps) that scales, rather than bitmaps •  Use legends over text cap&on