In writing your paper, avoid the use of mere opinions and impressions. Instead, support your statements with evidence along with interpretation. Without this evidence, your statements will be without support and reduced to mere opinion. Our goal here is to reach a level of verifiability as outlined by the scientific method. This same process of supporting arguments is what should take place in these papers; in fact, many believe that this practice of supporting arguments is insufficient as proof of a conclusion. They would further say that arguments have to be set up so that an experiment can firmly reject them. This proposal adds the requirement of framing hypotheses so that they can be rejected, in addition to the widely accepted notion of verifiability in science.
What are the hypotheses (or hypothesis) in your article. These may be explicitly stated or implicit in the introduction. If they are not there, then provide details why the article does not conform to modern scientific convention. Next, do the hypotheses make a statement that can be rejected by experimentation?
Provide substantial details on the conclusions of the study.
What evidence is put forth to support the conclusions made in the study?
Do the conclusions of the study have broader implications in our knowledge of the natural world? Or, are the conclusions narrow in scope and do not apply to other systems in nature?
Summarize the meaning of each of the figures and data tables.
Are the results in the figures and tables supported by p-values (statistical confidence in conclusions)?
Describe any flaws in the study and how you went about searching for any flaws.
Is it possible to reproduce this study easily? If not, does it still follow the scientific method?
The written paper should include at least two pages of Introduction, at least one page of Methods, the Results including tables and figures along with paragraphs of fact-based interpretation, and finally a Discussion, which is more interpretative along with your opinions on the findings. This paper should include citations and references from primary sources, where necessary. Google and other web-based sources are not primary sources of scientific information.