What next? The Road to Success

This is The Most Important Page in this Website! Why is it so important? Because it might hold a key to your future. Don't just hand in your science project report to your teacher, and forget it. Here is how to turn that report into a BIG STEP toward your future goals!

Added notes for TEACHERS and PARENTS

1. The Beginning
   (From your first thoughts to handing in your report.)
   1. The Beginning of the Beginning (Choosing a Project - Box One)

      Imagine that you have just decided to do an experiment. First, you need to ask two questions: why do you want to do this, and what will you do? Perhaps your teacher has told you that one is required. (But the mature young scientist is so self-motivated that projects get started out of pure curiosity. Those students want to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Edison and others who started projects in the back shed or family garage. 'Self-motivation' is a term on many checklists teachers need to fill out for your admission to college.) So, for whatever reason, you have this desire to do a project! Your first thought should be something like this: "Someday I want to be a _____, so what kind of project would prepare me to reach that goal?" One of the marks of maturity is thinking long-range, and keeping your eyes on the goal. Become distracted ONLY by things you discover to be even more important for your future.

      Because of your high degree of curiosity, you have several candidate projects to work on. "Which one to choose?" you wonder. Well, users of this website are here because they want to do something no one has ever done before. Perhaps you would like to work on such a project with other collaborating students elsewhere in the world where needed resources are available. "Collaboration" is the name of the song! Make use of each other's strengths! So-, toss out all projects that have been done by zillions of kids before you. (Exception: Often you need to acquire skills for the big EXPERIMENT down the road. Then you do a short EXERCISE project, which others have done many times before. Successfully repeating this 'exercise' lets you have confidence in your results in the later EXPERIMENT. Note that 'experiment' is something never done before. Once done, followers do it as an 'exercise.')

      What is THE QUESTION you are asking in your experiment. This is often the hardest part of the whole project. Hone your thoughts to arrive at a definitive question. Do NOT have a question that is too general ("What causes cancer?"). Do NOT ask a question as to whether something exists or not, because you could work at it all your life and come to the conclusion that it does not exist. Yet, perhaps, you haven't looked hard enough! Sage wisdom: usually try to measure something that you know exists. Simplistically: you know that hurricanes destroy houses. Determine the best shapes of houses to promote the least damage. OR You know that dogs like food, but which food do they like best? OR You know that lactase is inhibited by galactose, but is galactose a competitive inhibitor, or is it an allosteric inhibitor? But don't ask if reverse transcriptase is a normal constituent of animal cells. It might be, but only for very short periods of time in the animal's life cycle, and you might miss it. Besides, do you have the financial resources to do the experiment. Science is the art of doing the possible.

   2. The Middle of the Beginning (Designing and Doing the Work - Box Two)

      You have decided what you want to do, and so you do the experiment, collect data, make graphs, take photos, etc. But it is very necessary to keep yourself focused and on track so that you will collect the data that you need. A way to do this is to pretend that you already have all the data. Write a preliminary report (none of this is written in stone, all is subject to your eraser). It is especially important to write the summary (all your hopes and wishes), then draw crude graphs that illustrate the data you predict you will collect. This very early graphing is EXTREMELY important because it will focus you on exactly the types of experiments you will need to run in order to collect this sort of data. (Of course, when the real data comes in, it may totally contradict what you thought would happen, but that's great! Nothing is as intriguing as counter-intuitive results!

      Another importance of predicting what will happen is that it will help you plan for the supplies you will need. And just to be sure that you have everything you need, go through the whole process perhaps using water alone. You will be surprised at all the little things you forgot! And you will have a good idea of just how long the whole process takes.

      Finally you are ready to run the real experiment(s). Do it! Carefully collect and record the data - perhaps directly into your computer so that you don't lose it. How many times have you stashed something in a "safe place" and then can never find it again?!

   3. The End of the Beginning (Your Report - Box Three)

      You make your presentation. This might be only that you write up your report and submit it to your teacher and/or give your report in front of your classmates. It might also be that you have presented your work at a science fair. Let's look at each of these formats to see what they entail.

      1. A written report. Most often the teacher will prescribe a particular format which must be followed. Do it, and do it correctly!

         Often times, and particularly in advanced courses, the teacher will introduce you to "journal form" - the format prescribed by professional scientific journals. Although these differ in minor ways, they all follow a format invented by a businessman back in the days of Queen Elizabeth the First, who then gave her approval of that format. The purpose of this was to help diverse scientists to gleen through the hundreds of reports so as to choose rapidly those of particular interest to their own individual concerns. A good guidebook for this whole process is given in Robert A. Day's book on "How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper" (see your on-line or local book sales outlet). What is particularly good about having to write your paper in this form is that later, when you want to submit your findings to a journal, most of the work is already done. Here is an example of a journal article which consists of a chain of parts in the following approximate order.

         1. Title that includes the results
         2. Authors and where they work.
         3. A brief summary that tells the general question, what results were found, and the ramifications of those findings.
         4. Introduction
         5. Materials and Methods
         6. Results
         7. Discussion (often this is combined with the Results for smoother reading). A 'discussion' allows a broader scope of thoughts to be presented than does a "Conclusions" section. Your discussion section might include your speculations, which if correct can make you famous. And if incorrect, it'll be forgotten. So you stand the chance for great honor versus minimal dishonor. So go for it!
         8. Acknowledgments (the only optional part and it covers who gave you minor help, or who gave you financial assistance in support of this project.
         9. References or Literature Cited

      2. An oral presentation is a formal address before a group of people. Visual aids are very highly recommended.

         Remember that an oral "speech" has three parts, and not more.

         • First, tell the people what you are going to tell them.
           You form a rough outline for your audience.
         • Then tell them! Here you flesh in the outline in detail. Do not overwhelm the audience with too much detail, however. You will put them to sleep. If you must, pass out a handout to which they may refer, and mention that extremely detailed facets of your talk can be discussed later. Give your contact information - phone number, email address and so on.
         • Finally, tell them what you told them.
           Summarize!

         Your oral presentation will likely include some projected material as by projection slides, transparencies, or directly from a computer via something like "power point."

      3. A poster. Most societies will give you their specific format rules for assembling a poster - size, complexity, etc. One thing you usually don't have to include in a poster are the fine details of methodology. If a bystander wants to know, they can ask you a question. Remember that at a professional society presentation, your poster is not being judged. It is a point of departure for conversations with passersby. Perhaps the greatest thing about posters is that there is so much one-on-one conversation. You should look forward to a lot of helpful hints about where your research should go next and how to do it. Sometimes a bystander will ask if the two of you can work together on the next phase.

         While a poster usually takes far longer to assemble than does a slide-talk, the number of people who see your poster often far exceeds the number of people who would have attended your talk.

   2. THE END Building the Highway to your Future
      (What you do AFTER turning in your report.)

      This is THE AFTER mentioned near the beginning. Here is where you pave the road to your future. There are several steps to be made - all of which are that one part of the scientific method that is so rarely taught in school. It is called PUBLICATION. You have worked hard and now you want to use that project for all its worth - especially for moving ahead toward your future life's goal. You want to contribute to pushing the cutting edge of science forward, and that means others must know about what you did so that they can build upon your foundation to move the cutting edge even further. In the process these other scientists will want to know you, and you will get to know people that might play a big role in your future. Remember, it is not only WHAT you know, but WHOM you know!

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      One of the hurdles a young scientist needs to overcome is what might be called "the do-it-alone" syndrome. Ingrained in your student mind for years and years is that you are to do your own work and don't obtain help from others. BUT, real science isn't done that way! No one got to the moon or Mars working all alone. Tens of thousands of scientists and engineers collaborated. Each person contributed what they knew best. The final success was the sum of the strengths of all the participants. The weaknesses are not considered. Also remember that when people have helped you, their contributions should be recognized in the final product. If they were very much a part of the thinking and doing of the project, you should ask them if they would like to be a co-author; lesser contributions such as providing supplies or smaller bits of advice go recognized in that part of your report called "Acknowledgments," which comes immediately in front of the references section. It's a way of saying "Thank you; I couldn't have done this without your help!" Show your gratitude or the next time you might get their help. Some has said that doing science is a social art.

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      There are several levels of "publication", and none of them are presentations at a science fair. Presentation at a science fair is mostly an "exercise" in building your self-confidence. The following reports of "experiments" are given in approximate increasing order of prestige:

      1. You submit to give a talk with visual aids to an "adult" science conference in your state.
      2. You submit your manuscript for publication in a non-reviewed journal (publishes everything submitted to it). This might include an on-line journal.
      3. You are invited to give a talk at the state level or lower.
      4. You are chosen to give a talk at the national or international level.
      5. Your submission is reviewed and selected out of many for presentation at the national or international level.
      6. You submit your manuscript to a journal and it is reviewed and gets accepted (a panel of relevant scientists on their editorial board deem your paper worthy of publication).
      7. That journal mentioned in the previous point is one of the more prestigeous ones in that area of science.

      8. You are asked to give your acceptance speech to the Swedish Parliament after being awarded the Nobel Prize.
         
      3. Your RESUMÉ or Curriculum vitae

         You now want to move up to a higher level in education, or you want to get a job. Your prospective employer or university admissions administrator will ask for your "resumé". You are NOT being asked for a short paragraph about yourself. Instead, you are being asked for a sheet of paper showing your relevant life history all set in a rather standard format. For a sample of this click .

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      Notes for TEACHERS

      Let's start with two directives for teachers who have supervised science project students. This is especially important if the student worked on a novel project - by that is meant an experiment which has NEVER been done before by anyone, anywhere. The project can be the ticket to a great career for the student IF the sequels are followed after handing in of the project for your grading.

      1. Teacher, why in the blankety-blank don't you have your name on that work also as a coauthor?-! Just because you are a teacher doesn't mean that you are incapable of discovering something new. All the time college and university professors discover things alongside their students and become coauthors. You can, too! And there are NSF grants specifically for funding precollege projects upon which BOTH the teacher AND students are listed as coauthors. See either the NSF website or your system's grants officer.
         

      2. In addition to the write-up of the project that was handed in to you for grading, ALSO require that the student submit to you two other write-ups:
         1. a one page description of the project in laymen's language which the student could orally tell to interested friends or non-scientifically oriented admissions officers.
         2. Also to be submitted is a very condensed description that would take 15 seconds to say. The idea of this is to pique the interest of someone, who will then want to know more. Pretend the student went for an interview but the interviewer was late for another appointment. This quick description would prompt the interviewer to ask the student to come back later for further explanation. You could call this the "lobbyist's version." Sales reps from companies are taught to have versions of their "story" of various lengths ready to blurt out at any minute.

      Finally, Teacher, have the student stand in front of you (and the class?) as if for the interview (see the yellow box, above). Ask the student for a description, and then, after a sentence has come out, interrupt the student with a question. Make the student know the subject backwards and forwards. It must not be a memorized speech. Just consider if you were to ask about the student's family, your inserted questions would not lead the student into confusion because the student knows family details inside and out. A student who has done a novel project MUST also know that work inside and out!

      Don't Let This HAPPEN! Interviewer: "I see from your record that you did a science project last year. Tell me about it." Student: "Well, ah-, it was so long ago that I have trouble remembering anything about it. Besides, ah, I really didn't understand it anyway." Interviewer thinking: "I don't want to waste my time with you."

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      Notes for PARENTS

      After you have read the parts directed towards your child and towards the teacher, there are yet a few things for you to recognize.

      Help your child communicate what the project is all about to you. It is unlikely that you know anything at all about this topic at the beginning. Thus you are a perfect guinea pig for the child to put the subject's ideas into a form and vocabulary that is meaningful for you. And don't forget to ask the child to illustrate in diagrams, if that is appropriate (it usually is appropriate!).

      You should help your child find supplies for the project - and particularly for the presentation materials. A backing for a poster is required. A number of managers of home improvement stores will give big discounts to kids for such supplies. Ask! Have your child along, and ready to explain to the manager exactly what is needed. (More training in the communication arts!)

      Then comes perhaps the biggest thing you can do for your child - help with getting to the presentation site. Often this is in another city, and frequently in a distant state. Unlike "of age" college students, the hosting society will require the presence of a guardian. Yes, you can see time and expenses accruing here. And, to make matters worse, presentation at professional society meetings does not usually result in any sort of prizes - monetary or otherwise. However, many societies have travel grants for students. Of course, to them 'student' means college or above. So be prepared to argue the point of age discrimination. Good science from anyone, no matter the age, is still good science. The guardian of a minor might also wish to argue for free registration for her- or himself. Registration fees are often in excess of $100 (£ 75).

      Finally, while at the meeting, make sure that your child meets other attendees, and doesn't shyly escape to the coffeeshop. Mentioned earlier was that there are no prizes awarded, however, many of the other attendees are professors at major universities. If they are impressed they will want your child to attend their institution, and if very impressed will work hard to get your young scientist a scholarship - even a full scholarship in many cases. (Eva, a co-discoverer along with Heather and several others, worked on how fever acts to help the body kill infections. She was asked by the president of the world's largest basic science society to join his laboratory team as a graduate student. "But I am only in 8th grade," responded Eva. After picking himself up off the floor, the noted scientist said: "I want you to apply to my university for a summer job in my lab. I have a grant that will support you. I want you!" One can imagine Eva's future years.)

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