Writing scientific thesis/dissertation in biology field: Deviation in introduction context writing

Abstract

    Writing a scientific articles or thesis or dissertations has vital role to impart the ideas of the researcher to interesting audience and to enhance scientific communication. Postgraduate students in the field of biology in Iraqi Universities must write and present a thesis or a dissertation as a partial fulfilment of the requirements to obtain their MSc or PhD degrees. Introduction chapter, in these thesis or dissertation, must be written clearly and aims to justify the significance of the research working and to link the work to other previous research. Introduction writing process is getting growing problem as it shows differed styles of writing not in compatible with standard guidelines.  Hence, this article aimed to focus on the studying the context style of introduction chapter in biological thesis or dissertations. The study included analysis of 124 thesis and dissertations, and interviewing 114 postgraduate students to discuss the introduction writing process. Introduction writing context was analyzed and evaluated according to the standard guidelines for scientific writing. The interview focused on scientific background, knowledge and approaches of student to how to write introduction.  The results revealed that students showed significant defect and very poor knowledge in introduction context writing. Deviation from standard guidelines was noticed in all thesis and dissertations introduction writing criteria. All students claimed that they hadn’t passed any syllabus concerning writing process, and their writing style depended on transferring or copying the styles of previous written thesis or dissertations even they were not correct.  The study strongly recommends introducing specific syllabus for scientific research methods and scientific writing for postgraduate students before starting their thesis or dissertation writing.