By Zilin Li, Biology
This fall I’m teaching BIOL 1107L (Principles of Biology I Lab), and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help first-year students write in a scientific, professional way. The Writing Intensive Program (WIP) reminds us that writing is a process—drafting, feedback, and revision—and that students learn disciplinary ways of thinking by writing within the discipline. That mission has shaped nearly every move in our course so far. One simple habit has improved my students’ lab reports more than anything else: we write the figure caption first. Before any results paragraph, students draft three short sentences that say (1) what the figure shows, (2) what the pattern means, and (3) how sure we are. That’s it. No step-by-step methods. Starting with the caption forces clarity and makes the later writing process faster and cleaner.
Here’s the template we used:
- What: the variables, sample, and condition.
- So what: the main finding in one sentence.
- How sure: one limitation or source of error.
Below are quick before/after examples we used this semester. They’re simple on purpose.
Example 1: Gel Electrophoresis (PCR + Restriction Enzymes Digest)
Weak: “Gel showing PCR products before/after restriction enzymes digest.”
Better: “Figure 1. Agarose gel of PCR amplicons after EcoRI and HindIII digest for samples A–C with a 100 bp DNA ladder. Strong 4000 bp band in A, 2800 bp and 1200 bp bands in C match the expected pattern; B shows faint nonspecific products. Confidence is limited by low DNA in B. ”
Why it helps: students stop narrating steps and start making a claim tied to visible evidence.
Example 2: BLAST (Bioinformatics)
Weak: “Top BLAST hits for unknown sequence.”
Better: “Figure 3. Top BLAST alignments for a 29,900 bp query. The best hit (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 isolate SARS-CoV-2/human/PAK/SARS-CoV-2_56/2020, complete genome, MW422037.1, 99.58% identity, 0.0 E value) supports a genus-level ID, with several near ties within 0.3%. Because the query spans a highly conserved region and multiple references are near-identical, we report a cautious genus-level call (Betacoronavirus) rather than a species assignment.”
Why it helps: students avoid overclaiming and learn to state uncertainty without sounding unsure of themselves.
How I use this in class is also simple. I give any figure or table (a gel photo or a BLAST table) and ask for only the three caption sentences. Students swap captions, check if they can understand the result without extra text and suggest one improvement. Only then do they write the full results paragraph. This takes about 10–15 minutes, and the improvement is obvious: less “what we did”, more “what it shows”.
If you try one change in BIOL 1107, try this. Write the caption first. Make the claim visible. Show the limits. The rest of the results will almost write themselves.