Writing It Up: The Art and Importance of Science Papers

Abstract

One week after Dave Lorence, Tim Flynn, and I completed our fieldwork at the Ka‘upulehu Dry Forest Preserve, I finished entering the last of our census data into the computer. Before leaving the office, I saved it on the hard drive, backed up the file on two disks (one of which I’d keep at home in case the office burned down), e-mailed copies to myself and Steve Weller, and stowed the original field data sheets, along with a printout of the computer spreadsheet—162 rows by 96 columns—in a carefully labeled folder. I had learned the hard way in graduate school that it was always wise to be meticulous and paranoid with scientific data and computers.