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Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles
Writing the Hypothesis or Purpose Statement
Every scientific paper should include a statement that clearly explains why the study is being undertaken. Sometimes this statement is in the form of a hypothesis statement and sometimes in the form of a purpose statement . Good hypothesis and purpose statements establish the important link between a study’s gap in knowledge and its conclusion. Hypothesis Statements A hypothesis is a scientific hunch, an educated guess, a testable prediction. A hypothesis-driven study and the article written about it are based on the central hypothesis of the research: We hypothesized that collagen XVIII expression correlates with serum endostatin levels in patients with non–small-cell lung cancer. The objective of a research study is to test the hypothesis, to see whether the hunch is accurate: The study will test whether collagen XVIII expression correlates with serum endostatin levels in patients with non–small-cell lung cancer. The data from the study either support the hypothesis or contradict it. In other words, the data reveal whether the hypothesis is valid or invalid. Note that in a typical hypothesis statement with 2 verbs, the first verb (for example, hypothesized or investigated) is in the past tense, and the second verb is in the present tense. Also, the statement is phrased in the first person, using we or our. We hypothesized that collagen XVIII expression correlates with serum endostatin levels in patients with non–small-cell lung cancer. Some studies have 1 central hypothesis plus 1 or more subhypotheses: We hypothesized that the use of erythromycin is associated with the risk of sudden death from cardiac causes and that this risk increases with the concurrent use of strong inhibitors of CYP3A.
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