Biomechanics-sprint start kinematics repor

Sport and Exercise Science

Biomechanics Laboratory Report

Manuscript Guidance

Contents 1. Scope 3 2. Main sections of a lab report 3 TITLE 3 ABSTRACT 3 INTRODUCTION 3 METHOD 5 Participants 5 Experimental Procedure 5 Data and statistical analysis 6 RESULTS 6 DISCUSSION 7 CONCLUSION 8 REFERENCES 9 3. Manuscript 9 Formating 9 Effective communication 9 Tables and figures 10 Symbols, units and abbreviations 12 References 13 4. Useful links 14

When submitting a paper to a journal, a scientist has to format their word document following the “Instructions for authors” accessible on the Journal website. Follow this link to see an example with the Journal of Sports Science:

Scientists write lab reports to document their findings and communicate their significance from an experiment conducted in the lab. At degree level, we would expect you to do more than just reporting some data collected in the lab and describing your findings. We want you to demonstrate a good understanding of the research process (test of a hypothesis through appropriate inferential statistical test), and the key biomechanical concepts you are investigating.

The title should be short and informative, straightforward and less than 20 words. It should summarise the main idea or finding of the manuscript simply and should identify the variables or theoretical issues under investigation, and the relationship between them. In sport and exercise science, the title will usually indicate the population being investigated (e.g. in children or male and female cyclists).

The Abstract summarizes four essential aspects of the report:

1. Rationale and aim to study should be clear, concise and appropriate;

2. Research design with a concise description of subjects, study design (i.e. relationships; differences), methods and main analyses;

3. Main data and key findings (Precise and concise description of main findings and inclusion of actual data);

4. Significance and major conclusions.

The abstract often also includes a brief reference to theory or methodology.  The information should clearly enable readers to decide whether they need to read your whole report. The abstract should be one paragraph of 150-200 words unless instructed otherwise.

Use this section of the report to provide a precise, detailed description of what was actually performed allowing repetition from investigators external to the current project. An effective method will allow the reader to evaluate the appropriateness of your methods and the reliability and validity of your results. If methods used are particularly complex and have been published in detail elsewhere, you may refer the reader to that source, in this instance you should then give a brief synopsis of the method. Typically a method will be separated into sub sections, details of which are below.

Practical points:

· Inclusive of sub sections the method section should not exceed 600 words and should not be shorter than 300 words.

· Write the Method in the past tense. The experiment has been done!

· The Method can be divided into sub-sections. These are usually Participants, Procedure (or Experimental Design) and Analysis.

· Do not use bullet points.

· Include relevant details such as number of participants and their sex. It may be important to state eligibility and exclusion criteria, including restrictions based on demographic characteristics

· For physiological and biomechanical manuscripts include relevant descriptive variables such as age, body mass and height where appropriate. It is usual to report the mean and standard deviation and/or the range for the group or sub-groups e.g. the participants’ mean ( SD) age was 17.5 0.8 years. For experiments with variables that fall outside of these disciplines it may be a requirement to include further detail such as skill or ability level, education, ethnicity, etc. e.g. the participants were healthy Caucasian children, coronary heart disease patients or elite athletes.

Experimental Procedure

This sub-section should provide sufficient detail for the experiment to be repeated by others.

· Include details of equipment used but incorporate these into the text rather than providing a list of apparatus e.g. kinetic data was collected using a Kistler force platform and Bioware software. (In some journals details of the manufacturer are also required but this is not necessary for the purposes of laboratory reports.)

Only include diagrams of the experimental set-up if it is unusual or to add clarity to the description. It is not necessary to describe standard procedures such as video digitising step-by-step (e.g. 3-4-5 triangle set-up, scaling information, etc.), instead it is sufficient to state something like the following: Video data of the sagittal plane motion were collected using a Panasonic HC-VX980 digital video camera, which recorded at 50 Hz. The camera was located such that the optical axis was perpendicular to the plane of movement. Data processing was completed using the Quintic analysis software.

· Include a description of any data or statistical analysis procedures that were used.

· Data analysis might include things such as calculating height jumped form time in the air, data smoothing techniques, etc.

· Provide details of any statistical procedures and name the statistics package used e.g. to compare differences between two groups, an independent t-test was performed using SPSS.

· This sub-section should also include an estimation of error where appropriate.

Use this section to present your results and to refer the reader to the data that supports the results. Note that data (actual values) and results (statistics) are not the same thing, the results section should inform the reader of summarized data and the analysis performed on those data relevant to the discussion which follows.

Whilst the results section is often short and statement of fact it is very easy to get wrong. All relevant results should be mentioned including those that defy original expectations. You should not include individual scores, unless this is directly required by your research design, raw data should also not be included. When statistics have been used to analyse data, it is important to include the obtained magnitude or value of the test statistic, this can be presented in text, in a figure or table, or both.

Finally, results do not include a discussion of the implications. For example, do not explain WHY ground reaction force increased as running speed increased (this would be in the discussion) - just state what the results showed.

· Results are the stated messages e.g. male participants had greater impact forces than female participants.

· Data are the numbers that support results e.g. tables or figures that show the impact forces.

Graphics need to be clear, easily read, and well labeled (e.g. Figure 1:  Vertical Component of Ground Reaction Force). An important strategy for making your results effective is to draw the reader's attention to them with a sentence or two, so the reader has a focus when reading the graph (see section on Figures and Tables). Raw data (i.e. values for each subject) could be presented but usually statistical summaries are more appropriate, except where the number of participants is really small (n≤3).

Practical points:

· This section should not exceed 350 words.

· Present the results in the text, in order of decreasing importance or chronologically, whichever is most appropriate.

· You might want to think about the best way to present your data: text, tables and figures.

· But only present the data that is relevant to the research question.

· Avoid repetition of data in figures, tables and text.

Relate what you presented in the Results section to a basic physiological/biomechanical/psychological mechanism or theory and discuss the implications of the findings in relation to other literature. In other words, interpret the results and offer an explanation and application for the results emphasizing any theoretical or practical consequences. This section is the most important part of an assessed report, because here, you show that you understand the experiment beyond the simple level of completing it.

Explain. Analyze. Interpret.

This part of the lab focuses on a question of understanding "What is the significance or meaning of the results?"

Open with a clear statement of the support, or non support of your hypotheses. Similarities and differences between your work, and that of others should be used to give context to, confirm, and clarify your conclusions of the data. Each new statement should contribute to the interpretation of data, rather than being reformulation and repetition.

If an intervention was involved, discuss whether it was successful and the mechanism by which it was intended to work, and/or alternative mechanisms. Acknowledgement of any barriers to implementing the intervention or manipulation and limitations of the research should be considered as a means for clarifying the external validity of the findings. It may be that the intervention is more or less applicable to a specific population or circumstance, this should be stated.

The discussion should finish with a reasoned and justifiable commentary on the importance of your findings (this may be written as a separate conclusion: see below).

Practical points:

· This section should not exceed 650 words and should not be shorter than 450 words.

· Start by restating your research question or aim and provide the reader with the answer that was reached from the results.

· Explain the results and why these might have occurred. If a result is not as expected try and explain what might have caused this.

· Compare the results to those of previous studies.

· Include any relevant theory and reference any relevant literature.

· Discuss the limitations of the study and any possible sources of error and how they may be overcome.

CONCLUSION (the biomechanics lab report does not require a separte conclusion section. The final sentence or two of the discussion can conclude the report)

A conclusion can be very short (one to three sentences). Simply state what you know now for sure, as a result of the lab. This concluding section may be brief, or more extended, it should always be tightly reasoned, self contained and not overstated. The conclusion might briefly return to the discussion of why the problem is important, how might the findings contribute to current knowledge of the area and what propositions are confirmed or disconfirmed by the extrapolation of the findings. Often it is appropriate to state what future work needs to be done to extend your conclusions, or the implications of your conclusion. Keep it very straightforward.

Practical points:

· Summarize the findings of the study briefly but do not discuss or explain them!

· If the aim was stated in the form of a question then the conclusion should be the answer to that question.

· Restrict the conclusion to that which has been found in this study only.

REFERENCES

This is the last section of the report. Only include the source materials that were referred to in the main report. If a reference is cited in the text, it must be in the list of references. Conversely, if the reference is listed in the list of references, it must appear somewhere in the body of the text. Although you might use a number of sources of information (e.g., websites, books, etc.), only reference primarily journal articles in the report.

The manuscript must be double-spaced throughout, with a 3 cm margin on the left side, and a 2 cm margin on the right side with no 'headers and footers' (other than page numbers), and without footnotes unless these are absolutely necessary. Arrange the manuscript under headings (such as Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion) and then subheadings where appropriate. The main body of the text should not exceed the stated word count, excluding references. Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 11-point Times Roman, Book Antiqua, Palatino Linotype) for the text.

From the instructions for authors of the Journal of Sports Science: “[Lab reports] should be written and arranged in a style that is succinct and easy to follow. An informative title, a concise abstract and a well written introduction will help to achieve this. The Journal would prefer authors to describe human volunteers as participants rather than subjects in the methods section. Figures and tables should be used to add to the clarity of the paper, not to pad it out. At all times, please try to think about your readers.”

The conventions regarding the use of the first person (I, we…), the third person (he, she, they…) and the passive voice (six participants were tested) vary in different journals. In recent years there has been a move away from an impersonal style to a more personal style. However, students often over-use the first person (“we did this then we did that”) and this detracts from a good scientific writing style. So, at the undergraduate stage of your course the advice is to write in the third person and passive voice e.g. the subject’s heart rate was measured. Avoid using third person personal pronouns (he, she, they…), unless absolutely necessary.

Practical points:

· Aim for economy of words:

· “a relationship exists” instead of “it is clear from the graphs that a relationship exists”;

· “Four participants completed the test” instead of “there were four subjects who completed the test”.

· Use words according to their precise meaning as understood by the average person.

· Use straightforward and logical phrases. Short sentences are easier to understand than long sentences.

· Think about the reader! Assume that they have some knowledge about the area but explain the main terms and theories relating to the subject area.

· Use a UK-English spell check.

· Use the past tense to describe the method and to report results (yours or others). Use the present tense to discuss them. e.g. a simple explanation is…

Tables, referred to as 'Table 1', 'Table 2', and so on, must be numbered in the order in which they occur in the text. Graphs, photographs, and line drawings, referred to as 'Figure 1', 'Figure 2', and so on, must be numbered in the order in which they occur in the text. Place the title above tables and below figures. Remember tables and figures are separate entities; therefore it is acceptable to have ‘Table 1’ followed by ‘Figure 1’.

Practical points:

· Place each figure or table immediately after the paragraph that first refers to it.

· Label tables and figures with a number and title in the appropriate place e.g.

· Table titles above. E.g. Table 1: Pre- and post-training values for static and dynamic visual acuity (mean + s).

· Figure titles below. E.g. Figure 1: Mean heart rate response during a soccer game for an elite and novice striker.

· Use Figure 1 rather than Graph 1.

· The title should be meaningful in its own right, without needing to refer to the text.

· Do not include units in a title but do include them within a table or figure.

· Avoid starting your title with ‘A graph to show’ or ‘A table to show’.

The axes of your figures should be labeled with the measure (words or symbol e.g. Heart rate or HR) and followed by the units in brackets. The correct layout for a line graph, including title, is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Distance – time relationships in 1920, 1964 and 2004.

Follow these rules for choice of figure format:

· Line diagrams or scatter grams if independent and dependent variables are numeric

· Line graphs show relationships between one variable and the next e.g. continuous data.

· Bar graphs if only the dependent variable is numeric or if the independent variable has discrete categories

· A bar graph or pie charts for proportions

· Break figures near the origin if they do not go through “0”

· Show scatter grams only for a good reason (e.g. to illustrate outliers, a nonlinear trend or a nonzero intercept); otherwise state the correlation co-efficient and/or standard error of the estimate.

· Show curves only if modeling a curve to the data.

· Think carefully about whether to join points with a line (straight not curved) or not. If doing so, be sure to recognize the limitations of the assumptions being made. See full explanation below.

There are mixed opinions regarding whether the points on a line graph should be joined with line segments. Doing so infers that there has been a linear change between data collection points. This is speculation and therefore many scientists argue against this. However, there are different practices between the disciplines. Physiologists tend to be less rigorous about this. In general, physiologists tend to have less data points than say biomechanists e.g. one expired air sample per exercise stage. When these are plotted on a line graph it may be difficult to see the relationship between points. If the relationship is expected to be linear e.g. linear increase in heart rate with increasing exercise intensity, then a best-fit line could be fitted. In other cases the points may be joined to help identify the trend. For example to identify the lactate threshold, it is necessary to join the points with lines (or fit a cubic spline, which is too complex at this level). However, it is important to recognize that these lines do not represent the change in the variable between the points.

The Harvard system should be used. The document “School of Sport and Service Management Referencing Guidelines” is located in the my school: Sport and Service Management > Student Handbooks and Other University Docs folder on studentcentral.

More tips

· Do not abbreviate, e.g., lab = laboratory.

· Do not use contractions, i.e., don’t = do not.

· Plurals – e.g., “participant’s results” refers to an individual participant whereas “participants’ results” refers to a group of participants. In addition, “datum” is the singular of “data”, therefore, “data was” should be “data were”.

· Use of quotations – unless the definition is important (e.g., a particular referenced definition of fatigue) it is better to paraphrase.

· Avoid one-sentence paragraphs.

· Avoid use of the word “done”. Other words are more appropriate, such as “completed” or “performed”.

· Avoid use of the word “found”. Other words are more appropriate, such as “ascertained”, “calculated”, “confirmed”, “demonstrated”, “discovered”, “established”, “observed”, “reported”, showed”, etc. Each of these has a slightly different meaning so make sure it is appropriate for the context in which it is used.

· Be precise in your use of words. For example, “validity”, “accuracy”, “reliability” and “precision” have very definite meanings and should only be used in specific situations.

When spelling numbers?

· Numbers beginning a sentence must be spelled: Twelve participants instead of 12 participants.

· Rewrite a sentence to avoid starting it with numbers greater than ninety-nine.

· When quoting numbers, use words for numbers one to nine and numbers for 10 onwards. Exceptions: a 2 m tape measure, 3 million people.

Format

· Unless necessary, use tilde (~) to mean approximately equal to. But in science, it should never be “~10 mL.min-1.kg-1” but rather “=10.1 ± 2.8 mL.min-1,kg-1”

· Use the following format for presenting numbers:

0.64 not .64,

125

2,461 or 2461

21,278

1,409,000

· Put a space between numbers and units e.g. 92 kg. Exceptions: 55%, 21°C.

· Use the style superscripted style - ml.kg-1.min-1 for scientific writing purposes. (The style ml/kg/min can be used for non-scientists).

· Use the minimum number of significant digits or decimal places. For example, 19 ± 2 years is easier to read than 19.4 ± 1.8 years, and the loss of accuracy is not important in this situation.

· Use the appropriate number of digits:

· Think about the precision in your measure and then chose the number of digit.

· 125.3 ± 10.2 cm – did you measure each height with 0.1 cm accuracy? No, so you should write 125 ± 10 cm

· 4444 mL.min-1; 333 cm; 22.2 mL.min-1.kg-1, 1.11 mmol.L-1

· Two decimal places for correlations (r = 0.76). Two significant digits for percentages (3.5%, 12%)

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