Advice on essay writing-Chose a good title –should be informative and not very long. Do not use abbreviations and gene names in the title.
-Write your name and affiliation underneath the title.-You do not need to structure the essay with abstract, introduction etc. You could write a short paragraph, 100-150 words, in the beginning introducing the subject, putting it in broader context, medical, biological, and stating the aim of the essay. For example something like that:Protein tyro sine phosphorylation is an important post
-Transnational modification in signalling proteins. It is a process of transferring gamma phosphate from ATP to the side chain of specific tyro sine residues in target proteins. The enzymes responsible for this process are known as protein tyro sine kinase s. They can be either integral membrane proteins or soluble cytoplasmic proteins. Both type play important role in cell signaling by activating various signalling pathways, which in turn regulate cell proliferation, cell migration, adhesion and other important biological functions. This essay will discuss the mechanisms of regulation of…
-Then you write the remaining part of the essay very much as the Discussion section of a scientific paper. You can briefly discuss specific methods if you think it will enhance the discussion but do not give technical details.
-Cite at between 4 and 7 references. You can cite 1 review article or a textbook but you must cite at least 3 important references from the primary literature (this means research papers reporting original results). A good strategy is to go first to textbooks or review articles and then select the most important 3-5 primary references. For example, if you write on SH2 domains you need to cite the paper that defines the domain for the first time.
-You can approach the essay from historic perspective –start with the discovery of the mechanisms and then go to the current state of understanding of the subject.
-You can mention wider implications –for medicine, for environment (if any), ethics etc. But the main context should be cell signalling.
-If you want to include visuals let it be a single figure illustrating the topic. Don’t forget to cite the source and reference it if you take it from the literature or the web.
