In Fall 2018, as part of the Writing in Biology Class at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I conducted a project in which I was tasked with creating a scientific figure and a METHODS section detailing how the figure was created. In the methods project I was instructed to locate and photograph a spider web, then use the photographs that were taken and other resources to create a figure alongside a methods section of a standard scientific report. The methods section was meant to detail how each individual experimenter approached the problem, and investigate how they went about finding and documenting their spider web. The methods section needed to be a clear, concise set of steps that could be easily replicable by another individual so that they too could take similar pictures and create a figure resembling the original.The goal of the project was to create a methods section that would be clear enough for another personal to follow, allowing them to recreate the original figure accurately. This is an extremely valuable skill for any scientist, as scientific work needs to be replicable for its results to be held valid. I kept these objective in mind seeking to maintain factors of setting, organization, and photographic consistency within the figures through a highly structured and clear methods section. My methods section was written in a way to provide specific conditions for consistency such as including the direction of photographic shots and control factors such as having a ten dollar bill for scale.
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