Title – find a "catchy" one that attracts readers
Your Name
The text should be written in popular science style, i.e. directed to readers without university education in biology. Imagine that you should explain to a friend or relative (without any biology eduction!) what you have been doing and what you found. This means that you can not use your regular summary, you have to rewrite in simpler words, avoiding too complicated sentences and also avoid - or explain - any scientific terms that are not commonly know by people in general. In many cases you also have to find a more popular science adapted title, instead of the more scientific one on your report. You often need to reduce/select the contents, avoiding too much details and instead picking out the main results or "highlights" from your study.
Sometimes the scientific thesis report has to be kept sectret for some time, e.g. if you have results that will be used in commercial products, patents, or are intended to be published in journals that are very strict on copyright rules (the supervisor decides if, and for how long time, it should be secret). This is most common for students performing their thesis at companies, e.g. within biotechnology. The popular science summary, however, can almost always be written in a way that avoids these problems; you can omit the secret details/data and write in more general terms regarding your results. Hence, although some reports are kept secred for some months or even years, the popular science summaries are published at the IBG website as soon as the thesis is finished and approved by the thesis coordinator.
The summary has to fit into one single page. The main text should be adjusted to the left and Times New Roman 12p is a suitable font. The title and your name should be centered and larger that the main text. You are not allowed to include pictures. Please note that Swedish-speaking students are obliged to write this summary in Swedish. If you are not fluent in Swedish you should write in English.
Some formal, general information should be included at the bottom of the page. It is the same as on the front page of your thesis report, and varies with the type and lenght of your master degree project. Use the automatically generated text from your report frontpage as template (see example below). It is convenient to put this info in a "footer", with smaller font that the main text. The footer should be adjusted to the left, with the same margin as the main text.
Degree project in Biology, Master of Science (2 years), 2012
Examensarbete i biologi 30 hp till magisterexamen, Uppsala universitet, 2012 Biology Education Center and... (the place where you did the work)
Supervisor: (Name)
