You do scientific notation by using powers of ten to express very big or small numbers. For a small number or a decimal like 0.00052, you would write this as a product of a number and powers of ten which becomes 5.2 X 10^ - 4. For large numbers, the exponent is positive. The easy way to do scientific notation is with a calculator. You can find more information here: http://www.chem.tamu.edu/class/fyp/mathrev/mr-scnot.html
