Hi. I m Karen McKee, and in this video, I'm going to show you how to identify problems with your scientific paper's structure.
Some people think that structure only refers to how the material is organized,
for example, the paper is written in a specific sequence: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. They think that if their paper follows this traditional
format, then it is well structured. But structure also involves how material is presented in each section
and how it is connected across sections. Such structural features include how much detail is
provided in each section, how those details are presented, for example in order of importance,
and how transitions between details are made to improve narrative flow.
In this video, I m going to point out eight ways you can tell if your paper's structure needs some work.
And I'll do this with comments that an author may get from a reviewer. I'm going to
go through eight typical reviewer comments and explain what is behind each one and what you must
do to correct the problem. A reviewer says the point of your paper is not clear.
This comment indicates that your paper has not been structured around a central, core idea.
Review your findings and identify the most important result or an overarching conclusion that encompasses
all your findings. Think of it as a message in a bottle.What would you write so that a colleague
finding the bottle on the beach would understand what your paper is about and want to read it?
For example, this paper showed that revegetation of coastal forests is aided by the presence of
grasses and forbs, which act like nurse plants for tree seedlings.
This sentence encapsulated our take-home message. You want to do the same with your study.
Write out your take-home message in one or two sentences and revise all sections of the paper to support this message.
A reviewer says your paper does not flow well. This comment suggests that you have not structured
your paper so that your ideas are presented in a sequential, consistent manner throughout
the narrative. The solution is to outline the sections and subsections of your paper
and rearrange them so that they tell a coherent story. Then flesh out each subsection with
well-structured paragraphs, each one with a topic sentence focused on an important point.
Reviewers ask why you focused on your particular topic. This question likely means that you failed
to justify your research in the introduction and did not reemphasize its importance in
later sections. You cannot assume reviewers and editors will automatically know why your research
is important. Rewrite the introduction so that it is clear why your study was needed. This will
involve a review of what is known about the topic and what additional information is needed.
Then explain how your research will address the missing piece.
In the discussion and conclusions sections, reiterate why your research moves the field
forward by pointing out the broader implications of the findings.
Reviewers disagree with your conclusion or say that they cannot see how you reached your conclusion.
In this case, you've likely failed to build a logical argument
starting with a clear question or hypothesis in the introduction, continuing with a detailed
interpretation in the discussion, and ending with a clear conclusion. Don t just state
what previous studies have found.
Interpret your results in relation to prior studies or to theory and walk the reader through the steps you took to reach your conclusion.
By explicitly linking the interpretation of the results back to the hypothesis or question posed in the introduction,
you strengthen the paper's structure. Reviewers criticize your research approach or methods.
This reaction usually means that you've not adequately justified your research approach
or articulated the limitations of your work. You need to provide a better rationale for the
approach you took in designing and conducting the study. Anticipate obvious questions about
your choices and tackle them up front in the introduction or methods. In the discussion,
you need to explain how your interpretation of the findings was guided by the study's limitations.
For example, in this paper we used greenhouse mesocosms, which might be criticized as not
providing a natural setting to assess treatment effects. To address this apparent limitation,
we explained the tradeoffs involved in field versus greenhouse approaches
and that in this case, it was necessary to apply treatments in a greenhouse
to avoid confounding effects of factors impossible to control in the field. Doing so told readers
that we had considered this potential problem and why we chose our specific approach.
In this instance, the paper's structure was strengthened by addressing the reader's
potential concerns about the study approach in several places throughout the paper.
A reviewer complains that your results section is boring, repetitious, or too long.
The problem here is that you've likely gone into too much detail describing your data in the text
or have used the same wording over and over. This is an example of how not to structure the
details in a passage. They sound repetitive and boring. You should revise such passages to
describe overall patterns and refer the reader to tables and figures for details. For example.
You can also use subheadings to lead the reader through the details of your results
and alert them to important aspects of your findings.
A reviewer says that your paper is not novel enough for publication in the journal.
You likely failed to put your work into a broader perspective. This mistake happens when a writer
assumes the reader is just as knowledgeable about the topic and doesn't need to be told
why the work is important. The solution here is to put yourself into your reader's shoes
and assume they are not very familiar with your topic or why your specific research was needed.
Revise the abstract and introduction to spell out why your study is important.
Add statements to the discussion that emphasize how your research moves the field forward.
In the conclusions, point out implications for other types of systems or a practical application
of your findings, if any. Again, emphasizing the need for or importance of your study
in multiple places throughout the paper aids in strengthening the structure and narrative flow.
Reviewers say your writing is choppy. In this situation, you may have failed to use
transitional bridges to connect your ideas in a logical sequence throughout the narrative.
That is, your writing may lack words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs
that aid in the transition from one thought to the next. For example. This passage is choppy,
and the sentences don't work together to convey a coherent message.This revision uses transitional
words such as however to connect the sentences in a way that makes the point of the passage
clear. This is an example of how to strengthen your paper's structure by focusing on transitions
between details presented in each paragraph. For more information about using transitions
to enhance narrative flow, see the link provided in the description below.
Well, those are eight clues based on reviewer comments that may indicate a problem with your
paper's structure or narrative flow. If you get one or more of these comments,
don't despair. Most writers get such comments at some point.
When a reviewer says that they don' t understand something I've written,
I usually find that what I've written was unclear or ambiguous. I try to step back
and see it from the reader s perspective. Then I rewrite the problematic passage.
Thanks for watching and don't forget to like this video if you found it helpful. And if
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