Sometimes, I wish I could go back in time and give my younger self a few pointers about
scientific writing.
Insights that would have made it easier to write my first papers.
Hi.
I'm Karen McKee and that's me in the late 1970s doing fieldwork for my first job after
completing my master's degree in botany.
At that point, I had only written my thesis and was struggling to turn it into a paper
for publication.
Today, I thought I would share some of the insights about writing I've gained over the
fifty years since that photo was taken.
This is what I would tell my younger self.
In writing a scientific paper, be aware of your audience.
You are no longer writing to show your teachers how much you know.
You are writing for a different audience: journal editors, reviewers, and your peers,
who want to learn something new by reading your paper.
Are your target readers specialists in your field or are you planning to publish in a
more general scientific journal with a wider readership?
The answer will determine how you present your findings and explain their importance
to the scientific community.
For example, on the left is a paper published in a specialty journal focused on coastal
wetlands.
On the right is one published in a journal with a broader readership.
Each was tailored to its expected readership.
Don't expect editors, reviewers, and readers to figure out why the topic of your paper
is important.
Tell them.
Explain the value of your research in the introduction, and repeat it in the abstract,
discussion, and conclusions.
In this example, the value of the research is stated here in the introduction.
Knowledge of mechanisms influencing plant establishment and growth is important to an
understanding of how plant communities are organized and to aid in restoration of damaged
ecosystems.
You need to spell out why your research matters to the reader.
Be aware that you are competing for space in journals.
When I was a student, I thought you wrote a paper, submitted it, and the journal happily
published it.
I later learned that it wasn't so easy.
I was in fact competing with excellent writers.
Many top-tier journals such as this one accept less than twenty percent of submitted manuscripts.
So to get your paper accepted here, it needs to be better than eighty percent of submissions
to that journal.
I'm not telling you this to be discouraging, but to tell you to be realistic in your expectations.
And to ensure your paper meets your target journal's standards before submitting.
Successful scientific authors read widely.
In their field, in related fields, and important work in other fields.
You should read the literature regularly and practice summarizing the current understanding
of the topics.
Doing so will allow you to keep up with your research topic and prepare you for writing
the literature review for your paper.
You need to be well-practiced in writing long before you sit down to write your first paper.
Start writing early in your research project.
Don't wait until you have finished all your experiments and data collection.
Begin writing your introduction and methods even before you begin the research.
That way, you will have some basic writing skills and won't be so overwhelmed later when
writing the paper.
Analyze papers in your target journal to see how they are written.
Notice how the introduction, for example, is structured.
How long is each section of the paper?
Were headings and subheadings used and were they helpful?
Outline a few papers to more easily see how they were crafted.
Your paper needs to tell a clear story.
For this to happen, you the author must be aware of what the story is.
Spend some time pondering your data and figure out what story it tells.
Write out your message in one or two sentences and post it above your desk.
For example.
Sea-level is threatening coastal wetlands worldwide, but we don't know which areas are
most vulnerable.
Therefore, we developed a vulnerability index based on six parameters.
This brief message can guide the writing to explain the need, the study objective, the
method, and its application.
Having a clear story in mind will help you stay on track while writing.
Avoid pretentious, flowery language and minimize the technical jargon.
Write to help the reader understand your message, not to impress them.
Write clearly, simply, and concisely.
I would have benefitted greatly from a formal class in scientific writing, but my department
did not offer one.
We were expected to figure it out on our own.
If your writing or language skills are holding you back, take a course or workshop in technical
writing.
Take advantage of writing aids, which can make things much easier for you.
For example, avoid creating reference lists by hand and instead, use a reference manager
such as Endnote, Mendeley, or Zotero.
With such an application, you can easily create bibliographies while writing your papers,
saving time and minimizing errors in your citations.
And formatting for different journals can be accomplished with a single click.
Check with your institution, which may offer such software to students for free.
And there are other aids.
Most word processing programs have a spelling and grammar tool.
In Microsoft Word, go to Review and select Spelling and Grammar to open the Editor tool,
which will walk you through any questionable words and punctuation.
In this case, it spotted a typo.
Well, those are a few things that would have helped me when I sat down to write my first
papers published in the early 1980s.
I hope this list helps you avoid some common mistakes and makes the writing easier for
you.
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you get your paper published.