Have you ever read a scientific paper only to find that later you cannot recall what
the overall conclusion was?
You might have vague memories of where the study was conducted and one or two graphs,
but cannot say what the take-home message was.
You may be momentarily concerned, thinking you are slow-witted or suffering early dementia.
But don't worry.
The reason you cannot repeat the main message of the paper you just read is because the
author did not make it clear.
I've reviewed hundreds of manuscripts over the years and during that time have noticed
the same writing mistakes made again and again-mostly by inexperienced writers, but also by those
who should know better.
One of the most serious errors to make when writing a scientific paper is to fail to clearly
articulate what was found and why it's important.
Instead, the writer may offer a laundry list of results and a rambling discussion that
doesn't pin down a conclusion.
The reader is at a loss as to what they should remember and, consequently, quickly forgets
everything they just read.
When I first began writing scientific manuscripts, I was never advised to boil my results down
to an overarching message and then ensure it came across loud and clear in the paper.
Despite this lack of guidance, though, I somehow intuited that I needed to write my papers
so that they expressed a clear outcome.
Consequently, my early papers were generally written so that the main finding and its importance
were readily apparent.
The problem was that I did not formulate my core message before beginning to write.
I just plunged in, writing my results without first thinking about which ones should be
highlighted.
I described the outcome of each experiment or analysis in the results section-in no particular
order and then discussed each one in the same order.
Not surprisingly, I floundered around as I wrote and rewrote the manuscript.
Eventually, I realized that having an overarching message in mind before starting the writing
process would save me time and effort.
I thus developed the habit of distilling my message before leaping into writing a paper
or preparing a conference talk.
My distillation process would begin with answering a few questions.
Why did I conduct the study?
What was the central question driving my study?
What were my main findings?
Why should people care?
What was new or innovative?
To answer these questions, I had to spend time pondering my results from every angle,
especially if I had conducted multiple experiments and analyses.
But this approach made it much easier to write my papers.
For example, I wrote a paper in which my main finding was that recovery of a clear-cut mangrove
forest in the Caribbean was aided by the presence of coastal grasses and forbs, which acted
like nursery plants for the tree seedlings.
This herbaceous vegetation helped the mangrove seedlings get established and promoted their
growth by ameliorating harsh environmental conditions.
We used a new way to compare the plants involving a standardized approach.
The study not only led to a better understanding of how these coastal forests recover from
disturbance, it suggested a practical application: how to select nurse vegetation to accelerate
restoration of damaged forests.
The next step was to distill this information down to a single sentence, which would be
my core message.
Even though our study was complex with a series of results, I was still able to condense everything
to fit under a single umbrella.
Here is that sentence:
"Mangrove recruitment after forest disturbance is facilitated by herbaceous species in the
Caribbean."
Once I could express my message in a single, clear sentence, I knew that I was ready to
write the paper and, once written, it would effectively convey that message to the reader.
Often, such a sentence can be used with minor modification as the title of the paper, which
was the case here.
The process of distilling that sentence made me think harder about my results and what
I wanted to get across in the paper.
The process also helped me decide how to organize my material and which data to highlight-all
before writing a word of the narrative.
Whenever I got bogged down or overwhelmed with details, my distilled sentence helped
me get back on track.
I eventually began thinking of this condensed statement as a "message in a bottle".
What would I write so that a colleague finding the bottle on the beach would understand what
my paper was about-and want to read it?
The modern version of the message in a bottle is, of course, the Tweet.
Being adept at summarizing your information in 280 characters is now a useful skill in
the age of social media and electronic publishing.
But the main purpose of distilling your message is to make sure you see the big picture before
starting to write.
You may have multiple points to make in a paper, but having an overall message in mind
will keep you focused as you write and will ensure that the reader remembers that message.
I hope this video inspires you to identify the message you want to convey in your next
paper.
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If you have a question about scientific writing , please leave a comment.