To get your paper published in a peer-reviewed journal these days, it needs to tell a clear
story about the findings of your study and their importance.
But how do you determine what that story is?
Hi, I m Karen McKee, scientist and published author of more than one hundred peer-reviewed
articles.
In this video, I m going to walk you through the steps I take to figure out what story
my data are telling and then at the end of the video, I'll give a tip that will help
you do this.
I should mention here that the reason you want to write your scientific paper with a
clear narrative in mind is that readers are more likely to remember your work and understand
its significance.
It also makes the writing process easier for you if you know where you are going with your
paper.
Just presenting a bunch of data without a clear story in mind will lead to a paper that
fails to engage the reader, at best, or confuses the reader, at worst.
If you ask successful authors, they almost always say that it's important to have a clear
idea of what story your paper is going to tell before beginning to write.
So, here s how you uncover the story that your paper will tell.
Begin with your data.
Use tables, graphs, diagrams, and other visuals to examine your findings from every viewpoint
until your story begins to emerge.
Ask yourself these questions as you scrutinize your data.
What are my key findings?
What is the simplest explanation for the outcome of my experiments?
What are alternative explanations?
What are the study s limitations and how might they alter the interpretation?
How does the main finding match with expectations based on previous work?
What was unexpected?
What are the broader implications of the findings?
If you answer all these questions, you'll likely have a good story to tell in your paper.
Let's now look at an example.
As usual, I'll use one of my own papers to illustrate the process.
In this study, we examined effects of clear-cutting and dredge spoil deposition on oceanic mangrove
islands.
I began by organizing the data into tables and graphs.
This table summarizes basic information about the five islands we sampled and shows that
a substantial portion of the islands was disturbed by human activities.
In some studies, a photo may provide key information to the paper's story.
In our study, an aerial photo showed how clearcutting and dredging to raise island elevations to
support buildings and to create a white sandy beach area not only destroyed the mangrove
forest but also damaged nearby habitats, seagrass beds and reef flats.
This showed that the damage was not confined to the forest.
Next, I looked at the soil data collected at the five sites.
I always graph my data, partly to find the best way to present it but also to help me
see if there is any aspect of the story I may be missing.
Two figures clearly showed how much disturbed sites differed from reference sites in soil
characteristics and that they were more vulnerable to soil erosion.
A final figure, which showed the results of a coring campaign, was also key to the story.
Undisturbed, these islands had kept pace with rising sea level for thousands of years through
slow accumulation of peat.
Here s the story that emerged from these findings.
Oceanic mangrove islands have persisted for millennia and served as nursery grounds and
habitat for many marine organisms, but human disturbance to develop eco-resorts had destroyed
mangrove habitat and increased the potential for soil erosion.
These actions jeopardize island resilience to sea-level rise and threaten marine biodiversity,
which is what attracts tourists in the first place.
Now, once you have your storyline, you will then write your introduction, methods, results,
and discussion so that they support that narrative.
In a previous video, I showed how to do this, following a classic story arc.
The introduction describes an ordinary world in which oceanic mangrove islands provide
habitat and nursery grounds for a variety of marine organisms.
The conflict occurs when clear-cutting of mangroves for development of tourist resorts
threatens island stability and biodiversity.
The methods, which are part of the rising action, describe how we assessed the effects
of human disturbance.
The climax of the story is told when results show the outcome of the investigation.
The resolution of the story occurs in the discussion where the results are interpreted
and potential consequences are described.
Now for some research, the story will be obvious and straightforward and require only a brief
consideration of how to tell it.
For other research, it may take a while for you to examine your data from different angles
to see what the story is.
Take your time pondering your results before trying to write.
If you still have trouble seeing a clear story, it may help to talk your research over with
a colleague.
OK.
I promised you a tip designed to help you find your story.
Here it is.
Some of you may have heard of Randy Olson, a former scientist turned author and filmmaker.
In a book called Houston, We Have a Narrative, he offers a simple method for developing a
science story.
It's called the ABT method.
The letters stand for And, But, and Therefore and provide a simple structure for a storyline.
If you look at the story my paper told, you'll see that it follows the ABT structure.
But here's another example.
Sea level is rising AND threatening coastal ecosystems worldwide, BUT we don t know which
ones are most vulnerable to submergence.
THEREFORE, we developed a vulnerability index based on six biophysical features.
As you can see, the ABT structure builds in conflict and resolution, which are key components
of a story arc.
Give the ABT method a try with your next paper.
Thanks for watching and if you haven t already, please subscribe to my channel so you don 't miss something that may help you get your paper published.