Hi, this is Karen McKee and this is part two of a video about scientific writing mistakes
to avoid.
The next mistake we're going to consider deals with the methods section.
Here, the most common mistake is a failure to fully describe how the study was conducted.
At best, a skimpy methods section says you are an inexperienced writer who doesn't understand
that they must convince the reader that they conducted a robust and careful study.
At worst, a deficient methods section may look like you are trying to hide something.
The solution is to thoroughly describe how you designed and carried out the study.
You need to provide key details that someone wanting to repeat your study would need.
Next, let's look at the results section.
A common mistake here is to describe every blip in the data, leading to a long, tedious
description that doesn't point out which details are the most important ones.
Authors do this when they really don't understand how to describe their data in a way that is
interesting and informative and that directly relate to the questions posed in the introduction.
The solution is to describe the most important patterns in the data and refer the reader
to the tables and figures to see the details for themselves.
Another common writing mistake is a failure to discuss the findings in the discussion
section.
Instead, the novice author repeats the results with a few citations sprinkled here and there
to make it look like something is being discussed.
Repetition of what has already been described will just annoy the reader who wants to understand
what the data mean and how the results contribute to a better understanding of the topic under
investigation.
They're looking to you to do this.
Now, this mistake may not by itself get your paper rejected, but along with other novice
errors like this could sink it.
Some papers have a conclusions section, which inexperienced writers can have trouble with.
The mistake here is to write a summary, listing the points already covered in previous sections.
Now there is nothing wrong with writing a summary.
If you want to end with a summary, then call it a summary.
But in a conclusions section, what you need to do is put your work into perspective.
How does it advance knowledge in the field?
What applications might the research lead to?
What future research is needed to address the questions raised by your research?
OK.
Let's finally move on to the references section and one more mistake.
And that is failing to cite recent research or citing the wrong papers to support a statement.
This tells the reviewers that you are not well-versed in the topic of your research.
Reviewers are going to be experts in the field and well aware of the relevant research that
you should be citing.
Now some authors may intentionally skip mentioning a recently published paper that already addressed
the topic of the manuscript in a naive attempt to make their research sound more.
ground-breaking.
What may happen, unfortunately, is that the person asked to review your manuscript is
the author of that ignored paper.
Don't expect that reviewer to be very sympathetic.
The solution, of course, is to conduct a thorough literature review, paying close attention
to the most recently published papers.
And always read the paper that you cite and don't rely on the abstract to compose your
statement about the study's findings.
The abstract may exaggerate the study's findings.
So in conclusion, there are lots of reasons why your paper might be rejected by a journal.
I've focused here on basic mistakes in writing the manuscript.
Some of these mistakes will get your paper rejected out of hand, whereas others may just
contribute to an overall negative decision.
The good news is that now you are forewarned about these pitfalls and can now write a paper
that has a much better chance of being published.
If you enjoyed this video, please let me know by clicking the like button below.
Also, if you have a question about scientific writing that you'd like me to address in a
future video, please leave a comment.