How To Write Papers For Journals

I encourage scientists to read outside their field to better appreciate the craft and principles of writing. Writers can be stigmatized by mentors, manuscript reviewers or journal editors if they use their own voice.

I encourage scientists to read outside their field to better appreciate the craft and principles of writing. Writers can be stigmatized by mentors, manuscript reviewers or journal editors if they use their own voice.Beware the curse of ‘zombie nouns’Zoe Doubleday, ecologist, University of Adelaide, Australia; co-author of a paper on embracing creativity and writing accessible prose in scientific publications. Students tell me they are inspired to write, but worry that their adviser won’t be supportive of creativity. We need to take a fresh look at the ‘official style’ — the dry, technical language that hasn’t evolved in decades.

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Everything in the paper should logically and structurally support that idea.

It can be a delight to creatively bend the rules, but you need to know them first.

And a clear message is even more important when there is a multidisciplinary group of authors, which is increasingly common.

I encourage groups to sit together in person and seek consensus — not only in the main message, but also in the selection of data, the visual presentation and the information necessary to transmit a strong message.

Countless manuscripts are rejected because the discussion section is so weak that it’s obvious the writer does not clearly understand the existing literature.

Writers should put their results into a global context to demonstrate what makes those results significant or original.

The most important information should be in the main text.

To avoid distraction, writers should put additional data in the supplementary material.

Examples such as this are not uncommon: “Though not inclusive, this paper provides a useful review of the well-known methods of physical oceanography using as examples various research that illustrates the methodological challenges that give rise to successful solutions to the difficulties inherent in oceanographic research.” Why not this instead: “We review methods of oceanographic research with examples that reveal specific challenges and solutions”?

And if the prose muddies the science, the writer has not only failed to convey their idea, but they’ve also made the reader work so hard that they have alienated him or her.