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Writing a Scientific Paper

Betsy Shenkman, PhD Department of Health Outcomes and PolicyCollege of Medicine& the Institute for Child Health Policy

+WHY WRITE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS?

A scientific career is all about expansion of human knowledge

In the academic and public sectors, scientific papers ARE the means for this expansion.

“Publish or Perish” should indeed be the rule for scientists working as individuals - scientific papers ARE your professional contribution.

Quantity doesn’t matter beyond an expected number – quality is what matters

What determines the perceived quality of a scientific paper? (now routinely- measured by the citation index) Originality and importance of ideas Effectiveness of communication, particularly when it comes to planting the

flag for new ideas Advertising: presentations, communications at meetings and with visitors,

email exchanges, citations…

“Scientists are motivated by two things: (1) to understand the world, (2) to get credit for it”

+VIEW PAPER WRITING AS PART OF YOUR RESEARCH, NOT A POST-RESEARCH ACCOUNT

Start writing the paper as soon as possible – view it as a tool of your research. Iterate and agonize over the paper as part of your research

Write the intro as you engage into your research – what are you trying to do? Why is it important? What has been done before?

Write the Methods once you think they are mature – can you defend them in writing? If you have difficulty in the writing that often means there is a problem with the methods

Write results and discussions as the ideas come to you – spend an hour here and there writing them down in paper form. That will help crystallize them in your mind and may lead to new ideas

Spend a bit of time each day with your evolving paper. Try to go through it with the eyes of a critical reader (be your own worst critic!)

“The paper is not a description of the work, it IS the work”

+More Signatures of Professional Attitude

Membership in a professional society

Reading journals – some believe you should have a subscription

Familiarity with literature not directly related to research.

Attendance at seminars, scientific meetings; discussion with colleagues; helpfulness;

Presentation of research results.

Eagerness to publish findings.

+The Goal is Not Just to Publish but to Publicize Your Work!

Publish in the best (e.g. highest impact, more prestigious, largest circulation journals).

Use an intriguing title

Use attractive illustrations, visual materials.

Write well

Read a style guide first

Use a dictionary, a thesaurus, a spell checker, and a grammar program.

+Writing Style

Short declarative sentences are easier to write and easier to read and they are usually clear. However, too many short sentences in a row can sound abrupt or monotonous. It is easier to start with simple declarative sentences and then combine some of them than to start with long rambling sentences and then try to shorten them.

By all means, write in your own personal style, but keep in mind that scientific writing is not literary writing. Scientific writing serves a completely different purpose from literary writing, and it must therefore be much more precise. Some hints follow.

+ Writing Style

Avoid slang and jargon

Use strong verbs – they are essential for clear concise writing

Use active voice – less wordy and less ambiguous

The fact that such processes are understrict stereoelectronic control isdemonstrated by our work in this area.Our work in this area demonstrates thatsuch processes are under strictsteroelectronic control.

+Writing Style

Be brief. Wordiness adds nothing but confusion, and the resulting paper loses the reader’s interest.

Use the first person. Jones reported xyz, but we found…. Our recent work demonstrated .. For these reasons, we began a study of … However, avoid phrases like “we believe”,

“we feel”, etc.

+Writing Style

Place familiar information at the beginning of a sentence and complex information to follow: Macular degeneration is affected by diet. One of the

diet components that affects macular degeneration is vitamin B6. Although vitamin B6 seems to reduce the risk of macular degeneration, it may have side effects.

Get to the subject quickly Due to the non-linear and hence complex nature of ocean

currents, modeling these currents in the tropical Pacific is difficult.

Modeling ocean currents in the tropical Pacific is difficult due to their non-linear and hence complex nature.

+Where to Publish?

Choose the most appropriate journals with the highest “impact” (average citations per paper), prestige, and the largest circulation.

+PREPARING YOUR PAPER FOR CONSUMPTION Play to your customer base! Think of HOW scientists (e.g.,

you!) read papers. Title and abstract are for the search engines…most readers will

not go beyond that. Figures + captions and Tables + footnotes must be self-

contained…a lot of readers go through those w/out reading the text. Some may look for quick explanation in text, so discussion of figures/tables in text should jump at reader (I like paragraphs starting with “Figure X shows…”

Make your figures attractive for use in presentations, both by you and others.

Many readers are interested in your paper mainly because they want some specific numbers, or a synthesis or references to previous work; oblige them by being scholarly.

The take-home messages of the paper should be “in your face”, I.e., in abstract, in intro, in conclusions, to make sure the “diagonal reader” gets the message. Do not be shy!!

+The Title and Abstract

Title. The title should accurately, clearly, and concisely reflect the emphasis and content of the paper. The title must be briefand grammatically correct. Series numbers should not be used.

Abstract. All manuscripts (Communications and Articles)must contain an abstract, which should briefly state the reason for the work, the significant results, and the conclusions.

+ THE INTRODUCTIONwrite it first – do it early, revisit often; use it to think about what your paper is about, to test your command of the literature

Provider Pertinent Background Information – Do Not Review the Literature First paragraph: state the problem succinctly – do not encumber with too many references Begin with a broad background statement

In mammals, auditory hair cells of the inner ear are the sensory receptors of the auditory system…

The provide specific background The molecular basis of this mechanism is thought to be a the

moto protein prestin… Unknown problem: elaborate on what you will be doing in your

paper Although prestin has been studied intensively, its molecular

function is not fully established.

+ A few words about references… Showing command of the literature is extremely important.

You need to describe the foundation on which your contribution is based.

So be serious about literature search and reading papers – devote a bit of time to this each day.

Never cite a paper for which you have not read at least the relevant part.

Cite papers in a context that makes it clear what the paper did – otherwise the reference is useless. If you are not clear, go back and (re-)read the paper

There is nothing wrong with citing yourself or your group extensively – in fact that is normal because that is the work you typically build on, and that is part of advertising. But do not ignore what others have done!

References should be helpful to the reader, not of historical interest (unless you are writing a review)

+ Methods section following the Intro Write this as soon as you think that your methods are

mature –

Often you will be working with a complicated model or using a messy data set. Focus your methods section solely on what is important for your paper.

Provide enough detail for a trained scientist to evaluate or complete your work. To classify native species, orchids were collected To classify native species, orchids were collected in the

Everglades in January 2010. (note passive voice is often preferred in the methods section)

Reason – places emphasis on materials and methods and it is not important for readers to know who performed the action, in most cases.

+ Methods section following the Intro Use precise words

After 3 hours the old medium was dumped and the same amount of fresh medium was added.

After 3 hours the old medium was replaced with an equivalent amount of fresh medium.

Indicate that Human Subjects approval was obtained or other ethical issues that need to be addressed

+ A few words about math…

Equations are often necessary to describe methods, but can also be an excellent way to set the stage – sometimes your arguments can be encapsulated neatly in an equation. Peripheral equations should be avoided or moved to an Appendix – don not force the reader to understand something that not crucial to the paper

There is no excuse for math errors, yet they happen to the best of us – check and double-check.

Define all terms in your equations.

Your notation should be textbook-quality.

Use standard notation and terminology as much as possible – it makes it easier for the reader to follow.

+Results sections

Progress from general to specific

Start by presenting your results (Figure X shows…) and then discuss what they mean – always provide an interpretation for your reader

The sequences for the proteins K 309 and K 415 were compared (Fig 4) When the sequences for the proteins K 309 and K415 were compared,

their c-terminal sections were found to be 90% homologous.

Logical, linear flow of thought is essential - you have thought a lot about your results and what they mean, share this progression with reader Place results that answer the question of the paper at the beginning of the

results section – move from the most to least important findings

+ Results Choose precise and descriptive wording and avoid

extraneous words Figure 6 clearly shows that the growth rate of K103 was reduced

when Ca2 was added Figure 6 shows that the growth rate of K103 was reduced when

calcium was added.

Use past tense when presenting your results unless it is a descriptive paper – the results occurred in the past but your description is still true

+Results Section: Common Problems

Inclusion of irrelevant or peripheral information A total of 34 outliers were identified in this study and they

are listed in Table 3. 34 outliers were identified in this study (Table 3).

Avoid general conclusions and speculation

+ Discussion/Conclusions…can wait to be written until rest of paper is mature

Most (but not all!) papers need a conclusions section.

First paragraph: focus on what you did. Begin with “We have used…”, “We have investigated…”State and interpret your key findings Our goal was to determine… Our findings suggest… Summarize supporting evidence

Organize from most to least important

Compare and contrast your findings with other published work

Explain discrepancies, unexpected findings and limitations

Provide generalizations where possible

+ Some general editorial remarks…

Strive for logical, linear flow. Put yourself in the perspective of the reader.

Be as short as possible. “Every word must hurt” Be on the lookout for unnecessary words and sentences. Use short words (e.g., “use” vs. “utiilize”) Remove value judgments: “Surprising”, “interesting”, “unfortunately” have

no place in a scientific paper. …but not all words must be short. Use strong, effective words with precise

meaning. Build your vocabulary . Love the English language.

Use scientific words as much as possible but with their precise meaning. Beware of words with different scientific vs. lay meanings, such as “significant”, “ideal” Use them in their scientific meaning.

A scientific paper is above all about being clear, objective, to the point.

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+Tables and Figures

A figure and its legend should be self-explanatory

Graphs show more visual detail than tables and can allow the reader to see patterns more easily

+A Quick Test of Your Proofreading

There are no tricks in this test.

Read the sentence on the next slide only once, counting the number of F’s.

Count them only once (as you would if you were proofreading).

Be honest. Do not go back and count them again or the test will be no fun.

+Proofreading

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

+Proofreading

Answer There are six F’s in the sentence ! We tend to overlook Fs!

+Moral

Proofreading is similar. “Unimportant” details tend to be overlooked.

Exmaple : Inetrsteinig

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

+Some great references….

Science Research Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English

Scientific Writing and Communication Presentations Grants Papers