Me write pretty one day: how to write a good scientific paper
Martin Fenner
Monday, 12 May 2008 20:31 UTC
I would like to start a discussion of good papers about scientific writing. My first pick is this paper:
Wells WA. Me write pretty one day: how to write a good scientific paper. J Cell Biol. 2004;165:757-8
The paper starts by discussing the most important point: clearly state the take-home message of a paper. The rest of the short text deals with the structure of a paper and with specific style issues.
Feel free to add other good papers about paper writing in the comments of this post.
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‘Writing a clear and engaging paper for all astronomers’ in Astronomy Communication, 290 221 (2003), by Leslie Sage, which can be downloaded for personal use here.
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Harmon, Joseph E., The Scientific Literature: A Guided Tour. Edited with Commentaries by Alan G. Gross. 312 p., 31 halftones, 27 line drawings. 6 × 9 2007 “a collection of writings—excerpts from scientific articles, letters, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, and magazines—that illustrates the origin of the scientific article in 1665 and its evolution over the next three and a half centuries.”
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Getting your paper published in a Nature journal
How do you go about publishing your research in a Nature journal? What happens after you submit your paper? What is the editorial process? Our advice to authors, which is available in newly translated French, German, Italian and Spanish versions.The Nature journals’ advice on how to write a scientific paper, with links to resources and useful articles.
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Another, more recent paper on the topic is
Neill US. How to write a scientific masterpiece. J Clin Invest. 2007;117:3599-602.
This paper also discusses the importance of cover letters (see also this discussion) and how to answer the referee comments in a revision.
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Here are two short articles (admittedly by me) that you might find interesting:
(1) How to write an introduction:
http://www.vetscite.org/publish/articles/000045/index.html
Sorry the link behind the word ‘paragraph’ was removed wshen the article was published. If anyone is interested and contacts me, I can supple the paragraph.(2) The writer’s camera:
http://www.vetscite.org/publish/articles/000045/index.html
This is best used after the first draft… as in “write the first draft so that YOU understand the research; write the next ones to make sure that WE understand you”. -
My favourite paper about the perils of doing/writing up clinical research is undoubtedly:
HARLOT plc: an amalgamation of the world’s two oldest professions
Very amusing, but also very insightful.
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How to:
Improve Scientific Writing and Avoid Perishing, Am. Midl. Nat. 155: 383-394, 2006and not to:
How to write consistently boring scientific literature, Oikos 116: 723-727, 2007 -
This thread is a great idea!
Not sure if I like the first paper by Wells. It starts well off by asking for a message. A good paper should have a message, maybe two would not hurt either. But repeating that over again, does not seem very polite or sensible.
To me many papers are boring to read, and repetition adds to that. It could also bring up the feeling of ‘does the author think by repeating it so often, his view will be more convincing?’So a clear message is essential, a sound and preferably concise explanation how the message has been found, why it is new, what the evidence is, why the message is of interest, why the finding is useful are interesting points.
Stating a relevant message clearly and as shortly as possible and as long as necessary should be an essential that many readers will appreciate.
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This older article gives helpful information about the reading process, arguing that this helps in writing a weel-written paper:
Gopen GA, Swan JA. The Science of Scientific Writing. American Scientist 1990:78;550-558.
I’ve added most of the papers mentioned in this discussion to our Connotea reading list.
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