Tips for good paper writting and how to develop scientific writting skills
Roman Carrasco
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 05:29 UTC
Dear all,
I am a PhD student aiming at improving my paper writting skills.
I have found some books that have been helpful but I miss informal tips from more experience researchers (“home-made tricks”). Something like, e.g. for writting well:
“Print the paper draft, get scissors and glue and reorganise it by cutting an paste instead of using the computer”.
and for developing the writting skills e.g.:
“when reading other papers concentrate on the length of the senteces, flow of the reasoning etc and check if your draft is like this”.
Something like what kind of activities you felt help you improve your writting.
Thanks for the answers and any reference for reading material.
Roman.
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Replies
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Hi, Roman.
There is a link in Connotea with several papers that talk about how to write scientific prose. That might be a good place to begin.
My concern about “home made tricks” such as cutting out paragraphs and re-organizing them is they assume you already know or can recognize what the organization ought to be. I actually had a prof of mine do this in college — only he organized the paragraphs for me and told me to write it up again with necessary transitions. It was not a helpful lesson b/c it wasn’t clear why paragraphs should have been in that order to begin with.
I would suggest finding a tutor — this is usually the most economical decision b/c the tutor can explain why changes need to be made, and help you build models of good examples using your own writing. If you don’t have access to good writing tutors, then try group revision. Get 3 or 4 friends together (it’s best if everyone has some piece of writing they are working on) and have everyone revise everyone’s work. There is empirical evidence suggesting that 4-6 peers working on a paper have about the same impact as a single expert. Working with friends also introduces food and drink into the mix, which makes for a more rewarding social experience!
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Effective writing is the most commonly observed problems for a novice and the transforming researcher. Recently, I came across an article which gives some pointers on the query. The article is not concerning science writing in particular, but gives an in-depth on a widespread concern about the lack of formal writing training for grad students.
Placing a graduate to dry technical writing class does not seem to be an answer.
The onus of a researcher is to outline the impediments of clear communication in science. Explaining the complex theories with ease and in a seducing form makes the communication reach a wider audience. Certain journals are considered role models for writing papers. However, if the model adopted by the journal is weak, there will be perpetual rise in poor writing. -
This particular forum is focused on discussion of particular, well-written papers. If you look at some other forums on Nature Network, eg the science writers’ forum or the Ask the Nature editor forum, you’ll find plenty of discussion of this topic and also links to writing advice and guidance on the web.
One small piece of advice- use a dictionary! It is “writing” not “writting”. It may seem an obvious point, but if the writer has taken care over details, the potential reader is more likely to believe that the piece is worth reading.
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