For some background of this paper, you can refer to my previous blog post on improving English writing ability: How to improve English scientific research writing ability? Since childhood, I have more emotional thinking and am not good at reading. 1985 to 1989, when I was an undergraduate in the department of biology in Tsinghua, I had never read any English professional journals. I have only received two trainings related to English reading. First of all, during the summer vacation of 1986, I attended a series of lectures on bio-English given by Mr. Muming Poo, then head of the department. I vaguely remember that Mr. Pu asked us to read some popular English articles, such as the discovery of DNA double helix, which was very interesting. But for a short time, I didn't get into the habit of reading English articles after the summer vacation. The second is the course of biochemistry. In sharp contrast to the current Tsinghua Institute of Life, all the basic courses and professional courses in my university were taught in Chinese. Only Professor Zheng Changxue's biochemistry adopted the Principles of Biochemistry by Laininger, and Mr. Zheng asked each of our students to read the textbook of 10-20 pages after class. Most of our classmates feel that professional English reading has improved. From April to early July, 1990, I spent the first three months in the United States at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Most of the time, I take turns in Professor Herbert Fromm's laboratory and study with Liu Feng and Dong Qun (Liu Feng is now a professor at the Health Science Center of the University of Texas). At that time, the most difficult thing was to read professional papers. Once, Professor Fromm asked me to explain an article in the Journal of Biochemistry at a group meeting. I started reading two days in advance, and it took six hours for the first time. Many new words can only rely on English-Chinese dictionaries, and some key contents in the article are not fully understood. At that time, I thought JBC's article was too long to understand. ! A little bitter. In order to make a good impression on Professor Fromm and his brothers and sisters, I spent several hours reading it for the second time the next day and made a summary. On the third day, my performance in the group meeting finally didn't embarrass Tsinghua. However, back and forth, I really don't know how much time I spent on this article! 1990 After I transferred to Johns Hopkins University in July, I participated in the IPMB project with Yu Yihua of Peking University. Yu Yihua is one year older than me. Before coming to Baltimore, she had been a graduate student at the University of Hawaii for one year, and her ability to read scientific papers was much better than mine. He often reads Science and Nature with relish in IPMB's office, which makes me greedy and I don't understand the meaning of those boring articles. He told me that he was reading interesting science news. What can science news show? Yu Yihua told me several stories: how David Baltimore, president of Rockefeller University and Nobel Prize winner, got into a quagmire, how human genome sequencing was hotly debated, who discovered HIV and so on. I really didn't expect academic journals to have so much content I should know! Since then, every time a new issue of Science and Nature comes, I also try to read the articles that often appear in "News &" Commenting on "research news", "viewpoint" and other columns is easy to understand compared with professional scientific research papers. Sometimes, I will tell my colleagues and friends about the scientific research news I have seen. The questions and interactions of my colleagues are a better encouragement to me. Besides Science and Nature, I often watch Scientific American. Different from the highly specialized periodicals such as Cell and Journal of Biochemistry (JBC), quite a few contents in Science and Nature are used for popular science education. The columns of "scientific perspective" and "news viewpoint" are a brief introduction to important scientific papers, which are generally 1-3 pages and easy to read and get started. After reading these articles and the original scientific papers, I feel much better! And you can compare your own experience with the analysis of experts, find the gap, and sometimes even get back a little confidence! From 1998, I worked in Princeton University, and now I am a professor in Tsinghua University. I always tell all the young people in my laboratory (including undergraduates, master students, doctoral students and postdoctoral students) the following experiences of reading scientific research papers, hoping that my students can learn from me: 1. Please pay attention to science and nature every week. Life science students should also pay attention to cells. If time is limited, spend an hour every week reading the article titles and abstracts of scientific research papers related to your research field in these two weekly magazines. Doing so can ensure that a student can basically keep up with the most important discoveries and progress in this field, and at the same time broaden his horizons and probably know the trends in other fields. If you have enough time, you can read the news and scientific research papers in Science and Nature carefully. If the research paper has "News &; "Viewpoint" or "perspective", please read these articles first. This kind of guiding article will extract the questions, just like a teacher explaining the ins and outs of a paper to students in advance, which is very helpful for students to read the original paper. When reading a specific scientific research paper, the most important thing is to understand the main logic of the article. All the diagrams in the article are described according to this main line logic. Therefore, I usually look at the "Introduction" section first, and then look at the figures quickly. I probably didn't know this main line until I read the "result" and "discussion" word for word. When some experiments or results analysis are obscure, you don't have to spend too much time delving into them, but try to read the article in one breath. Maybe your question will be answered naturally in the following content. It's like listening to an academic lecture! If you want to know every detail and pay attention to every technical detail, it will not only be tiring to listen to academic lectures, but also affect your understanding of the logical reasoning and core conclusions of the whole lecture in order to delve into a small technical link. 5. Read some important articles and research papers in your own field intensively. You must read every paper related to your own topic carefully. These papers should not only fully understand and understand the details, analysis and conclusions of each experiment, but also think about the influence and inspiration of these experiments and conclusions on their own topics and put forward their own views. 6. The reading level of scientific papers is gradual. Everyone will have difficulties at first, so don't be discouraged when you feel this way. Persistence is very important, and you will get better and better. If you have any questions or excellent analysis, you should discuss them with your brothers and sisters or find a tutor. 7. Reading scientific research papers is an important part of scientific research training. Every doctoral student has to undergo strict training in reading scientific research papers. In addition to my own habitual reading, I should take one or two courses focusing on reading and analyzing professional literature in the postgraduate stage, and the laboratory should also have regular journal clubs. If there is no such discussion in your laboratory, you students can organize it spontaneously. 8. The first few articles are all about how to improve the reading ability of scientific research papers, but you should learn to read critically as soon as you enter the door. Don't be superstitious about published papers, even if they are published in very good journals. Always remind yourself whether the logic of this paper is rigorous, whether the data is reliable, whether the experimental evidence supports the conclusion, whether you can think of better experiments, and whether you can raise new important questions based on this paper. Wait a minute. There are still days ahead, and reading scientific research papers is a very simple but profound thing. Ordinary students are often satisfied with reading and thoroughly reading a good paper, while excellent students will understand the history and present situation of the whole field by consulting references and look forward to the possible progress in this field in the future. From 1990 to 1996, I know nothing about academic papers, and I often help my colleagues analyze them and think I am excellent. But there is one thing that makes me feel ashamed of my serious shortcomings. 1996 is the most exciting year for the discovery of SMAD protein and the study of TGF-b signal transduction. Whitman Laboratory of Harvard Medical School published an article entitled "Transcription Partner of TGF-B Signal of MAD Protein" in the form of "article" in the 10 issue of Nature. After reading it, I happened to meet Joan Massague, a famous scholar in the field of TGF-B. I commented on Joan: I'm not sure why this paper should be published in Nature. They just identified other Smad- interacting proteins, and the data quality is average. Completely unexpected, Joan immediately replied to me: I disagree! In this paper, cytoplasmic Smad protein was linked to the nucleus, and a transcription factor was identified as its interaction protein. Now the TGF-b signaling pathway has been completed. This is a beautiful natural article! This incident touched me a lot: the original owner's vision and taste are far above me. From then on, I began to weigh the importance of an article from the development of the whole field, which played a very important role in reviewing manuscripts for important international academic journals and choosing research topics for my laboratory. Now I have read a scientific research paper in this field smoothly, and I can often see some key points that the author did not think of or analyze. Looking back, I am filled with emotion. I thank a group of teachers and colleagues such as Muming Poo, Zheng Changxue, Yu Yihua, John Desjares, Jeremy Berg and Joan Massager for their help. I'm very attentive, very attentive. I hope all students can read English research papers easily through hard work and persistence! How to improve the writing ability of English for scientific research has been selected in 57273 readings 20 10-8-4 14:58 | personal classification: unclassified | systematic classification: scientific research notes As a scientific researcher, publishing scientific research papers in international academic journals is the only way to communicate with peers and gain international influence. Some domestic scientists have done beautiful experiments, but they are often troubled by their inability to write papers, which has become a major obstacle to international communication. Based on the personal experience of bloggers, this paper provides reference for doctoral students, postdoctoral students and young PI. Finally, the article makes a brief summary. Everyone in college knows that my English was not good at that time (only "good" in CET-4) and my writing was particularly poor. When I first arrived in America, I didn't adapt to the English environment. I spent five or six hours reading a JBC article. I often don't understand the meaning of some key words, so I am under great pressure. Fortunately, when I was studying for my doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, I met my senior and first teacher, John Desjares, in April 199 1. After listening to my distress, John told me, "If you spend 45 minutes reading Washington post every day, your written English will be crushed in two years" (if you spend 45 minutes reading Washington post every day, your writing ability will be handy in two years). This suggestion is just what I want-I'm already interested in news! So, after arranging the first batch of experiments every morning, I will spend an hour watching Washington post around 10, mainly watching version A (news version). At first, I could only read two or three short messages or a long report an hour, and I often had to look up new words in the dictionary. But unconsciously, my reading ability has improved obviously. 1992, Bush Sr. and Clinton ran for president. I follow the news, often reading several pages of news or four or five long reports an hour, and sometimes telling the news I just saw vividly to my brothers and sisters. Reading has directly improved my English writing ability. After reading some news, I often have the urge to write about my feelings. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, the China swimming team won four gold medals and five silver medals. The major media in the United States accused China athletes of taking illegal drugs, but there was no test evidence, which was entirely based on the feelings of American athletes. This incident makes me very angry. For the first time in my life, I wrote a letter to Washington post and The Baltimore Sun, commenting on the unfairness of the report. Unexpectedly, two days later, the Baltimore Sun published my letter intact in the column of "Letters from Readers", and my colleagues congratulated me one after another. I was also very proud. Encouraged by this incident, I often wrote letters in the next three years, and some articles were published in newspapers and magazines (most of the contributions fell into the sea). I also wrote letters to the school on behalf of China students to fight for the interests of China students. Sometimes there are unexpected surprises. /kloc-one day in 0/995, a friend called me and told me that there was my review article in the Baltimore Sun published today! I rushed to the street and bought five newspapers. Sure enough, on the penultimate page of version A, an article I sent to the newspaper more than a week ago that I thought would not be published attacked Wu Hongda was published in 15x 15cm. The above is a brief introduction of my personal English writing improvement process. However, unlike letters from readers, scientific research papers have their own professional characteristics and even a fixed format. 1994, it's the first time to write a scientific research paper completely, and I feel very bad. I don't even want to read my last article. After a reluctant revision, it was handed over to the boss Jeremy Berg. He hasn't read my article for three weeks, and I can't help it. At 9 o'clock in the morning, Jeremy told me: Look at today! 1 1 o'clock, I went to his office to urge him, but the secretary stopped me and said that Jeremy was dealing with important business, so don't disturb him before two o'clock. I'm worried about what Jeremy is doing. At half past one in the afternoon, Jeremy came to me in a hurry and took a stack of paper. "This is a draft. Please let me know what you think. We can aim at a scientific report. " This is the first draft, please see, we can try science. ) I looked at it carefully. Oh, my God! A total of seven pages, more than four hours, Jeremy wrote the whole article, but lacked methods and reference materials. To my dismay, he didn't use my first draft at all. In fact, writing an article in one go is expensive. I also imitated Jeremy's style. From June 5438 to October 2006 10, two topics were in danger of being reported exclusively in the fierce competition where we were at a disadvantage. I used to catch an article twice and overnight. 10 On June 55438+05, I started writing around 8 pm and stayed up late. The next morning 10 completed a paper in the format of Cell magazine, including abstract, introduction, results and discussion. After reading it carefully, I finished the online submission at 4: 30 in the afternoon. This article was finally published in the journal Structure and Molecular Biology of Nature in June and February of 5438 (the electronic version was published in June of 5438 +065438+ 10/0). Another article, 65438+ 10/8, started writing at 6 pm and stayed up all night. Completed at 8 am the next day and submitted at 9: 30 am. Finally, it was published on Cell in 65438+February 15. Of course, there is an important premise for finishing an article overnight, that is, you are very familiar with the research field, you have carefully thought about the overall idea of the article, and all the drawings have been made in advance. Even if you devote yourself to these preliminary work, it will take 3-4 days. From the difficulty of writing my first scientific research paper in 1994 to the ease of writing it now, I have summarized the following experiences: 1. To write scientific research papers well, we should first get into the habit of reading English articles and strive for 30-60 minutes a day. At first, you can choose to read English newspapers and news, and gradually turn to professional magazines. I will write a blog post in the near future to introduce a set of effective methods to enhance the reading ability of professional magazines. 2. The most important thing in writing scientific research papers is logic. The formation of logic comes from the overall analysis of experimental data. You must first discuss a clear set of ideas, then make pictures according to them, and finally you can write. 3. When writing the details, first write a framework based on the idea (that is, the picture), and then start writing the details. The first draft should not pursue the perfection of every sentence, let alone the floweriness of words, but mainly focus on the logical flow, the logical relationship between the preceding and following sentences and the logical relationship between adjacent paragraphs. When writing, go all out, try not to be disturbed by external things as much as possible (turn off the mobile phone and landline), and strive to produce the first draft in the shortest time. Also note: don't be too long in a sentence. 4. Learn to paint. No one is born to write excellent scientific research papers, they are all learned from others. When studying other people's articles, we should pay attention to the differences in professional fields. Some fields (including my structural biology) have their own writing rules. Some words in scientific research articles are formulaic, such as "In order to investigate the mechanism of ...", the results support the former, but not the latter, assuming ... ","I am eager for the recent progress, how to cherish it ... "and so on. After using it twice, I gradually learned to use it flexibly. When learning from others, don't copy. In some institutions in the United States, seven consecutive English words are exactly the same as others', which is considered plagiarism in principle. After writing the first draft, give yourself no more than one day's rest and start to revise the second draft. The revision is still based on logic, but every sentence should be scrutinized, and the key sentences in the abstract and text should be carefully selected. Learn to use "thesaurus" (synonym substitution) to avoid too much repetition. The revision of the second draft is extremely critical, and there will be no major changes in the future. 6. The changes after the second draft mainly focus on specific words and will not change the overall logic. Before submitting a manuscript, you must read it as a whole, and make slight changes to individual words. Remember: academic journals generally don't reject an article because of specific grammatical errors, but they will definitely reject an article because of logical confusion. This method is effective, and I will teach all students and postdoctoral students like this. My first postdoctoral fellow was Chai, who joined my laboratory at Princeton University from 65438 to 0999. At that time, Ji Jie's English reading and writing ability was very poor. My first advice to him was, "spend half an hour reading English newspapers every day." What is commendable is that he persisted! After several years' efforts, Ji Jie finally wrote a good funding proposal in 2004. In 2006, his first independent scientific research paper was published in Molecular Cell, followed by two papers in Nature and more than ten papers in other first-class academic journals. Writing ability began to mature. Publishing a paper is a pleasure, but it should be understood that the paper is only a carrier to announce your scientific research findings to colleagues and an important tool for communication in the scientific field. Therefore, when writing scientific research papers, we must keep in mind: express the most understandable meaning in the simplest words, but be logical! In fact, both Chinese and English papers are like this!