/how-to-write-a-good-paper-publish-it-1403.htmlpublishing research papers in international academic journals is the only way for researchers to communicate with their 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.

/how-to-write-a-good-paper-and-publish-it- 1403 . html

Publishing scientific research papers in international academic journals is the only way for researchers to communicate with their 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 author Shi's personal experience, this paper provides reference for doctoral students, postdoctoral students and young PI (project leader).

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. It took five or six hours to read an article in the Journal of Biochemistry (JBC), and I often didn't understand the meaning of some key words, which was extremely stressful.

Fortunately, in April of 199 1, when I was studying for my doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, I met my brother and my first teacher, John Desjares. After listening to my troubles, John told me, "Spend 45 minutes reading Washington post every day, and your writing skills will be handy in two years". This suggestion is just what I want.

I was interested in news at first. 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 followed the news. I often watch several pages of news or four or five long reports an hour, and sometimes I vividly tell my brothers and sisters what I just saw.

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 in the reader's letter column. I am also proud of my colleagues' congratulations. Encouraged by this incident, I often wrote letters in the next three years. Some articles have been published in newspapers and periodicals (most of the contributions have fallen into the sea), and 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. 1995 One day, a friend called me and told me that there was my comment in the Baltimore Sun published today. I rushed to the street and bought five newspapers. Sure enough, on the penultimate page of version A, I sent an article attacking Wu Hongda to the newspaper more than a week ago, which I thought would not be published, and it was published as 15cm. The above is a process of improving my personal English writing ability. However, unlike letters from readers, scientific research papers have their own professional characteristics and are even fixed? Type.

1994, it's the first time to write a scientific research paper completely, and I feel very bad. I didn't even want to read my final article, so I reluctantly revised it and gave it to my boss Jeremy Berg. He hasn't read my article for three weeks, so I can't help urging him. 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 don't know 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 the first draft. what do you think? We can try science. " . Let me have a closer look. Oh, my God!

An article ***7 pages, more than 4 hours, Jeremy wrote the whole article, but he 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 followed Jeremy, too? . From June 5438 to October 2006 10, two topics were in danger of being "exclusive" (cancelled) in the fierce competition where we were at a disadvantage. I once rushed out an article twice in one night. The first time is 10, 15. I started writing around 8 pm and worked all night. The next morning, I finished writing an article according to Cell magazine at 10? Types of papers, including abstract, introduction, conclusion and discussion, should be read carefully and submitted online 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). The other time is 10, 18. I started writing at 6 o'clock in the evening, worked all night, finished writing at 8 o'clock the next morning, finished submitting at 9: 30 in the morning, and finally published it on Cell 12, 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 from 65438 to 0994, I have drawn the following experiences.

1. If you want to write a good scientific research paper, you must 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 an article 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 details, first write a frame (that is, numbers) with subheadings as the main theme, and then start writing 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 explore the mechanism, we implemented it" (in order to explore the mechanism, we did it), "These results support the former, but not the latter's hypothesis" (these results support the previous viewpoint, not the later hypothesis) and "although".

Recent progress, how to maintain existence "(despite recent progress, how to clarify) 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. Chai's English reading and writing skills were poor at that time. My first advice to him is to spend half an hour reading English newspapers every day. What is commendable is that he persisted! After several years of hard work, Chai Jijie wrote a good funding plan in 2004. In 2006, his first independent research paper was published in Molecular Cell, and then he published two papers in Nature and more than ten papers in other first-class academic journals. His writing ability began to mature. Publishing a paper is one thing? Be happy, but understand: the paper is just a carrier, and it is an important tool for scientific communication to announce your scientific research findings to colleagues. 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!