1, clear information transmission
Angel Borja: a marine scientist, periodical editor and author in AZTI-Tecnalia, Spain, has published a series of articles on how to write papers.
Think clearly about what information you want to convey to the readers. If the information is not clear, there may be misunderstanding in the future. Nowadays, it is becoming more and more common that authors come from different disciplines, and it is becoming more and more important to convey information clearly. I suggest that the members of the research team sit down together and agree on the relevant content-not only the main information, but also the selection of data, visual presentation and what is needed to convey the information strongly.
The most important thing is the text. In order to avoid distracting readers, the author should add extra information to the supplementary materials.
A large number of papers were rejected because the "discussion" part was too weak, which obviously showed that the author didn't know much about the existing literature. The author should discuss his research results in the context of the whole research and prove why these results are of great significance or originality.
There is a thin line between speculation and evidence-based conclusions. The author can speculate in the "discussion" section-but don't overdo it. It is difficult to speculate, because it is not based on the author's actual experience. In the "conclusion" part, explain in one or two sentences the research you plan to do in the future and other things to explore.
2. Establish a logical framework
Brett Mensch: Scientific Advisor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Science communication consultant.
Structure is the most important. If the structure is wrong, everything is impossible.
I wrote a paper as a co-author of * * * (b.mensh and K. KordingGlocoput. Biol. http://doi.org/ckqp; 20 17), introduces in detail how to use the structure of background-text-conclusion to construct the core concept. This is one of the papers that have been forwarded the most times so far. The first sentence of each paragraph introduces the background, then talks about new ideas in the main part, and the last sentence ends. As far as the whole paper is concerned, the introduction part introduces the research background, the result part explains the research content and the discussion part explains the conclusion.
It is worth noting that the paper should focus on conveying a core message and reflect it in the title of the paper. Not only that, all the contents in the paper should support this view logically and structurally. It is good to break the rules creatively, but you must know what the rules are first.
Step 3 express yourself confidently
Dallas Murphy: writer and lecturer.
It is the duty of science writers to find out, but I often find that "new discoveries" are buried in space. Answer the core question-what did you learn? -It's the key to the paper. Every part of the paper needs to support the core idea.
There is a concept in Germany called "red line", which is the straight line from the introduction to the conclusion that the audience pays attention to. In scientific research, this red line is "Where is the novelty?" This is the whole reason why I wrote my thesis. Once this is determined, the paper will build a logical unit around this red line and discuss it.
4. Beware of "zombie nouns"
Zoe Doubleday, an ecologist, once wrote a paper with the author to discuss creative writing and how to write an easy-to-understand scientific research article.
When writing a paper, consider your readers-they are busy and tired, and then try to write a paper that you are willing to read yourself.
Why does scientific writing have to be boring, boring and abstract? Man is an animal who can tell stories. If we don't cultivate this ability, what we read will be difficult to digest. Scientific writing should be realistic, concise and evidence-based, but it can also be creative-telling a story in a novel and attractive way. If a scientific paper has no readers, it seems as if it does not exist.
A serious problem in thesis writing is that there is no personal style. If the author wants to make a personalized voice when writing, he may be banned by his tutor, reviewer or periodical editor. Students told me that they were inspired by writing, but they were worried that their tutors would not support their ideas. This is worthy of attention. We need to re-examine the so-called "formal style"-the boring technical language that has remained unchanged for decades.
5, delete the complex and simplify
Peter Gorsuch: Editor-in-Chief of Nature Research Editing Service, and a former plant biologist.
The author should be cautious about creativity. That sounds good, but the purpose of scientific papers is to convey information after all-nothing else. Fancy things tend to distract people. Rhetoric language may mislead people whose mother tongue is not English. My suggestion is to limit the complexity of writing language to the necessary range.
Even so, there are still many ways of writing that will make the paper unable to convey information effectively. The most obvious thing is the omission of key information in the "method" part. This situation is particularly easy to occur in the case of complex research, and once the information is omitted, it is at least difficult to repeat the research, let alone impossible. In this way, this research is equivalent to entering a dead end.
It is also important that the arguments of the paper should be consistent with the collected evidence. At the same time, the author should avoid being too confident about his conclusion.