by Dr Sharon Forsyth
This short guide will arm even the most inexperienced would-be author with invaluable advice and tips on how to write a scientific blockbuster.
Let your reviewer judge your Science and NOT your writing!
Writing a scientific paper is easy! Seriously. Even if English is not your first language you can follow some simple guidelines to make your paper more likely to be published AND better understood. And for those for whom English IS a first language, you can equally benefit from these, easy, step-by-step, rules and tips to turn your manuscript into a flowing, easy-to-read, and imminently publishable article.
In this short and simple book, the first chapter will more than likely be the most useful to you, and will include invaluable tips, rules and common mistakes people make when writing a scientific paper. After editing numerous scientific papers over the years I have become acutely aware of some simple mistakes that authors repeat time and again. You will probably be surprised how many of these common errors you are making and how much you can improve your writing with some simple changes. Where possible I will provide examples that will clearly illustrate the point in question.
One of the biggest mistakes scientists make when presenting their work is failing to simplify. Just because you are trying to convey a complex concept does not mean you have to present it in a complex manner. It doesn’t matter who is going to be reading your paper, even the most interested individuals will struggle to maintain their interest for a badly written article. Have you ever been to a conference where the title of a talk has sounded really interesting, but the presentation was so poor that you lost interest in the first five minutes? Equally, you may have gone to a talk that you thought you had little interest in but the speaker was so dynamic and so clear that you found yourself becoming absorbed, and perhaps learning something new? Writing is no different. Don’t put your readers off by presenting your work in a complicated, hard to follow format. KEEP IT SIMPLE. KEEP IT SHORT. This is a primary focus of this book as this is the single most common problem in scientific writing. Read on for some very simple tips to ‘de-clutter’ your writing.
Rule number 1
If you forget everything else, at least remember this rule:
Keep it short and SIMPLIFY.
Shorten sentences wherever you can. Longwinded sentences are always difficult to follow and are often surprisingly easy to break up into two, or more, sentences. Simply try putting a full stop where there is a natural pause, e.g., where there is an “and” or a comma. Why make a complicated concept even more difficult to understand? This is an unbelievably common mistake that frustrates reviewers and readers alike.Example:
Change: “It was found that the cells demonstrated an atypical, spherical appearance under microscopy and it was this appearance that led us to further investigate similar cells within other tissues found in various parts of the body, including the lung, brain and intestine.”
To: “The cells appeared atypically spherical under microscopy. This led us to investigate other cells from tissues in various parts of the body, including the lung, brain and intestine.”
You will notice in the example above that, not only have I split the sentence up (using the and as a key), but I have also removed words that simply do not add any meaning to the sentence. Once these are removed, the sentence is much easier to follow and no meaning is lost. In the tips below I have included a number of suggestions for removing redundant phrases and words.
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Why do you need this book?
Lets face it, scientists train to be scientists, to discover new and wonderful phenomena, to change our current beliefs, and broaden our horizons. You have not been trained to write. In addition, your work should speak for itself so why should you need to learn how to write a scientific paper? Well, that’s easy… PUBLISH OR PERISH! Unfortunately a poorly written paper will be judged on its English first and Science second. It is very hard for the reviewers to overlook poor grammar in a badly presented paper, and focus on the content only. Most reviewers will get annoyed with a badly written article and will not give it the credit it is due. It is hard enough getting a manuscript published in a reputable Journal without having to first overcome presentation issues. Also, more and more of the publishing houses and Journals are demanding a higher standard of English in their submissions, and most suggest that papers be edited by a reputable editing company prior to submission. I understand, however, that not everyone can afford the cost of professional editing. Although I would strongly recommend you make use of an editing company, if this is not an option then this little book will be invaluable to you.
BIOMEDICAL EDITING INTERNATIONAL