Jari Saramäki - How to Write a Scientific Paper

How to Write a Scientific Paper

Jari Saramki

Published by Jari Saramki, 2018.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

HOW TO WRITE A SCIENTIFIC PAPER

First edition. October 30, 2018.

Copyright 2018 Jari Saramki.

ISBN: 978-1386140917

Written by Jari Saramki.

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T his book has been written for the PhD student who is aiming to write a journal article on her research results, but any scientist who has ever found writing difficult might find something of use here.

Knowing how to write papers that other practitioners want to read and cite is an essential skill for any scientist, but it is rarely taught to students of science and technology. Writing is, however, an important part of our jobs. We are writers, whether or not we want to be, and the quality of our writing can help or hinder our careers. But somehow, we are supposed to pick up the necessary writing skills on our own, almost as if by osmosis. We are supposed to simply absorb them from somewhere.

This book was born from my attempts to fill this gap. It started with a series of blog posts at https://jarisaramaki.fi that became popular. These posts have been expanded upon and rewritten as the chapters of this book.

I chose to focus on PhD students and the specific task of writing a journal paper because this is a common struggle. PhD students are expected to quickly figure out both how to do research and how to write it up, and this can be rather stressful. Additionally, they rarely get enough help, in particular when it comes to writing. We professors tend to be too busy, and we often find it difficult to help our students because we struggle with writing too. Even those of us who are experienced writers may have no system for writingand when there is no system, it is difficult to teach others what it is that we do and how do we do it.

After realising this, I decided to come up with a set of guidelinesa system for writing that I could follow with my students. The outcome is this book. What youll learn here is a top-down approach that makes writing less taxing because it forces you to focus on the right things at the right time, one thing at a time.

Of course, to write a good scientific paper, you have to do some good science first. This book only covers the former. You cannot and should not compensate for bad science with good writing. But if you have done solid science, it deserves to be heard about, and it helps if you know how to communicate your results clearly and in a compelling way. It also helps if you can write quickly, without spending too much time being stuck or in fear of the blank page.

I have written this book mainly for students of science and technology (computer science, physics, life sciences, and so on) where the output of research typically comes in the form of plots, tables, and figures that lead to conclusions about how the world works. I wrote with a reader in mind who has already obtained research results that are worth publishing and who now wants to transform them into a well-written paper, a paper that has a streamlined story that is communicated through both text and figures. If needs be, this story can be condensed into the letter format of the PNAS, Nature, or Science variety. But getting your results published in the top-tier journals is not the main focus of this book: writing well for any journal is.

If you write well, you do the scientific community a service. Students, professors, journal referees, and other readers of papers are too often the victims of bad, convoluted writing that steals away their most valuable resourcetheir time. Just consider how many unnecessary hours you have spent trying to tease out the hidden meaning from research papers that carefully and jealously guard their secrets. We all have to deal with limited time: there is never enough of it, and wasted hours can never be claimed back. Save your readers time by making your papers easy to read.

Finally, this book is not about language or grammar. If you wish to expand your vocabulary or improve your knowledge of grammar, please look elsewhere: there are many excellent resources available online and in the nearest bookshop (if there still is one). Rather, this book is about clarity, structure, excitement, and story. It is also a book about thinking because to write clearly is to think clearly.