Scientific Writing: Structuring a scientific article

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How to Structure a Scientific Article

Many scientific articles include the following elements:

I. Abstract: The abstract should briefly summarize the contents of your article. Be sure to include a quick overview of the focus, results and conclusion of your study.

II. Introduction:  The introduction should include any relevant background information and articulate the idea that is being investigated. Why is this study unique? If others have performed research on the topic, include a literature review. 

III. Methods and Materials:  The methods and materials section should provide information on how the study was conducted and what materials were included. Other researchers should be able to reproduce your study based on the information found in this section. 

IV. Results:  The results sections includes the data produced by your study. It should reflect an unbiased account of the study's findings. 

V.  Discussion and Conclusion:  The discussion section provides information on what researches felt was significant and analyzes the data. You may also want to provide final thoughts and ideas for further research in the conclusion section. 

For more information, see How to Read a Scientific Paper.  

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WRITING A SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ARTICLE | Format for the paper | Edit your paper! | Useful books | FORMAT FOR THE PAPER Scientific research articles provide a method for scientists to communicate with other scientists about the results of their research. A standard format is used for these articles, in which the author presents the research in an orderly, logical manner. This doesn't necessarily reflect the order in which you did or thought about the work.  This format is: | Title | Authors | Introduction | Materials and Methods | Results (with Tables and Figures ) | Discussion | Acknowledgments | Literature Cited | TITLE Make your title specific enough to describe the contents of the paper, but not so technical that only specialists will understand. The title should be appropriate for the intended audience. The title usually describes the subject matter of the article: Effect of Smoking on Academic Performance" Sometimes a title that summarizes the results is more effective: Students Who Smoke Get Lower Grades" AUTHORS 1. The person who did the work and wrote the paper is generally listed as the first author of a research paper. 2. For published articles, other people who made substantial contributions to the work are also listed as authors. Ask your mentor's permission before including his/her name as co-author. ABSTRACT 1. An abstract, or summary, is published together with a research article, giving the reader a "preview" of what's to come. Such abstracts may also be published separately in bibliographical sources, such as Biologic al Abstracts. They allow other scientists to quickly scan the large scientific literature, and decide which articles they want to read in depth. The abstract should be a little less technical than the article itself; you don't want to dissuade your potent ial audience from reading your paper. 2. Your abstract should be one paragraph, of 100-250 words, which summarizes the purpose, methods, results and conclusions of the paper. 3. It is not easy to include all this information in just a few words. Start by writing a summary that includes whatever you think is important, and then gradually prune it down to size by removing unnecessary words, while still retaini ng the necessary concepts. 3. Don't use abbreviations or citations in the abstract. It should be able to stand alone without any footnotes. INTRODUCTION What question did you ask in your experiment? Why is it interesting? The introduction summarizes the relevant literature so that the reader will understand why you were interested in the question you asked. One to fo ur paragraphs should be enough. End with a sentence explaining the specific question you asked in this experiment. MATERIALS AND METHODS 1. How did you answer this question? There should be enough information here to allow another scientist to repeat your experiment. Look at other papers that have been published in your field to get some idea of what is included in this section. 2. If you had a complicated protocol, it may helpful to include a diagram, table or flowchart to explain the methods you used. 3. Do not put results in this section. You may, however, include preliminary results that were used to design the main experiment that you are reporting on. ("In a preliminary study, I observed the owls for one week, and found that 73 % of their locomotor activity occurred during the night, and so I conducted all subsequent experiments between 11 pm and 6 am.") 4. Mention relevant ethical considerations. If you used human subjects, did they consent to participate. If you used animals, what measures did you take to minimize pain? RESULTS 1. This is where you present the results you've gotten. Use graphs and tables if appropriate, but also summarize your main findings in the text. Do NOT discuss the results or speculate as to why something happened; t hat goes in th e Discussion. 2. You don't necessarily have to include all the data you've gotten during the semester. This isn't a diary. 3. Use appropriate methods of showing data. Don't try to manipulate the data to make it look like you did more than you actually did. "The drug cured 1/3 of the infected mice, another 1/3 were not affected, and the third mouse got away." TABLES AND GRAPHS 1. If you present your data in a table or graph, include a title describing what's in the table ("Enzyme activity at various temperatures", not "My results".) For graphs, you should also label the x and y axes. 2. Don't use a table or graph just to be "fancy". If you can summarize the information in one sentence, then a table or graph is not necessary. DISCUSSION 1. Highlight the most significant results, but don't just repeat what you've written in the Results section. How do these results relate to the original question? Do the data support your hypothesis? Are your results consistent with what other investigators have reported? If your results were unexpected, try to explain why. Is there another way to interpret your results? What further research would be necessary to answer the questions raised by your results? How do y our results fit into the big picture? 2. End with a one-sentence summary of your conclusion, emphasizing why it is relevant. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This section is optional. You can thank those who either helped with the experiments, or made other important contributions, such as discussing the protocol, commenting on the manuscript, or buying you pizza. REFERENCES (LITERATURE CITED) There are several possible ways to organize this section. Here is one commonly used way: 1. In the text, cite the literature in the appropriate places: Scarlet (1990) thought that the gene was present only in yeast, but it has since been identified in the platypus (Indigo and Mauve, 1994) and wombat (Magenta, et al., 1995). 2. In the References section list citations in alphabetical order. Indigo, A. C., and Mauve, B. E. 1994. Queer place for qwerty: gene isolation from the platypus. Science 275, 1213-1214. Magenta, S. T., Sepia, X., and Turquoise, U. 1995. Wombat genetics. In: Widiculous Wombats, Violet, Q., ed. New York: Columbia University Press. p 123-145. Scarlet, S.L. 1990. Isolation of qwerty gene from S. cerevisae. Journal of Unusual Results 36, 26-31.   EDIT YOUR PAPER!!! "In my writing, I average about ten pages a day. Unfortunately, they're all the same page." Michael Alley, The Craft of Scientific Writing A major part of any writing assignment consists of re-writing. Write accurately Scientific writing must be accurate. Although writing instructors may tell you not to use the same word twice in a sentence, it's okay for scientific writing, which must be accurate. (A student who tried not to repeat the word "hamster" produced this confusing sentence: "When I put the hamster in a cage with the other animals, the little mammals began to play.") Make sure you say what you mean. Instead of: The rats were injected with the drug. (sounds like a syringe was filled with drug and ground-up rats and both were injected together) Write: I injected the drug into the rat.
  • Be careful with commonly confused words:
Temperature has an effect on the reaction. Temperature affects the reaction.
I used solutions in various concentrations. (The solutions were 5 mg/ml, 10 mg/ml, and 15 mg/ml) I used solutions in varying concentrations. (The concentrations I used changed; sometimes they were 5 mg/ml, other times they were 15 mg/ml.)
 Less food (can't count numbers of food) Fewer animals (can count numbers of animals)
A large amount of food (can't count them) A large number of animals (can count them)
The erythrocytes, which are in the blood, contain hemoglobin. The erythrocytes that are in the blood contain hemoglobin. (Wrong. This sentence implies that there are erythrocytes elsewhere that don't contain hemoglobin.)

Write clearly

1. Write at a level that's appropriate for your audience.

"Like a pigeon, something to admire as long as it isn't over your head." Anonymous

 2. Use the active voice. It's clearer and more concise than the passive voice.

 Instead of: An increased appetite was manifested by the rats and an increase in body weight was measured. Write: The rats ate more and gained weight.

 3. Use the first person.

 Instead of: It is thought Write: I think
 Instead of: The samples were analyzed Write: I analyzed the samples

 4. Avoid dangling participles.

 "After incubating at 30 degrees C, we examined the petri plates." (You must've been pretty warm in there.)

  Write succinctly

 1. Use verbs instead of abstract nouns

 Instead of: take into consideration Write: consider

 2. Use strong verbs instead of "to be"

 Instead of: The enzyme was found to be the active agent in catalyzing... Write: The enzyme catalyzed...

 3. Use short words.

Instead of: Write: possess have sufficient enough utilize use demonstrate show assistance help terminate end

4. Use concise terms.

 Instead of: Write: prior to before due to the fact that because in a considerable number of cases often the vast majority of most during the time that when in close proximity to near it has long been known that I'm too lazy to look up the reference

5. Use short sentences. A sentence made of more than 40 words should probably be rewritten as two sentences.

 "The conjunction 'and' commonly serves to indicate that the writer's mind still functions even when no signs of the phenomenon are noticeable." Rudolf Virchow, 1928

  

Check your grammar, spelling and punctuation

1. Use a spellchecker, but be aware that they don't catch all mistakes.

 "When we consider the animal as a hole,..." Student's paper

 2. Your spellchecker may not recognize scientific terms. For the correct spelling, try Biotech's Life Science Dictionary or one of the technical dictionaries on the reference shelf in the Biology or Health Sciences libraries.

 3. Don't, use, unnecessary, commas.

 4. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

USEFUL BOOKS

Victoria E. McMillan, Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences , Bedford Books, Boston, 1997 The best. On sale for about $18 at Labyrinth Books, 112th Street. On reserve in Biology Library

Jan A. Pechenik, A Short Guide to Writing About Biology , Boston: Little, Brown, 1987

Harrison W. Ambrose, III & Katharine Peckham Ambrose, A Handbook of Biological Investigation , 4th edition, Hunter Textbooks Inc, Winston-Salem, 1987 Particularly useful if you need to use statistics to analyze your data. Copy on Reference shelf in Biology Library.

Robert S. Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , 4th edition, Oryx Press, Phoenix, 1994. Earlier editions also good. A bit more advanced, intended for those writing papers for publication. Fun to read. Several copies available in Columbia libraries.

William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style , 3rd ed. Macmillan, New York, 1987. Several copies available in Columbia libraries.  Strunk's first edition is available on-line.

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Scientific writing

A guide to publishing scientific research in the health sciences.

1 Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, ON

2 School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON

4 Injury Prevention Research Center, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China

Effective communication of scientific research is critical to advancing science and optimizing the impact of one’s professional work. This article provides a guide on preparing scientific manuscripts for publication in the health sciences. It is geared to health professionals who are starting to report their findings in peer-reviewed journals or who would like to refresh their knowledge in this area. It identifies five key steps. First, adopt best practices in scientific publications, including collaborative writing and ethical reporting. Second, strategically position your manuscript before you start to write. This is done by identifying your target audience, choosing three to five journals that reach your target audience and then learning about the journal requirements. Third, create the first draft of your manuscript by developing a logical, concise and compelling storyline based on the journal requirements and the established structure for scientific manuscripts. Fourth, refine the manuscript by coordinating the input from your co-authors and applying good composition and clear writing principles. The final version of the manuscript needs to meet editorial requirements and be approved by all authors prior to submission. Fifth, once submitted, be prepared for revision. Rejection is common; if you receive feedback, consider revising the paper before submitting it to another journal. If the journal is interested, address all the requested revisions. Scientific articles that have high impact are not only good science; they are also highly readable and the result of a collective and often synergistic effort.

Introduction

The publication of the findings of scientific research is important for two reasons. First, the progression of science depends on the publication of research findings in the peer-reviewed literature. Second, the publication of research is important for career development. The old dictum “publish or perish” suggests the critical role publishing research has, especially for those in academia. The newer version, “publish and flourish”, suggests that publishing solid scientific research is good for individual researchers and good for the scientific community. With good research, there is the potential for everyone to be better off.

The publication of scientific work is not easy. There are many books on how to write a scientific article ( 1 - 5 ); however, the level of detail may be overwhelming and there is a tendency to focus more on the technical aspects, such as the structure of a scientific manuscript and what to include in each section, and less on the process aspects, such as what constitutes authorship and how to choose the most appropriate journal. There is a need for a basic overview for those who would like to start publishing or refresh their knowledge in this area. The objective of this article is to provide health professionals with an overview on how to prepare manuscripts for publication.

Adopt best practices in scientific publications

Anyone who would like to author scientific publications should know about these two best practices before they begin: work collaboratively and observe ethical reporting practices.

Practice collaborative writing

Research and scientific publishing are collective enterprises that call for collaboration as a best practice. Research usually involves a research team. New research projects build on previous research done by others. It involves input from peers on both protocol development before the research is done, as well as the review of manuscripts once the research is completed. The Cochrane Collaboration is one important example of this ( 6 ). To optimize the success of your research team, cultivate strong interpersonal skills and choose your collaborators wisely. Areas to consider when you are choosing with whom to work include such things as collaborator availability, similar research interests, track record and personal suitability.

Given that a scientific publication is meant to contribute to knowledge, a good research question is essential, as is identifying the optimal scientific method to answer that question and observing ethical practices in the conduct of your research.

Once these items have been addressed, what do you need to know before you start to write?

Observe ethical reporting practices

The ethics of scientific publications can be summarized by two best practices: complete and accurate reporting and appropriate attribution of everyone’s contributions ( 7 ).

Ensure complete and accurate reporting

Unethical scientific publication practices include incomplete reporting, the reporting of fraudulent data, plagiarism, duplicate publication and overlapping publications. Some people consider failure to publish the results of clinical trials as unethical ( 8 ), as it can create bias in the published record. Incomplete reporting can include selective reporting of findings or not reporting at all. It is important to report negative data, or any unexpected finding.

Falsification or fabrication of data is the most obvious breach of research ethics. One example is the fraudulent study linking autism to vaccine ( 9 ), which caused untold harm by undermining public confidence in routine childhood vaccines.

Plagiarism must be carefully avoided. Incorporating others’ ideas or research results into any manuscript you write needs to be done with appropriate referencing. Journal editors routinely check manuscripts with antiplagiarism software before determining a manuscript’s appropriateness for peer review. Free software programs are available for authors to check for inadvertent duplication of content such as CopyScape, DupliChecker, Plagiarisma, Plagium, Search Engine Reports, SEOTools, Site Liner and Unplag.

Duplicate publication is publishing an article that is the same or overlaps substantially with another article by the author or publisher ( 8 ). It is considered redundant, and may result in double-counting of data. This is to be distinguished from co-publication, which is when the same article is published in more than one journal at approximately the same time to increase reach to different disciplines ( 8 ). It meets specific criteria and is done with complete transparency.

Overlapping publication is a variant of duplicate publication. It typically occurs with multi-centre trials and is characterized by publications from single centres, several centres as well as all centres. This is considered unethical as it can lead to double-counting and distorts the perception of the weight of the evidence ( 10 ). It may be appropriate to have more than one publication come from a multi-centre trial, but this is usually to address secondary outcomes. Secondary publications should cite the primary analysis and all publications of trials should identify the trial registration number ( 8 ).

Give appropriate attribution

It is important to acknowledge the work of everyone who contributed to a scientific publication. Central to ethical publication is appropriate authorship. A best practice is to identify the role of each author. Authorship has been defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) as those who meet all of the following four criteria: substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; drafting the initial manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; final approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved ( 11 ).

Of note, the collection of data or the development of software for a study are not criteria for authorship, nor is securing research funding; however, these are important contributions that should be acknowledged—either in the Acknowledgements section or, if there is one, in the Contributors section. It is best practice to ensure everyone mentioned in an Acknowledgements or Contributors section is aware he/she has been identified, and is in agreement with being identified. Contractors paid to perform parts of a study (e.g., laboratory testing, software development or drafting the manuscript) are often, by definition, not authors but still merit being identified in the Acknowledgements or Contributors section.

Some unethical practices in authorship include guest authorship and ghost authorship. Guest authorship is including someone as an author who does not meet the ICMJE criteria and ghost authorship is excluding someone as an author who does meet the ICMJE criteria. Basically, ethical attribution is all about transparency.

There can be a lot of debate on the sequencing of authors. The ordering of authors differs by discipline ( 12 ). In the health sciences, the first author has the most weight; the final author also carries weight as this is often the principal or most senior investigator. In contrast, in economics, authors are usually listed alphabetically, implying equal contribution to the research work. It is useful to discuss authorship early in the manuscript planning process, and then again near the completion of the manuscript. This discussion should include an assessment of authorship against the ICMJE criteria and consideration of authorship sequence, which may change over time if there were changes in the level of input from what was originally planned.

Position your manuscript

Once your research is completed, you need to identify appropriate journals for publication. Not every manuscript can or should be published in a prestigious, high-impact journal. People can waste a lot of time and effort sending manuscripts to journals that will promptly send back a polite rejection letter, or will keep it for several months before declining it, based on the peer review. So how do you choose which journal to submit to? Discuss with your co-researchers or peers: Who is the target audience? Who will want to know about this research? What is the best journal to reach that audience? And what are those journals’ specific requirements for manuscript submissions?

Identify your target audience

Before writing up results of your study, think about your potential readers. Are your research findings most appropriate for a general readership or a specialty group? This affects the choice of journal for submission, and the writing style you adopt for the manuscript.

Choose three to five journals

Based on your target readership, develop a list of three to five journals, and then order by journal impact factor. The impact factor is the average number of citations per article published in that journal, based on the performance in the previous two years ( 13 ). Submit your manuscript to one journal at a time, starting from the top of the list. If you receive a rejection letter from your “Plan A” journal, you have a ready “Plan B” journal to submit to right away. This avoids having the rejected manuscript languish on your desk.

Learn about the journal requirements

Every journal has instructions for authors that are listed online. These instructions describe the types of articles that the journal publishes and provides specific advice about format, word length, as well as what needs to be included in a cover letter at the time of submission. Consult some past issues of the targeted journals to see examples of the different types of articles that are published.

Create the first draft

Now that you have identified your target audience, what journal you are targeting first, and what its requirements are, you are ready to create the first draft. To begin you want to develop a high-level summary that establishes a logical, compelling storyline that follows the established structure for a scientific manuscript. Then, before you start to write the text, check for any reporting guides for the type of study you have done to ensure you address any specific reporting requirements.

There is a common misconception that scientific publications are simply dispassionate reports of the methods and results of research. But consider this: There are more than 30,000 biomedical journals ( 14 ). We are living in an age of information overload, so people become very selective in what they read and ask themselves “Is this important for me to read?” The objective reporting of research findings is necessary, but not sufficient. Effective authors will also provide an appropriate context and present their work in such a way that readers find it interesting and easy to understand. The sections that follow identify several ways to best present the context, data and implications of your work.

Develop a compelling storyline

The use of the term storyline here does not mean you endeavour to entertain the reader. It is how you “present your case” in the court of scientific opinion. It maps on to the basic structure of scientific articles and includes the rationale for the study, the research question, how that question was addressed, what was found and why these findings are important ( 3 ). After working for months (and sometimes years) on a research project, it is easy to get lost in the details. Establishing a clear, logical underlying structure to your scientific manuscript from the outset not only helps to avoid going off on tangents, it also vastly increases its readability. The abstract is an excellent place to set out the storyline of your manuscript. You want to respond to the questions: What is this research about? (background and objective); What did you do to answer your research question? (methods); What did you find? (results); and What are the implications and next steps? (discussion and conclusion). Then, much like establishing the theme, each section is developed in the manuscript. A well-written abstract gives readers a “road map”; after reading it they will know what you will be covering in the article.

One way to strengthen the logic of your manuscript is to use the same terms and the same sequencing of information in each section. For example, if your research objective was to assess acceptability and adherence to a treatment regimen, what you do not want to do is describe the willingness to start a treatment in the Introduction, note how you measured compliance and adherence in the Methods and then describe how many people followed the treatment regime after agreeing to start it in the Results. If your research objective is to assess acceptability and adherence, define acceptability and then adherence in the Introduction, identify how you measured acceptance and then adherence in the Methods, and describe your findings for acceptance and then adherence in the Results. When you use the same terms in the same sequence in the Introduction, Methods and Results sections, it is much easier for the reader to quickly grasp what you did and what was found.

In addition, there are several writing techniques that help make your manuscript more compelling to engage the reader. The first is to have “a hook”, or interesting start that draws the reader in. Titles can be a hook; for example, a recent article from the New England Journal of Medicine was entitled: “The Other Victims of the Opioid Epidemic” ( 15 ). It might catch your attention, as you immediately ask yourself “Who are the victims and who are the other victims?” A compelling title may pose a question that motivates people to read the article: “Can scientists and policymakers work together?” ( 16 ). Readers are also engaged by the first sentence of the abstract; for example: “The emergence and prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are an increasing cause of death worldwide, resulting in a global call to action.” ( 17 ). This is a good first sentence as it gives a sense of urgency and makes the reader curious about what the call to action is. One must be careful to not sensationalize, but when there is an urgent health issue, it is important to describe why we need to be aware of it and change what we do if necessary.

Check for reporting guides

As a final step before starting to write the manuscript in full, check if there are specific reporting requirements for the type of research you have done; for example, if you have done an experimental study, you will need to mention research ethics board approval and informed consent ( 18 ). If you have done a systematic review, include a flow diagram of the included and excluded studies ( 19 ). Some journals provide author checklists to identify what is important to include in different sections for different types of studies ( 20 , 21 ). The Equator Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research) brings together a number of reporting guidelines and is a useful resource ( 22 ).

Use the IMRAD approach

When you start to write the text, use the classic structure of a scientific article: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, which is often referred to by the acronym IMRAD. But, rather than writing down everything you know that relates to your study, use each section strategically to tell the story of your research.

A good Introduction section has the structure of an inverted triangle. This means that you start with a broad topic, and then narrow down the readers’ focus in logical steps until you arrive at your research question. This can be facilitated by answering the following questions:

  • What is the issue?
  • Why is it important?
  • What do we know to date?
  • What are the gaps in our knowledge?
  • What is the research question that will address this gap?
  • What was the objective of the research?

At this point, the reader will want to know “So what happened?” and they will keep reading. The summary of the literature is done in the present tense, as it represents generally accepted facts and principles. Define all abbreviations on first use but use only commonly-accepted ones. Too many abbreviations decrease readability. The introduction is described in the present tense (as it describes established facts).

The Methods section describes how the study was conducted. It is important to explain how the methods address the research objective. Give enough detail so that others can duplicate your study, if needed, to confirm that your results are consistent and reliable. It is useful to have subtitles. For a clinical trial, for example, this could include study population, intervention, outcome measures and analysis. Avoid the temptation to provide results in the Methods section. For example, the sampling methodology belongs to the Methods section, the response rate of the study belongs in the Results section. The Methods section is described in the past tense (as it describes what you did).

The Results section describes what was found in the study (in the same sequence of information established in the Introduction and the Methods sections). Avoid the temptation to discuss or analyze results in the Results section. For example, you can state: “there were more men than women in this study”, but exploring the reason for this belongs in the Discussion section. Results are described in the past tense (as they describe what you found).

Many readers find the Discussion section to be the most interesting part of the article. The first sentence is an opportunity to summarize the most important findings of your study; for example: “Surveillance data from four Nordic countries suggested that at least 25% of gonorrhea infections were related to travel” ( 23 ). Interpret your findings in light of possible biases or sources of errors. Then it is important to consider both the strengths and weaknesses of your study; compare it to other studies with similar or different findings, consider the implications and identify the next steps. The Discussion section is an opportunity to situate your findings within the larger body of knowledge and to consider what is needed to further advance scientific understanding. The discussion is described in past, present or future tense depending on context.

Develop tables and figures to highlight key findings

There are two best practices to consider when creating tables and figures. First, to address the classic evidence-based medicine question—Are these results applicable to my patient population?—you need to describe your study population ( 24 ). The first table in a clinical study, for example, often compares the demographic characteristics of the research subjects to what is known about the study population. This helps readers assess how representative the study sample was. Second, use tables and figures to highlight your key findings. Resist the temptation to present all the data you have in tables and figures which may overwhelm the reader. You want to keep the focus on the study objective and the answer to your research question.

Tables are useful to present large quantities of data and figures are preferred to show trends over time. Titles of tables and figures should be able to “stand alone”; i.e., they are self-explanatory and complete. To be complete, include the study population, type of data presented and dates of the study. In tables, ensure each column has a heading. Make sure all data is validated and that all research subjects are accounted for (i.e., the percentages add up to 100%). Further resources on preparation of tables and figures are available ( 25 , 26 ). See Table 1 for some highlights of the “Dos and Don’ts” when writing scientific manuscripts.

Refine the manuscript

Most manuscripts are a team effort, so once a manuscript has been drafted, it then needs to be circulated for input by all the co-authors. Consider your own internal peer review process and then refine the manuscript for clarity before submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal. If your first language is not English, consider having the manuscript copy-edited before you submit it to a journal.

Circulate to co-authors and peers

Each research team works out their own way of writing and revising. Usually the first author develops the first draft, and then sends to other authors to provide comments (usually using the tracked changes function). The first author will then incorporate comments and produce a second draft for a second round of comments. This process continues until all authors agree on the structure and wording of the manuscript. It is also possible to have different authors draft different sections of the manuscript, once there has been consensus on the storyline and the structure. A common challenge with circulating drafts of a manuscript is version control. You may want to have only one author working on a draft at a time. If there is simultaneous feedback from multiple authors, they should all be sent to the first author by a set due date. You may also want to conduct your own internal peer review process. After being steeped in a project for months and a manuscript for weeks, it is easy to lose perspective. An unblinded internal peer review may help strengthen your manuscript before undergoing the blind external peer review that is conducted by the editorial office of scientific journals.

Apply clear writing principles

The hallmark of good scientific writing is precision and clarity ( 5 ). Based on the classic, The Elements of Style , here are some tips that will help bring clarity to your writing ( 27 ). Check the first sentence of each paragraph. These should signal to the reader the progression of the logic of your manuscript and introduce what the paragraph contains. When appropriate, use the active voice. To say “We developed a protocol” is more engaging than the passive voice: “A protocol was developed”. Edit out needless words, such as “as noted above”. When possible, use parallel construction or the repetition of a grammatical form within a sentence. For example, the phrase “Children aged 4–6 years should be given vaccine A; the administration of vaccine B is advised for those who are 13–18 years old” can be made clearer using parallel construction: “Children aged 4–6 years should be given vaccine A; adolescents aged 13–18 should be given vaccine B”. Make definitive assertions; arouse interest of the reader by reporting the details that matter. In addition, you do not want to be overly complex; resources are available to help describe things in plain language ( 28 ).

Submit and be ready to revise

Once all the authors sign off on the final version, submit to your journal of choice with a short cover letter noting that your manuscript has not been published previously and is not under consideration by any other journal. It is also useful to identify why your manuscript is relevant to the journal’s readership. This may influence the editor’s decision on whether to send your manuscript for external peer review.

Once the manuscript is submitted, brace yourself for a number of possible responses. You may receive a polite rejection letter. Or the Editor may have comments on the manuscript that need to be addressed before it is peer-reviewed. If this is the case, it is good to address these promptly. Another possibility is that the manuscript is peer-reviewed and then declined. There are two reasons why you should carefully consider all the peer-reviewer comments, even though the journal is not interested in your manuscript. First, this is free advice, often from top-notch experts in the field, so why not use it to improve your success rate with another journal? Second, only a limited number of researchers participate in the journal peer review process. When you submit to a second journal, what you do not want to hear back is “I was the peer reviewer of this manuscript for another journal, and I see that none of my previous comments were considered by the authors”. If you do decide to revise the manuscript to address reviewer comments, do not forget to review the instructions for authors for the new journal and reformat as necessary. Finally, after peer-review has been completed, you may receive a tentative acceptance letter from the editor, accompanied by a request for minor revisions. Or you could receive a “reject and resubmit” letter, which means that extensive revisions are needed. In either case, it indicates an interest in a revised manuscript.

Requested revisions are usually discussed jointly among the co-authors until there is consensus on how to address them. Making the revisions can either be allocated among the authors, or coordinated through one person. Usually once the revisions are underway, they do not seem as formidable as they first appeared, and the manuscript ends up being stronger and clearer as a result. Once revised, do a final check of the abstract to ensure it still reflects the revised text. Again, sign-off is needed from all the authors before submitting the revised manuscript to the journal.

To advance science, research needs to be published. To optimize the chances of your research getting published and having an impact, it is important to demonstrate objectivity, and present your work in a way that is interesting and compelling. To do this you need clarity, logic and the use of rhetorical techniques to engage the reader in your research. This includes positioning your manuscript to reach your target audience, developing a logical, compelling storyline within the confines of the IMRAD structure, having an effective iterative approach among your co-authors to develop the manuscript and being ready to complete revisions to meet journal requirements.

Effective scientific writing rarely comes from innate talent. Writing is a skill that needs to be honed over one’s professional career. Cultivate an interest in what makes good writing. As you read other peoples’ work, ask yourself what makes some articles easier to read than others. Consider becoming a peer-reviewer for scientific journals to assess the manuscripts of others.

It is thoroughly satisfying to publish compelling research that influences people and makes a contribution to science. This is most often achieved through the synergy of collaboration with others and having a common goal of advancing the collective progression of science.

Authors’ statement

Both authors worked on the conception and design together, PH developed the first draft, both contributed to multiple drafts and signed off on the final version. Dr. Patricia Huston is the Editor-in-Chief of CCDR and recused herself from taking any editorial decisions on this manuscript. Decisions were taken by the Editorial Fellow, Toju Ogunremi, with the support of the Editorial Board member, Dr. Michel Deilgat.

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Andrea Currie and Katie Rutledge-Taylor who developed the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Field Epidemiology writing curriculum. We had a number of interesting discussions on the art and science of scientific writing that informed this work, including the concept of the inverted triangle for the structure of an effective introduction.

Conflict of Interest: None.

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ARTICLE-WRITING ESSENTIALS

Your title is the first thing anyone who reads your article is going to see, and for many it will be where they stop reading. Learn how to write a title that helps readers find your article, draws your audience in and sets the stage for your research!

The abstract is your chance to let your readers know what they can expect from your article. Learn how to write a clear, and concise abstract that will keep your audience reading.

A clear methods section impacts editorial evaluation and readers’ understanding, and is also the backbone of transparency and replicability. Learn what to include in your methods section, and how much detail is appropriate.

In many fields, a statistical analysis forms the heart of both the methods and results sections of a manuscript. Learn how to report statistical analyses, and what other context is important for publication success and future reproducibility.

The discussion section contains the results and outcomes of a study. An effective discussion informs readers what can be learned from your experiment and provides context for the results.

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How you store your data matters. Even after you publish your article, your data needs to be accessible and useable for the long term so that other researchers can continue building on your work. Good data management practices make your data discoverable and easy to use, promote a strong foundation for reproducibility and increase your likelihood of citations.

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Scientific Writing

It is critical to understand the important elements of a scientific paper and how to most effectively describe research results in the context of your manuscript. While writing your paper can seem like an afterthought compared to years of work in the lab, the way you convey your findings can have a profound impact on editors, reviewers, and your readers. Here are some resources to help you maximize the potential of your next ACS paper.

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Writing a good paper starts well before you type the first letter. Link your data together to tell a story to your peers (and the world). And remember to start early! Don’t wait until all the data is complete, because your results may take you in a new direction with additional controls or experiments. Find out more with these ACS Author University videos:

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How to write a scientific article: when should you start writing your research article, getting started writing your paper.

With your story in mind, the next step is turning that into a written document that is ready to share. In the ACS Author University videos below, ACS editors share their tips for starting with an outline, preparing your figures, and much more, so you can use your time efficiently and produce a top-quality draft.

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Write Like a Scientist

A Guide to Scientific Communication

What is scientific writing ?

Scientific writing is a technical form of writing that is designed to communicate scientific information to other scientists. Depending on the specific scientific genre—a journal article, a scientific poster, or a research proposal, for example—some aspects of the writing may change, such as its  purpose , audience , or organization . Many aspects of scientific writing, however, vary little across these writing genres. Important hallmarks of all scientific writing are summarized below. Genre-specific information is located  here  and under the “By Genre” tab at the top of the page.

What are some important hallmarks of professional scientific writing?

1. Its primary audience is other scientists. Because of its intended audience, student-oriented or general-audience details, definitions, and explanations — which are often necessary in lab manuals or reports — are not terribly useful. Explaining general-knowledge concepts or how routine procedures were performed actually tends to obstruct clarity, make the writing wordy, and detract from its professional tone.

2. It is concise and precise . A goal of scientific writing is to communicate scientific information clearly and concisely. Flowery, ambiguous, wordy, and redundant language run counter to the purpose of the writing.

3. It must be set within the context of other published work. Because science builds on and corrects itself over time, scientific writing must be situated in and  reference the findings of previous work . This context serves variously as motivation for new work being proposed or the paper being written, as points of departure or congruence for new findings and interpretations, and as evidence of the authors’ knowledge and expertise in the field.

All of the information under “The Essentials” tab is intended to help you to build your knowledge and skills as a scientific writer regardless of the scientific discipline you are studying or the specific assignment you might be working on. In addition to discussions of audience and purpose , professional conventions like conciseness and specificity, and how to find and use literature references appropriately, we also provide guidelines for how to organize your writing and how to avoid some common mechanical errors .

If you’re new to this site or to professional scientific writing, we recommend navigating the sub-sections under “The Essentials” tab in the order they’re provided. Once you’ve covered these essentials, you might find information on  genre-  or discipline-specific writing useful.

Basics of scientific and technical writing

  • Career Central
  • Published: 01 March 2021
  • Volume 46 , pages 284–286, ( 2021 )

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  • Morteza Monavarian 1 , 2  

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction to scientific/technical writing

Scientific/technical writing is an essential part of research. The outcome of a research activity should be shared with others in the form of scientific paper publications; some ideas require a patent to reserve the implementation rights; and almost any research activity requires a funding source, for which a grant proposal is necessary. Therefore, it is crucial to know the differences among writing papers, patents, and grant proposals and how to prepare them in a research environment ( Figure 1 ).

figure 1

Three major types of scientific/technical writing covered in the three-part series.

The publication of papers is a standard way to share knowledge and transfer methods in scientific communities, thus a pivotal part of any research activity, especially in an academic environment. In industry, where financial profit is a key factor, patents are possibly more favorable.

Types of paper publications

There are different types of paper publications, depending on the content, audience, purpose, length, and scope: original research, review articles, invited articles, conference proceedings, comments/errata, and press releases ( Figure 2 ).

Original research articles may be published in journals or conference proceedings (or preprints in arXiv) and target specific audiences within a field of research. Journal research papers require peer review that typically involves an editor and two reviewers. For conference proceedings, there is usually no direct peer-review process, but the work has to be presented in the corresponding conference to be eligible for publication.

In contrast to original research articles, which are written on special topics within a field of research, review articles normally cover an overview of research and tend to be longer. Review articles do not necessarily reflect on novel data or ideas and could be similar to a book chapter. However, unlike review articles, book chapters or books are usually written when the target field of research is fully established. In a review paper, figures are typically not original and reprinted from other publications, for which a copyright permission from the original publishing journal is required.

Invited articles are written in response to an invitation by a journal editor or a conference organizer in a specific field of research or for a special issue. An invited article could be a review article or original research. Invited articles are normally written by peers or researchers with significant contributions to a field of research.

Other items published include comments or errata. The purpose of a comment on a published article is to bring points of criticism to the attention of the readers as well as the authors of the original article. The comments can be published in the same journal as the original paper. Errata correct mistakes in an article after publication.

Finally, press releases target a more general audience and normally report on a review/overview of recently published research. The author of the press release is not the same as that of the original article. Unlike peer-reviewed research articles, press release articles are usually not citable.

figure 2

Six major types of paper publications.

Writing structures and styles

Different articles have different structures. A research article typically consists of a title, author list and affiliations, abstract, main body, conclusions, acknowledgments, and references.

A good title should be concise, to the point, and free of abbreviations. Author lists and affiliations include whoever has intellectually contributed to the paper (identifying at least one corresponding author and email address), with the order approved by all of the co-authors. A good abstract should give a full, but short, overview of the work with both qualitative and quantitative data summaries. An abstract should be self-contained, meaning it should not require a referral to a reference or figure. Abstracts are usually written in the present tense and have an active voice.

Unlike letters with no sections within the main body, the main body of research articles normally contains several sections (e.g., introduction, methods and approach, results, and discussions). The introduction should contain a deep literature review of the field as the basis for motivating the current work. The last paragraph of the introduction usually summarizes what to expect from the article. The following sections will demonstrate study methods, results, and discussions/interpretations of the results, including plots, tables, and figures.

Conclusions summarize the findings of the paper and may point out any future directions. The acknowledgment lists all funding support and gratitude toward anyone who helped with the work, not including those listed as co-authors. The reference section lists all references in a format described in the journal submission guidelines. Using reference management software (such as Zotero, Mendeley, BibTex) makes organizing the references less cumbersome. A good scholarly research article should have citations for almost any claims made within the main body, to ensure proper connections to the prior research in the field.

Unlike patents, papers require a deep scientific background and should be straight to the point. While patents include all aspects of the idea, papers typically have space limitations, so should therefore be concise. The data in research articles should speak for itself. The language of a research paper should be clear and simple and not include metaphors or slang.

Where to submit

The submission target depends on several factors: (1) scope of the journal, (2) length of the paper (letters versus regular length articles), (3) access (regular versus open access), and (4) impact factor (IF). The scope of the journal is probably the first thing to consider; you cannot publish a biological paper in a humanity journal. Regarding length, a letter is much shorter and usually does not have section headings. It depends on the discipline, but sometimes letters are more favorable because of the shorter publication time, preparation simplicity, and more readability (takes less time to read, which may also improve the visibility of the paper). In terms of access, you may pay publication charges to receive open access, or some journals charge publication fees upon acceptance. Open access papers could potentially get more visibility than normal publications.

IF is a specific journal parameter indicating the average number of citations per published article over a certain period of time. Paying serious attention to IF could oppose the mission of science itself, as it could mean that you judge a paper only by where it is being published and not by its intrinsic values (also called high IF syndrome).

Submission, peer-review, and decisions

Your article will enter the peer-review process upon submission. If done properly, the peer-review process not only avoids false or inconsistent data from being published (and helps science in this regard), but also improves your paper and removes any potential errors/issues or vague discussion. During submission, some journals may ask you to include/exclude reviewers. If there are researchers who may have a direct conflict with your work, you may list them as excluded reviewers. You may also suggest to include reviewers who have relevant experience.

Serving as a reviewer may help you with your own writing, as it assists in developing critical thinking. However, for the sake of science, try peer-reviewing for lesser-known journals (the high-impact journals already have many reviewers). Decisions on your article could be (1) reject: cannot be accepted to this journal; (2) referral to other journals; submit to another journal; (3) accept: accepted as is; (4) major revisions: not accepted, but could be accepted upon significant improvement (upon approval from reviewers); and (5) minor revision: accept but needs slight revisions (no need to go through a peer review again).

Copyrights and archiving

Most journals obtain copyrights from the authors before submission via a copyright transfer form. Hence, re-publishing the same data and plots in another journal is often forbidden. Also, the language of a paper should have a significant difference from an already published paper to avoid plagiarism. In the case where some content (e.g., figure or table) needs to be re-published in another paper (e.g., for review articles or thesis/dissertations), one can request a copyright permission from the original publishing journal. Also, archiving of one’s published papers in personal profile websites (e.g., Researchgate or LinkedIn) is usually forbidden, unless the paper is published as open access.

Final tips for paper publication

Read, read, read! There is probably no better way of improving writing skills than reading other articles and books.

Make illustrative and self-contained figures that can stand on their own.

Know your audience when selecting a journal. Find out which journals are normally targeted by people in your research community.

Protect yourself from high impact factor (IF) syndrome. Journals with a high IF may have very subjective decision criteria. It is sometimes more important to have your paper published than to spend a couple of years waiting for publication in a high-impact journal.

Serve as a reviewer. Get a sense of how a peer-review process feels in order to establish critical thinking. Before submitting your article, self-review.

Look forward to a constructive peer review. It definitely improves your paper (always good to have a view from different perspective).

Enjoy your publications!

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Materials Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Morteza Monavarian

Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

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This article is the first in a three-part series in MRS Bulletin that will focus on writing papers, patents, and proposals.

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  • Published: 26 May 2023

The craft (and art) of scientific writing

Nature Cancer volume  4 ,  pages 583–584 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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What are the elements of a well-written, informative and widely accessible paper?

What will the scientific paper of the future look like? Will we cease to read long-form written manuscripts and instead consume research findings as we do news, through a mix of data, text, videos and animations to be synthesized and interpreted by the beholder? It will be exciting to see science communication reshaped as technology and digital integration continue to develop. But while the traditional form of the scientific manuscript still stands, it is important to consider how to write it in a manner that balances informativeness with accessibility and that does justice to the complexity of the data while keeping the reader engaged.

If planning to submit to a specific journal, authors should be aware of that outlet’s guidelines and formatting requirements. Although at Nature Cancer we do not require that manuscripts conform to our format guidelines on first submission (on the contrary, formatting does not factor into our editorial assessment at all), this may not be the case for other journals. Even if authors have not yet decided where to submit when they start writing (as is the case in many, if not most cases), it is still important to be aware of discipline-specific considerations and to have a general view of expected manuscript sections and typical length and referencing limits as these are some the most laborious and time-consuming issues to fix later in the pre-publication process. In addition, certain types of work, for instance clinical research, must conform to very specific reporting and formatting guidelines that constrain the way in which the manuscript must be written. This Editorial will not cover clinical studies and will instead focus on writing laboratory-generated research.

The first step to writing a manuscript does not involve any writing at all. Instead, it requires objectively considering the collected data in toto to identify the key scientific messages that emerge, as these will be the crux of the manuscript. During this process it is essential to take a step back and critically evaluate the conclusions that can be drawn from the data to guard against building a story around preferred but not validated hypotheses. The text should always stay true to the data, but that does not mean that data should be described in a dry manner or in the chronological order in which experiments were conducted. On the contrary, it is important to also identify the narrative thread that connects the key pieces of data that support the main findings, so that these may be presented in a logical manner that readers will be able to follow. This process includes formulating the figures in their basic, functional, if not polished form, and once this is completed, one can get to the writing part.

The typical scientific manuscript at Nature Cancer and elsewhere includes introduction, methods, results and discussion sections. It may help to think of the paper as an information sandwich: the most important, richer parts are the results and methods sections, held together by the less complex (but no less important) introduction and discussion sections. Thus, one should start by writing up the results, picking up the narrative thread of the dataset and describing the experiments that together support the main findings in appropriately entitled subsections. The results section should describe all the data presented in the figures in the correct order but should not be a laundry list of lengthy experimental descriptions. Rather, it should highlight the key features of the data presented in the figures in a way that complements the visual representation and guides the reader through the complexity of the dataset.

Next up is writing the introduction, the section that not only introduces the main question the paper seeks to answer but that provides context by covering the literature that is relevant to the study, and through this prism presents the rationale and objectives of the current research effort. Here too it is essential to be selective and concise. Rather than exhaustively discussing every paper that might be linked to the topic under study, it is important to identify and synthesize the most pertinent primary research, without shying away from conflicting findings, controversies in the field or similar conclusions published elsewhere. Rather, such aspects are always best presented clearly and addressed head-on. To do this it is necessary to be diligent about staying up to date with the published literature and compiling a comprehensive list of references relevant to the project that can be whittled down to the essential references to be included in the manuscript as writing progresses. The main point to remember is that the introduction should not only permit the non-expert reader to understand the broader topic, the key prior art and the specific questions that the manuscript seeks to answer, but also help them appreciate why these questions are important and spark the reader’s interest in reading on.

With the results and introduction written, it is time to write the discussion — the section that puts the presented findings in perspective by going over their key elements, connecting them to existing knowledge and highlighting implications, outstanding questions and future paths of study. This section too relies on a strong knowledge of the related literature and good citation practices, as the most closely connected prior studies (that should have been already mentioned in the introduction) should be discussed here in more depth. Brevity is again essential, as is avoiding hype. Highlighting the importance of findings while acknowledging their caveats and limitations is key.

And what of the methods? This section is crucial and should be written in as much detail as would permit others to replicate experiments and analyses to reproduce results. Ideally it should develop in an organic manner, as experiments are being conducted and reagents and tools used. It should also be written in line with journal policies and thus merits a separate Editorial.

The final two things to write are arguably among the most important — the title and abstract are the face of the paper, the elements that readers first encounter when they survey the literature or the journal’s table of contents. Hence, they should state the main findings of the study in a clear, specific and engaging manner, with the abstract essentially being a mini version of the paper. The reader should know what to expect from the paper and should be enticed to find out more.

As with any piece of writing, especially when it comes to collaborative efforts, it is essential (and mandated by our authorship policy ) to have the input of all co-authors, even if one or a few contributors have taken on writing responsibilities. It is good general practice when writing anything to seek comments from others, especially non-authors whose judgement can be trusted and who are not too close to the subject to be able to provide an objective and constructive critique. Stepping away from one’s own writings and revisiting them later is also helpful to gain more objectivity. Manuscripts go through several iterations before publication, and while retaining one’s own voice is key, it is helpful to remain open to changes suggested by collaborators, referees and editors as the manuscript develops through the peer-review and revision process. The one principle to stick to when writing, is that the data should always be the lodestar.

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February 21, 2024

Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

Engaging the fine motor system to produce letters by hand has positive effects on learning and memory

By Charlotte Hu

Student handwriting notes in class

FG Trade/Getty Images

Handwriting notes in class might seem like an anachronism as smartphones and other digital technology subsume every aspect of learning across schools and universities. But a steady stream of research continues to suggest that taking notes the traditional way—with pen and paper or even stylus and tablet—is still the best way to learn, especially for young children. And now scientists are finally zeroing in on why.

A recent study in Frontiers in Psychology monitored brain activity in students taking notes and found that those writing by hand had higher levels of electrical activity across a wide range of interconnected brain regions responsible for movement, vision, sensory processing and memory. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that has many experts speaking up about the importance of teaching children to handwrite words and draw pictures.

Differences in Brain Activity

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The new research, by Audrey van der Meer and Ruud van der Weel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), builds on a foundational 2014 study . That work suggested that people taking notes by computer were typing without thinking, says van der Meer , a professor of neuropsychology at NTNU. “It’s very tempting to type down everything that the lecturer is saying,” she says. “It kind of goes in through your ears and comes out through your fingertips, but you don’t process the incoming information.” But when taking notes by hand, it’s often impossible to write everything down; students have to actively pay attention to the incoming information and process it—prioritize it, consolidate it and try to relate it to things they’ve learned before. This conscious action of building onto existing knowledge can make it easier to stay engaged and grasp new concepts .

To understand specific brain activity differences during the two note-taking approaches, the NTNU researchers tweaked the 2014 study’s basic setup. They sewed electrodes into a hairnet with 256 sensors that recorded the brain activity of 36 students as they wrote or typed 15 words from the game Pictionary that were displayed on a screen.

When students wrote the words by hand, the sensors picked up widespread connectivity across many brain regions. Typing, however, led to minimal activity, if any, in the same areas. Handwriting activated connection patterns spanning visual regions, regions that receive and process sensory information and the motor cortex. The latter handles body movement and sensorimotor integration, which helps the brain use environmental inputs to inform a person’s next action.

“When you are typing, the same simple movement of your fingers is involved in producing every letter, whereas when you’re writing by hand, you immediately feel that the bodily feeling of producing A is entirely different from producing a B,” van der Meer says. She notes that children who have learned to read and write by tapping on a digital tablet “often have difficulty distinguishing letters that look a lot like each other or that are mirror images of each other, like the b and the d.”

Reinforcing Memory and Learning Pathways

Sophia Vinci-Booher , an assistant professor of educational neuroscience at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the new study, says its findings are exciting and consistent with past research. “You can see that in tasks that really lock the motor and sensory systems together, such as in handwriting, there’s this really clear tie between this motor action being accomplished and the visual and conceptual recognition being created,” she says. “As you’re drawing a letter or writing a word, you’re taking this perceptual understanding of something and using your motor system to create it.” That creation is then fed back into the visual system, where it’s processed again—strengthening the connection between an action and the images or words associated with it. It’s similar to imagining something and then creating it: when you materialize something from your imagination (by writing it, drawing it or building it), this reinforces the imagined concept and helps it stick in your memory.

The phenomenon of boosting memory by producing something tangible has been well studied. Previous research has found that when people are asked to write, draw or act out a word that they’re reading, they have to focus more on what they’re doing with the received information. Transferring verbal information to a different form, such as a written format, also involves activating motor programs in the brain to create a specific sequence of hand motions, explains Yadurshana Sivashankar , a cognitive neuroscience graduate student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who studies movement and memory. But handwriting requires more of the brain’s motor programs than typing. “When you’re writing the word ‘the,’ the actual movements of the hand relate to the structures of the word to some extent,” says Sivashankar, who was not involved in the new study.

For example, participants in a 2021 study by Sivashankar memorized a list of action verbs more accurately if they performed the corresponding action than if they performed an unrelated action or none at all. “Drawing information and enacting information is helpful because you have to think about information and you have to produce something that’s meaningful,” she says. And by transforming the information, you pave and deepen these interconnections across the brain’s vast neural networks, making it “much easier to access that information.”

The Importance of Handwriting Lessons for Kids

Across many contexts, studies have shown that kids appear to learn better when they’re asked to produce letters or other visual items using their fingers and hands in a coordinated way—one that can’t be replicated by clicking a mouse or tapping buttons on a screen or keyboard. Vinci-Booher’s research has also found that the action of handwriting appears to engage different brain regions at different levels than other standard learning experiences, such as reading or observing. Her work has also shown that handwriting improves letter recognition in preschool children, and the effects of learning through writing “last longer than other learning experiences that might engage attention at a similar level,” Vinci-Booher says. Additionally, she thinks it’s possible that engaging the motor system is how children learn how to break “ mirror invariance ” (registering mirror images as identical) and begin to decipher things such as the difference between the lowercase b and p.

Vinci-Booher says the new study opens up bigger questions about the way we learn, such as how brain region connections change over time and when these connections are most important in learning. She and other experts say, however, that the new findings don’t mean technology is a disadvantage in the classroom. Laptops, smartphones and other such devices can be more efficient for writing essays or conducting research and can offer more equitable access to educational resources. Problems occur when people rely on technology too much , Sivashankar says. People are increasingly delegating thought processes to digital devices, an act called “ cognitive offloading ”—using smartphones to remember tasks, taking a photo instead of memorizing information or depending on a GPS to navigate. “It’s helpful, but we think the constant offloading means it’s less work for the brain,” Sivashankar says. “If we’re not actively using these areas, then they are going to deteriorate over time, whether it’s memory or motor skills.”

Van der Meer says some officials in Norway are inching toward implementing completely digital schools . She claims first grade teachers there have told her their incoming students barely know how to hold a pencil now—which suggests they weren’t coloring pictures or assembling puzzles in nursery school. Van der Meer says they’re missing out on opportunities that can help stimulate their growing brains.

“I think there’s a very strong case for engaging children in drawing and handwriting activities, especially in preschool and kindergarten when they’re first learning about letters,” Vinci-Booher says. “There’s something about engaging the fine motor system and production activities that really impacts learning.”

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Bio 4935 Research Perspectives gives undergrads scientific writing and communications experience

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Margaret Steele, postdoc in the Strassmann Queller Lab, grew up in Austin, Texas. She is a third generation PhD; her grandparents met in graduate school, and her mom has a PhD in geology. Growing up around scientists and spending time in her mom’s lab fostered an early interest in research. She completed her undergrad at Whittier College in Los Angeles, CA, followed by her PhD in Microbiology at University of Texas—Austin. Steele joined the Strassmann Queller Lab at WashU in 2020. Coincidentally, Joan Strassmann was a teaching assistant for Nancy Moran, Steele’s PhD advisor. Steele studied interbacterial antagonism in honeybee gut microbiota in the Moran Lab. Now she is interested in discovering mechanisms through which bacteria interact with Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae to evade predation and persistently infect amoebae.

Steele taught the class Bio 4935: Research Perspectives for a few semesters. The class has taken different forms over the years based on the instructor. In her version of the class, students learned how to write a scaled-down version of an NIH grant proposal. They wrote the background and significance of their project, designed a hypothesis and detailed aims, where they talked about the methods that they planned to use and the expected results they hoped to find. She had the students create a list of things that could go wrong with their proposed project and how they could salvage the results, all things one would put into a real grant proposal. Then they did peer review, evaluating one another's work, which worked out well for the mentees, because they could take their proposals and use them for honors theses.

“I was inspired by my own undergrads who I mentor at the bench. As they gain experience working in the lab, they learn about techniques, but miss out on other important skills for researchers like designing their own research projects and writing up their results. I wanted to give them an opportunity to fill in that gap. So the first semester that I taught Research Perspectives, I taught it as a grant writing class,” Steele explained.

The next two semesters she taught it as a thesis writing class, having students work on each section of their honors theses: background methods, introduction methods, results, and discussion. Students gained experience by practicing presentation of their own research to the class. Every student had two 10-minute presentations during the semester. They got a chance to do two rounds of peer review and revision.

Research Perspectives is always taught by someone from Strassmann Queller Lab. In previous semesters, the class was taught as a journal club where students read papers and discuss them in the class. Currently postdoc Tyler Larsen is teaching it.

""

Larsen is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He completed his undergraduate degree at University of Delaware, followed by a Masters in Microbiology at University of Washington, and a PhD in Evolutionary Biology in 2022 at WashU in the Strassmann Queller Lab. He’s a self-proclaimed animal fanatic with a love for snakes, insects, and nearly every other creature.

“I remember seeing Jurassic Park as a 6 year old and resolving that, whatever it took, I would be one of the scientists resurrecting dinosaurs. I eventually resigned to the idea that I’d have to leave that to later generations, but I’ve never wavered from wanting to work in biology,” Larsen said.

Larsen’s work in Strassmann Queller lab centers on the interactions between organisms (specifically the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum ), both within species and between species. He is particularly interested in how cooperation and conflict affect the way organisms evolve, and any system in which the traditional definitions of ‘organism’ become hazy. The microbe D. discoideum engages in complicated social behavior wherein tens of thousands of amoebae aggregate together to form multicellular structures. It interacts with various bacteria that live with it in the soil, some as prey, others as pathogens, and others as potentially beneficial partners.

Larsen’s teaching of Research Perspectives this semester is focused on science communication. Students spend time breaking down different parts of science papers and dissecting what makes them effective.

“Many of the things which make for engaging novels, TV shows, and movies have parallels that we can apply to scientific writing as well. We’ve put a lot of emphasis on how important structure is to communicating an idea – particularly in science when many of the ideas involved are complicated and involve lots of background context to understand. Later in the course we’ll be applying many of the same ideas to making effective figures, posters, and presentations,” Larsen explained.

Research Perspectives is taught most spring and fall semesters by different instructors from the Strassmann Queller Lab, offering students many opportunities to work on their writing and communication skills. Learn more about Strassmann Queller Lab/s research HERE .

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AI Writes Scientific Papers That Sound Great—but Aren’t Accurate

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F irst came the students, who wanted help with their homework and essays. Now, ChatGPT is luring scientists, who are under pressure to publish papers in reputable scientific journals.

AI is already disrupting the archaic world of scientific publishing. When Melissa Kacena, vice chair of orthopaedic surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, reviews articles submitted for publication in journals, she now knows to look out for ones that might have been written by the AI program. “I have a rule of thumb now that if I pull up 10 random references cited in the paper, and if more than one isn’t accurate, then I reject the paper,” she says.

But despite the pitfalls, there is also promise. Writing review articles, for example, is a task well suited to AI: it involves sifting through the existing research on a subject, analyzing the results, reaching a conclusion about the state of the science on the topic, and providing some new insight. ChatGPT can do all of those things well.

Kacena decided to see who is better at writing review articles: people or ChatGPT. For her study published in Current Osteoporosis Reports , she sorted nine students and the AI program into three groups and asked each group to write a review article on a different topic. For one group, she asked the students to write review articles on the topics; for another, she instructed ChatGPT to write articles on the same topics; and for the last group, she gave each of the students their own ChatGPT account and told them to work together with the AI program to write articles. That allowed her to compare articles written by people, by AI, and a combination of people and AI. She asked faculty member colleagues and the students to fact check each of the articles, and compared the three types of articles on measures like accuracy, ease of reading, and use of appropriate language.

Read More : To Make a Real Difference in Health Care, AI Will Need to Learn Like We Do

The results were eye-opening. The articles written by ChatGPT were easy to read and were even better written than the students'. But up to 70% of the cited references were inaccurate: they were either incoherently merged from several different studies or completely fictitious. The AI versions were also more likely to be plagiarized.

“ChatGPT was pretty convincing with some of the phony statements it made, to be honest,” says Kacena. “It used the proper syntax and integrated them with proper statements in a paragraph, so sometimes there were no warning bells. It was only because the faculty members had a good understanding of the data, or because the students fact checked everything, that they were detected.”

There were some advantages to the AI-generated articles. The algorithm was faster and more efficient in processing all the required data, and in general, ChatGPT used better grammar than the students. But it couldn't always read the room: AI tended to use more flowery language that wasn’t always appropriate for scientific journals (unless the students had told ChatGPT to write it from the perspective of a graduate-level science student.)

Read More : The 100 Most Influential People in AI

That reflects a truth about the use of AI: it's only as good as the information it receives. While ChatGPT isn’t quite ready to author scientific journal articles, with the proper programming and training, it could improve and become a useful tool for researchers. “Right now it’s not great by itself, but it can be made to work,” says Kacena. For example, if queried, the algorithm was good at recommending ways to summarize data in figures and graphical depictions. “The advice it gave on those were spot on, and exactly what I would have done,” she says.

The more feedback the students provided on ChatGPT's work, the better it learned—and that represents its greatest promise. In the study, some students found that when they worked together with ChatGPT to write the article, the program continued to improve and provide better results if they told it what things it was doing right, and what was less helpful. That means that addressing problems like questionable references and plagiarism could potentially be fixed. ChatGPT could be programmed, for example, to not merge references and to treat each scientific journal article as its own separate reference, and to limit copying consecutive words to avoid plagiarism.

With more input and some fixes, Kacena believes that AI could help researchers smooth out the writing process and even gain scientific insights. "I think ChatGPT is here to stay, and figuring out how to make it better, and how to use it in an ethical and conscientious and scientifically sound manner, is going to be really important,” she says.

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Scientists Discuss How to Study the Psychology of Collectives, Not Just Individuals

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Launched by the Association for Psychological Science in 2006,  Perspectives on Psychological Science  is a bimonthly journal publishing an eclectic mix of provocative reports and articles, including broad integrative reviews, overviews of research programs, meta-analyses, theoretical statements, and articles on topics such as the philosophy of science, opinion pieces about major issues in the field, autobiographical reflections of senior members of the field, and even occasional humorous essays and sketches.  Perspectives  contains both invited and submitted articles.

In an era of increasing radicalization and polarization, psychologists are looking beyond the individual mind to understand how groups think and behave. In a set of articles appearing in Perspectives on Psychological Science , an international array of scientists discusses how the study of neighborhoods, work units, activist groups, and other collectives can help us better understand and respond to societal changes.  

“Psychologists must go beyond the traditional focus on the individual mind,” David Garcia, Mirta Galesic, and Henrik Olsson of the Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Austria, write in an introduction to the article collection. “This is even more pressing given the pace of the digital transformation of our society, as new information and communication technologies reshape how we interact, create new networked e structures of humans and machines, and provide a digital breeding ground for new kinds of collective behavior.”  

The authors cover the topic from a number of angles, including collective memory, group intelligence, and crowd behavior. Among other factors, they highlight how: 

  • groups form and evolve 
  • collectives can amplify or dampen individual emotions, beliefs, and decisions  
  • individuals can misperceive the accuracy of their group’s knowledge  

The contributing authors also discuss the need to integrate their research with their peers in other disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, neuroscience, and sociology. Some of the authors propose new approaches and perspectives for studying collectives.  

Topics discussed in the collection of 19 articles include collective intelligence, emotions, knowledge, and performance. The list of articles is below: 

The Psychology of Collectives David Garcia, Mirta Galesic, and Henrik Olsson 

Group Formation and the Evolution of Human Social Organization Carsten K. W. De Dreu, Jörg Gross, and Angelo Romano 

Polarization and the Psychology of Collectives Simon A. Levin and Elke U. Weber 

Understanding Collective Intelligence: Investigating the Role of Memory, Attention, and Reasoning Processes Anita Williams Woolley and Pranav Gupta  

The Emerging Science of Interacting Minds Thalia Wheatley, Mark Thornton, Arjen Stolk, and Luke Chang 

Struggling With Change: The Fragile Resilience of Collectives Frank Schweitzer, Christian Zingg, and Giona Casiraghi 

Motivated Cognition in Cooperation Susann Fiedler, Hooman Habibnia, Alina Fahrenwaldt, and Rima-Maria Rahal 

The Spread of Beliefs in Partially Modularized Communities Robert Goldstone, Marina Dubova, Rachith Aiyappa, and Andy Edinger 

Individuals, Collectives, and Individuals in Collectives: The Ineliminable Role of Dependence Ulrike Hahn 

Communities Of Knowledge in Trouble Nathaniel Rabb, Mugur Geana, and Steven Sloman 

A Network Approach to Investigate the Dynamics of Individual and Collective Beliefs: Advances and Applications of the BENDING Model Madalina Vlasceanu, Ari M. Dyckovsky, and Alin Coman 

Maintaining Transient Diversity Is a General Principle for Improving Collective Problem Solving Paul E. Smaldino, Cody Moser, Alejandro Pérez Velilla, and Mikkel Werling 

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Crowds to Address Global Problems   Stephen B. Broomell and Clinton P. Davis-Stober 

Crowds Can Identify Misinformation at Scale Cameron Martel, Jennifer Allen, Gordon Pennycook, and David G. Rand 

What Makes Groups Emotional Amit Goldenberg 

New Forms of Collaboration Between the Social and Natural Sciences Could Become Necessary for Understanding Rapid Collective Transitions in Social Systems Stefan Thurner 

Toward Understanding of the Social Hysteresis:  Insights From Agent-Based Modeling Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron, Arkadiusz Jędrzejewski, and Barbara Kamińska 

Human Crowds as Social Networks: Collective Dynamics of Consensus and Polarization William H. Warren, J. Benjamin Falandays, Kei Yoshida, Trenton D. Wirth, and Brian A. Free  

A Cognitive Computational Approach to Social and Collective Decision-Making Alan N. Tump, Dominik Deffner, Timothy J. Pleskac, Pawel Romanczuk, and Ralf H. J. M. Kurvers 

Featured Research from Perspectives on Psychological Science

Eight hands hold puzzle pieces together

How Science Can Reward Cooperation, Not Just Individual Achievement

Two social scientists propose a different approach to scientific recognition and rewards: shifting the focus away from individual scientists and toward the larger groups in which scientists are embedded.

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Guilty as Charged: How We Contribute to Polarizing Content on Social Media

Podcast: Steven Rathje (New York University) and APS’s Özge G. Fischer-Baum explore the implications for societal change, in-group and out-group behavior, and emotional choices on internet usage. 

research article scientific writing

Artificial Intelligence Systems Excel at Imitation, but Not Innovation 

While children and adults alike can solve problems by finding novel uses for everyday objects, AI systems often lack the ability to view tools in a new way, researchers explain in this study.

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research article scientific writing

Student Notebook: Beginning Your Collaborative Writing Journey 

Nidhi Sinha explores the benefits of collaborative writing for graduate students: “The more people you involve in your research, the better experience, productivity, and research satisfaction you will receive in the long run.”

research article scientific writing

Sword From the Stone: Developing Leadership Across the Ages

Other than a handful of modern monarchs and heirs to proverbial corporate thrones, most leaders aren’t born, they’re developed. Researchers are just beginning to investigate how individuals of all ages learn to take the reins.

research article scientific writing

Religion and the Development of a More Contextually Responsive Discipline: The Case of Indonesian Psychology 

Growing interest in studying the transformative aspects of local religions and religiosity is not only important for the development of psychological science in Indonesia but also sociologically meaningful.

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What can super-healing species teach us about regeneration?

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When Albert E. Almada PhD ’13 embarks on a new project, he always considers two criteria instilled in him during his time as a graduate student in the Department of Biology at MIT.

“If you want to make a big discovery, you have to approach it from a unique perspective — a unique angle,” Almada says. “You also have to be willing to dive into the unknown and go to the leading edge of your field.”

This is not without its challenges — but with an innovative spirit, Almada says, one can find ways to apply technologies and approaches to a new area of research where a roadmap doesn’t yet exist.

Now an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), Almada studies the mechanics of how stem cells rebuild tissues after trauma and how stem cell principles are dysregulated and drive conditions like degenerative disease and aging, exploring these topics through an evolutionary lens. 

He’s also trying to solve a mystery that has intrigued scientists for centuries: Why can some vertebrate species like fish, salamanders, and lizards regenerate entire body parts, but mammals cannot?  Almada’s laboratory  at USC tackles these critical questions in the musculoskeletal system. 

Almada’s fascination with muscle development and regeneration can be traced back to growing up in southern California. Almada’s brother had a degenerative muscle disease called  Duchenne muscular dystrophy — and, while Almada grew stronger and stronger, his brother grew weaker and weaker. Last summer, Almada’s brother, unfortunately, lost his battle with his disorder at the age of 41. 

“Watching his disease progress in those early years is what inspired me to become a scientist,” Almada recalls. “Sometimes science can be personal.” 

Almada went to the University of California at Irvine for his undergraduate degree, majoring in biological sciences. During his summers, he participated in the  Undergraduate Research Program  (URP) at the  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the MIT Summer Research Program-Bio (now the Bernard S. and Sophie G. Gould MIT Summer Research Program in Biology, BSG-MSRP-Bio ), where he saw the passion, rigor, and drive that solidified his desire to pursue a PhD. 

Despite his interest in clinical applications, skeletal muscle, and regenerative biology, Almada was drawn to the Department of Biology at MIT , which is focused on basic fundamental research.

“I was willing to bet that it all came down to understanding basic cellular processes and things going wrong with the cell and how it interacts with its environment,” he says. “The MIT biology program really helped me define an identity for myself and gave me a template for how to tackle clinical problems from a molecular perspective.”

Almada’s PhD thesis work was based on a curious finding that  Phillip Sharp , Institute Professor emeritus, professor emeritus of biology, and intramural faculty at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, had made in 2007 — that transcription, the process of copying DNA into a messenger molecule called RNA, can occur in both directions at gene promoters. In one direction, it was long understood that fully formed mRNA is transcribed and can be used as a blueprint to make a protein. The transcription Sharp observed, in the opposite direction, results in a very short RNA that is not used as a gene product blueprint. 

Almada’s project dug into what those short RNA molecules are — their structure and sequence, and why they’re not produced the same way that coding messenger RNA is. In two papers published in  PNAS  and  Nature , Almada and colleagues discovered that a balance between splicing and transcription termination signals controls the length of an RNA. This finding has wider implications because toxic RNAs are produced and can build up in several degenerative diseases; being able to splice out or shorten RNAs to remove the harmful segments could be a potential therapeutic treatment.

“That experience convinced me that if I want to make big discoveries, I have to focus on basic science,” he says. “It also gave me the confidence that if I can succeed at MIT, I can succeed just about anywhere and in any field of biology.” 

At the time Almada was in graduate school, there was a lot of excitement about transcription factor reprogramming. Transcription factors are the proteins responsible for turning on essential genes that tell a cell what to be and how to behave; a subset of them can even theoretically turn one cell type into another. 

Almada began to wonder whether a specialized set of transcription factors instructs stem cells to rebuild tissues after trauma. After MIT, Almada moved on to a postdoctoral position in the lab of  Amy Wagers , a leader in muscle stem cell biology at Harvard University, to immerse himself in this problem.

In many tissues in our bodies, a population of stem cells typically exists in an inactive, non-dividing state called quiescence. Once activated, these stem cells interact with their environment, sense damage signals, and turn on programs of proliferation and differentiation, as well as self-renewal, which is critical to maintaining a pool of stem cells in the tissue.

One of the biggest mysteries in the field of regenerative biology is how stem cells transition from dormancy into that activated, highly regenerative state. The body’s ability to turn on stem cells, including those in the skeletal muscle system, declines as we age and is often dysregulated in degenerative diseases — diseases like the one Almada’s brother suffered from. 

In a study Almada published in Cell Reports  several years ago, he identified a family of transcription factors that work together to turn on a critical regenerative gene program within hours of muscle trauma. This program drives muscle stem cells out of quiescence and speeds up healing. 

“Now my lab is studying this regenerative program and its potential dysregulation in aging and degenerative muscle diseases using mouse and human models,” Almada says. “We’re also drawing parallels with super-healing species like salamanders and lizards.” 

Recently, Almada has been working on characterizing the molecular and functional properties of stem cells in lizards, attempting to understand how the genes and pathways differ from mammalian stem cells. Lizards can regenerate massive amounts of skeletal muscle from scratch — imagine if human muscle tissue could be regrown as seamlessly as a lizard’s tail can. He is also exploring whether the tail is unique, or if stem cells in other tissues in lizards can regenerate faster and better than the tail, by comparing analogous injuries in a mouse model. 

“This is a good example of approaching a problem from a new perspective: We believe we’re going to discover new biology in lizards that we can use to enhance skeletal muscle growth in vulnerable human populations, including those that suffer from deadly muscle disorders,” Almada says.

In just three years of starting his faculty position at USC, his work and approach have already received recognition in academia, with junior faculty awards from the Baxter Foundation and the Glenn Foundation/American Federation of Aging Research. He also received his  first RO1 award  from the National Institutes of Health with nearly $3 million in funding. Almada and his first graduate student, Alma Zuniga Munoz, were also awarded the  HHMI Gilliam Fellowship  last summer. Zuniga Munoz is  the first to be recognized  with this award at USC; fellowship recipients, student and advisor pairs, are selected with the goal of preparing students from underrepresented groups for leadership roles in science.

Almada himself is a second-generation Mexican American and has been involved in mentoring and training throughout his academic career. He was a graduate resident tutor for Spanish House at MIT and currently serves as the chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee in the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at USC; more than half of his lab members identify as members of the Hispanic community.

“The focus has to be on developing good scientists,” Almada says. “I learned from my past research mentors the importance of putting the needs of your students first and providing a supportive environment for everyone to excel, no matter where they start.” 

As a mentor and researcher, Almada knows that no question and no challenge is off limits — foundations he built in Cambridge, where his graduate studies focused on teaching him to think, not just do.

“Digging deep into the science is what MIT taught me,” he says. “I’m now taking all of my knowledge in molecular biology and applying it to translationally oriented questions that I hope will benefit human health and longevity.”

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  1. Writing a scientific article: A step-by-step guide for beginners

    Article 1. Background Every researcher has been face to face with a blank page at some stage of their career, wondering where to start and what to write first. Describing one's research work in a format that is comprehensible to others, and acceptable for publication is no easy task.

  2. Successful Scientific Writing and Publishing: A Step-by-Step Approach

    We include an overview of basic scientific writing principles, a detailed description of the sections of an original research article, and practical recommendations for selecting a journal and responding to peer review comments.

  3. Scientific Writing Made Easy: A Step‐by‐Step Guide to Undergraduate

    Clear scientific writing generally follows a specific format with key sections: an introduction to a particular topic, hypotheses to be tested, a description of methods, key results, and finally, a discussion that ties these results to our broader knowledge of the topic (Day and Gastel 2012 ).

  4. Structuring a scientific article

    Resources Structuring a scientific article AMA Citation Style APA Citation Style Scholarly Publishing How to Structure a Scientific Article Many scientific articles include the following elements: I. Abstract: The abstract should briefly summarize the contents of your article.

  5. HOW TO WRITE A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE

    Reviewers consider the following five criteria to be the most important in decisions about whether to accept manuscripts for publication: 1) the importance, timeliness, relevance, and prevalence of the problem addressed; 2) the quality of the writing style (i.e., that it is well‐written, clear, straightforward, easy to follow, and logical); 3) t...

  6. WRITING A SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ARTICLE

    1. An abstract, or summary, is published together with a research article, giving the reader a "preview" of what's to come. Such abstracts may also be published separately in bibliographical sources, such as Biologic al Abstracts.

  7. Scientific writing: A guide to publishing scientific research in the

    Introduction The publication of the findings of scientific research is important for two reasons. First, the progression of science depends on the publication of research findings in the peer-reviewed literature. Second, the publication of research is important for career development.

  8. How to write a first-class paper

    Correction 16 March 2018 How to write a first-class paper Six experts offer advice on producing a manuscript that will get published and pull in readers. By Virginia Gewin Find a new job...

  9. Writing Center

    Welcome to the PLOS Writing Center Your source for scientific writing & publishing essentials A collection of free, practical guides and hands-on resources for authors looking to improve their scientific publishing skillset. ARTICLE-WRITING ESSENTIALS Learn how to prepare each of the key components of a research article from start to finish.

  10. Writing a scientific article: A step-by-step guide for beginners

    Many young researchers find it extremely difficult to write scientific articles, and few receive specific training in the art of presenting their research work in written format. Yet, publication is often vital for career advancement, to obtain funding, to obtain academic qualifications, or for all these reasons.

  11. Essential elements for high-impact scientific writing

    Essential elements for high-impact scientific writing To write better, remember that your science is exciting, says Eric J. Buenz. By Eric J. Buenz Communicating your research through...

  12. Scientific Writing

    Scientific Writing Scientific Writing It is critical to understand the important elements of a scientific paper and how to most effectively describe research results in the context of your manuscript.

  13. Research papers 101: The do's and don'ts of scientific writing

    Scientific Research 1. Introduction Papers are a crucial part of research; if research does not produce published papers, it remains incomplete [1]. Proper writing is needed to get the results published. Furthermore, your work must be cited by others to be impactful [2].

  14. Writing Science: What Makes Scientific Writing Hard and How to Make It

    Here, I discuss why the act of scientific writing is difficult and suggest simple strategies for developing the skill of scientific writing. By understanding why we find writing difficult, we can begin to test different practices that might increase our writing output. ... That is generally the point of a research publication: to add new ...

  15. Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategy and Steps, 3rd Edition

    Writing Scientific Research Articles The new edition of the popular guide for novice and professional scientists alike, providing effective strategies and step-by-step advice for writing scientific papers for publication

  16. What is scientific writing?

    Depending on the specific scientific genre—a journal article, a scientific poster, or a research proposal, for example—some aspects of the writing may change, such as its purpose, audience, or organization. Many aspects of scientific writing, however, vary little across these writing genres.

  17. Basics of scientific and technical writing

    Scientific/technical writing is an essential part of research. The outcome of a research activity should be shared with others in the form of scientific paper publications; some ideas require a patent to reserve the implementation rights; and almost any research activity requires a funding source, for which a grant proposal is necessary.

  18. Scientific writing

    Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. [2]

  19. The essentials of effective scientific writing

    Getting research funded and published depends to a very large extent on our ability to get the point across. Although scientific texts differ substantially from other forms of writing, a good research paper follows the same basic principles of effective communication as a newspaper article or advertising text.

  20. The craft (and art) of scientific writing

    This Editorial will not cover clinical studies and will instead focus on writing laboratory-generated research. ... (and art) of scientific writing. Nat Cancer 4, 583-584 (2023). https: ...

  21. Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategies and Steps

    M. Cargill and P. O'Connor: Writing scientific research articles: strategy and steps (2nd edition) June 2010 · Aquaculture International. Malcolm Jobling.

  22. Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategy and Steps

    This book discusses how to deal with manuscript rejection, developing discipline-specific English skills, and more about Concordancing, a tool for developing your discipline specific English. Preface. Part 1: A Framework for success . 1 How the book is organised, and why. 1.1 Getting started with writing for international publication. 1.2 Publishing in the international literature. 1.3 Aims of ...

  23. Overview and Principles of Scientific Writing

    In this article we have discussed the basic overview and principles of scientific writing. Figures - available via license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0...

  24. Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

    The new research, by Audrey van der Meer and Ruud van der Weel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), builds on a foundational 2014 study.

  25. Bio 4935 Research Perspectives gives undergrads scientific writing and

    Larsen's teaching of Research Perspectives this semester is focused on science communication. Students spend time breaking down different parts of science papers and dissecting what makes them effective. "Many of the things which make for engaging novels, TV shows, and movies have parallels that we can apply to scientific writing as well.

  26. Here's What Happens When ChatGPT Writes a Scientific Article

    Writing review articles, for example, is a task well suited to AI: it involves sifting through the existing research on a subject, analyzing the results, reaching a conclusion about the state of ...

  27. Can Large Language Models Detect Misinformation in Scientific News

    Scientific facts are often spun in the popular press with the intent to influence public opinion and action, as was evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Automatic detection of misinformation in the scientific domain is challenging because of the distinct styles of writing in these two media types and is still in its nascence. Most research on the validity of scientific reporting treats this ...

  28. Scientists Discuss How to Study the Psychology of Collectives, Not Just

    Launched by the Association for Psychological Science in 2006, Perspectives on Psychological Science is a bimonthly journal publishing an eclectic mix of provocative reports and articles, including broad integrative reviews, overviews of research programs, meta-analyses, theoretical statements, and articles on topics such as the philosophy of science, opinion pieces about major issues in the ...

  29. What can super-healing species teach us about regeneration?

    Almada's PhD thesis work was based on a curious finding that Phillip Sharp, Institute Professor emeritus, professor emeritus of biology, and intramural faculty at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, had made in 2007 — that transcription, the process of copying DNA into a messenger molecule called RNA, can occur in both ...