Things to consider before you write

Once you have the basic structure of your document you should find it much easier to start filling in the actual content. At the end of the previous article we mentioned that before you begin writing, it’s a good idea to speak to your supervisor and see what they think of the skeleton of your document. This tip is so important that it’s worth mentioning twice. Your supervisor has years of experience of writing papers, and besides yourself they’re also the person most familiar with your work, so make good use of their knowledge and instincts.

Step 1: know exactly what the requirements are

Before you begin writing anything, you want to be sure of the submission requirements for your paper or thesis, otherwise Future You will have to waste a lot of time re-formatting a manuscript. This is work that can be easily avoided, and you really don’t want to do it later when the deadline is upon you. So, before you begin, always download a copy of the submission requirements and style guide, and then read them carefully (if they offer a template, use it!). For your dissertation or thesis, you don’t want to write 200 pages (single-spaced) and later discover that you have to delete dozens of pages of hard work because you have to submit it double-spaced, for example.

Every journal has different requirements; British vs. American English spelling, Harvard vs. Vancouver style referencing (or some other variation thereof), page limits (or per-page publication charges), etc. Even if your manuscript will be copy-edited by the journal prior to publication, incorrectly-formatted or poorly written manuscripts will require heavier editing and thus can be delayed or even rejected outright. By familiarising yourself with the requirements before you start writing, and adhering to the journal’s rules, you give yourself the best possible chance to have your paper accepted.

Step 2: Identify the order of writing

The writing order I suggest for anyone starting their first journal article.

Where to begin? It can be tempting to believe that you have to, in the words of an old song, start at the very beginning. A very good place to start? Not necessarily. You may find this approach natural once you have written several papers and understand exactly what content to put in each section. If you’re very lucky, you’ll be co-author on several papers before you write one yourself so you can see how your colleagues approach the process. For your first paper, if you try to start with the introduction you may suffer with Writer’s Block, or end up writing too much text that ends up being irrelevant to the rest of the paper, and having to delete it all later. Many of your student peers face the same problems, so you’re not alone.

For a first paper, you may have a much easier time if you abandon the idea of writing each section sequentially and instead start with the easiest one. This is the order that I was taught to follow, and now advocate to anyone writing their first journal article, scientific report, or thesis/dissertation (particularly if you haven’t yet written a journal article):

1. Method

This is by far the easiest section to write because you are quite literally describing what you’ve been doing, and what equipment and techniques you used. Provided you keep good, detailed lab books (or notes in some other format), this section will practically write itself. This means that if you suffer from Writer’s Block, it’s the ideal section to get you over that initial, most difficult, hurdle of just getting something useful on the page. It will give you an early sense of accomplishment and help you get into the swing of writing in a scientific style, and by that point you’ll feel much happier about heading into the next section.

2. Results and discussion

Whether these are presented as two sections, or combined together, they should be relatively straightforward to complete. To some extent, your results should speak for themselves so you can describe them, draw the reader’s attention to the most interesting aspects, make comparisons to the results of other research teams, and discuss what your results mean for the field (i.e., discussing your work in its proper context). If there are any weaknesses in your study that need to be addressed in future work, these should also be pointed out. When you do, try to avoid the vague and woolly phrase “more research is needed” – unless you want to frustrate your reader, always be specific about exactly what “more research” is required.

3. Introduction

At the very start of your Ph.D., before you even begin doing any work, you will likely be asked to do a literature review. This can help to form the basis of any introduction you write, since the introduction should give the relevant background to the work you are doing. It should explain (briefly) what the current situation is regarding work in the field, and show that you are aware of the important papers and their contents. After you have written a couple of papers, you will probably just jump straight in here and start writing, since you’ll be much more comfortable with what should be in this section. However, for your first paper it’s more likely that you’ll overdo it and try to write too much, since you can expand the introduction in any direction – but unless you’re literally writing a review article you want to keep it as tightly focused and relevant to your work as possible. The easiest way to do this is to write the introduction after the method, results, and discussion sections so you know exactly what background you need to introduce to give the right context to your reader.

4. Conclusions

This should be a brief recap of your work, so make sure you summarise the most important key points for the reader:

• what you did;
• what you found; and
• what it means.

Some readers may only read this part of your paper, so all the most important parts need to be distilled.

5. Abstract

The abstract is a brief summary of every part of the paper, including the introduction and your key conclusions. If you haven’t written the rest of the paper yet and you start with the abstract, you will more than likely need to re-write it at the end. So, leave it until last to avoid doubling your work!

Even if you decide not to follow this suggested order of sections when you write your paper, don’t be afraid to write them in the order you find easiest or most logical. There is no rule that says you have to write each section in its proper sequence. Find the order that suits you best, and use that.

Step 3: Identify the voice you will use

In scientific writing, unlike in general literature, an author’s writing style can be broken down into two primary types: the active voice, and the passive voice. You will need to make a decision before you even start writing about which “voice” your manuscript should be written in. With the active voice, the subject of a sentence performs the action (e.g., we performed spectroscopic analysis), whereas in the passive voice the subject of the sentence is acted upon (e.g., a spectroscopic analysis was performed).

In most fields this is dictated by convention, so you can check recent key papers from your field to see what voice is typically used. However, many fields are seeing a shift in fashion at the moment from the historically popular (and dry) passive voice, to the more concise and straightforward active voice. The journal may also have specific guidelines about what they expect, so always check their website for guidance, and ask your thesis advisor if you’re really not sure. The same applies for a dissertation or thesis – check with your institution first and follow their rules. Even if you and your supervisor want to use the active voice, you may be required by the journal to use the passive voice. It’s much easier to make the decision early about which you will use and write the paper in that voice, rather than trying to change it later. Whichever voice you use, you will likely expected to use the past tense in the method section (since the experiment occurred in the past), while the other sections may be more variable.

Step 4: When you write, just write

Scientific writing is unlike any other kind of writing. In any other sphere, practice and training will help you to write cleanly with minimal editing required afterwards. Transitioning to a scientific arena can knock your confidence in your writing ability, since scientific writing is always an iterative process. No matter how experienced you are, or how many papers you have written, a manuscript can always be improved with careful revisions. I have never heard of anyone who can write a paper that is ready for submission after the first draft (at least, not a good one!).

One thing that all academics understand is that there is a paradox at the heart of good scientific writing. On one hand, you must be comprehensive and specific with your details – on the other, you must be concise. Holding this paradox in your mind helps a great deal when you come to edit your work, but not when you’re writing, because trying to write in this way is a guaranteed way to waste countless hours agonising over a single sentence in the effort to get it “just right”. You don’t want to spend five hours writing just one single paragraph, only to have to edit it later anyway.

So, arm yourself with this knowledge: whatever you’re writing, you are never going to get it “right first time”, and crucially – no one expects you to. Part of your thesis advisor’s job is to give you feedback and help you to refine your work. So, give yourself a starting point to work from by forgetting “perfect” and embracing the “good enough”. Every gem needs to be polished after it comes out of the ground, after all. Write first, then edit, get feedback, and edit some more. Repeat as required. Science is a marathon, not a sprint.

What this means is that you should keep your editing activities separate from your writing in order to make the best use of your time. You won’t always be in the mood to write. Some days, you won’t be able to face it at all and the words just won’t come. Sometimes, this can last for weeks on end, especially when writing a thesis. So, any time that you are in the mood to write, use that time only to get as much text onto the page as you can. Write as many pages as possible. Don’t stop to think about how it sounds or even if it makes sense – just keep writing until your writing mood is over. In this way, once your writing mood is over and you need something else to do, you will have plenty of editing to keep you busy.

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