There is one giant underused opportunity I see in a large majority of the papers I work with, which comes in the conclusion and final paragraph of the paper. To see what this mistake stems from, lets first look again at the overall outline of a paper based on the paper scope (discussed in more…
This is according to a new opinion piece published in PNAS, at least, but we already agree with them or we wouldn’t be here! The article I am referring to: Benjamin Freeling, Zoë A. Doubleday, and Sean D. Connell. Opinion: How can we boost the impact of publications? Try better writing. PNAS January 8, 2019 116 (2) 341-343 Click here for…
Writing is a touchy subject in academia. Basically, everyone should be writing, and no one is writing nearly enough. Ask anyone, from a graduate student to a full professor, how their writing is going, and you are likely going to see that deer-in-the-headlights panic. Its also about that time again…the end of the year when…
We’ve all been there – staring at the blinking cursor on our all-too-white Word document waiting for inspiration to strike. Blank-page syndrome in manuscript preparation can lead to enormous amounts of wasted time and word-vomited first drafts that require significant editing overhauls. Fortunately, the order in which you draft your manuscript can be one of…
The “so what” test can be a powerful tool for making your scientific writing concise and ensuring that it is interesting to your reader. Effective writing and editing in the sciences requires concise and convincing language. There are lots of tips out there for how to do this, ranging from the use of passive versus…