by Jasmine Stovall, Consultant
This book is a self-help guide written for the PhD student who is ready to begin writing a scientific journal article, but maybe doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t know how to begin putting words on paper, is having trouble developing a story to communicate their findings clearly and effectively, or all the above. Although only about 100 pages in length, this short read is jam-packed full of valuable, easily digestible information that you will find yourself referring to each time you begin a new writing project in STEM fields.
If you are like me (and every other busy PhD student) and don’t have the time to devote to a 100-page read at this very moment, keep reading for the TL;DR version of the book. While I do still recommend reading the book in its entirety, I’m going to give you the highlights.
The book is organized into sections outlining the writing process with a top-down approach from determining the story you intend to tell to dealing with reviewer comments and everything in between. This makes it easily navigable for a reader who may prefer to skip around. Saramäki helps with abstract and title writing, emphasizes the importance of outlining, offers a detailed how-to for writing each section of the IMRAD framework, gives tips for writing and editing your first draft, and even offers information on how to write a cover letter.
The following is summary of the sections of the book:
- What is your story?
- Identify the key point and main take home message of your results. You should be able to convey this in two sentences maximum.
- Choose your supporting information keeping in mind that your choices should support the key point and/or emphasize the significance of your main result. Anything that doesn’t satisfy one or both of those criteria should be excluded.Write your abstract using the hourglass method.
- Write the title of the manuscript ensuring the selected title corresponds with the information presented in the abstract.
- Outline, outline, outline!
- Visualize the outline of your paper. This includes determining the order in which to present your results, selecting your figures and drafting their associated captions, and writing the main points of each section of the IMRAD framework.
- Once visualized, materialize your outline by drafting the paragraphs of your paper. Use your outline as a guide to turn sentences (or bullet points that describe the main idea of each paragraph and the supporting content) into full paragraphs ensuring that each paragraph discusses one main point at a time.
- Write, revise…then revise again.
- Fill in the gaps of your paragraphs from the previous steps to make for a complete first rough draft. Be mindful of your paragraph structure, making sure that the first sentence introduces the topic of the paragraph and that each sentence of the paragraph and each paragraph of the paper builds upon the next.
- Revise your rough draft from a content and structure perspective. Don’t get too into the nitty gritty mechanics quite yet. Make sure the focus is clear and consistent throughout and that the story you tell through your results and discussion answers the question you pose in the introduction.Perform sentence level revisions on the rough draft. Pay close attention to word choice, ensuring that your sentences are logical, meaningful, and necessary to move the reader through your argument or story. Employ science writing best practices such as putting the subject and verb close together, writing in active voice, avoiding run-on sentences, keeping your language simple, and avoiding turning verbs into nouns.
- Revise, rinse, repeat. Keep clarity, readability, and the overall quality of your story at the forefront of your mind. Pass your manuscript along to a second, third, even a fourth set of eyes for edits and comments. This could be your co-authors, PI, lab mates, or the GWC *hint hint* 🙂 Receiving feedback from people both inside and outside of your field of expertise allows you to assess whether enough background and context exists for any reader to not only understand but also appreciate your story.
- The moment of truth: Journal submission and reviewer comments
- First, congratulate yourself for making it to this point. You’ve come a long way!
- Write your cover letter.Submit your paper and wait for a decision. Exhale.
- When you receive your feedback, remember to breathe. If it helps to open it up with someone by your side, do that. If you feel emotional, walk away from it until you feel you can approach it with a fresh, calm mind. Work with your advisor and co-authors to determine what the editor wants and what edits need to be made to satisfy your reviewers. Then, you guessed it, revise. Write your rebuttal letter with confidence. Then, resubmit.
Overall, I found this book to be extremely helpful and well worth the read as a GWC consultant but even more so as it pertains to my own writing as a PhD student in STEM. This book especially resonated with me because writing is a necessary skill for all academic disciplines, STEM included. Yet somehow, within the STEM community, there is this unspoken truth that writing is rarely ever explicitly taught to graduate students. Rather, it is perceived by students as something we are supposed to enter grad school already knowing or just pick up along the way. As a result, we may feel inadequate as both a scientist and a writer if we fail to do so. Saramäki’s book addresses this problem head on. The system that he lays out is effective in that it, “forces you to focus on the right things at the right time, one thing at a time,” ultimately alleviating the feeling of overwhelm and the fear of the blank page. I find from personal experience and working with clients that this is often the most difficult part. If you’re interested in the full text, it is available for purchase on Amazon at a grad-student-budget-friendly price. I hope you have found the information here useful, and that after reading you feel more motivated and confident as a writer to tell your story; good science stories deserve to be heard!
Citation: Saramäki, Jari. (2018). How to write a scientific paper: An academic self-help guide for PhD students.